SEATTLE — Christmas dinner is special for most families; but sadly, for some people in Seattle, Christmas or any dinner isn’t a guarantee.
Today, shelters and organizations opened their doors to feed anyone who walks through. Operation Sack Lunch provided food for a lot of them.
O.S.L. planned to feed more than 7,000 people across Seattle. It’s a job C.E.O., Beverly Graham says is harder this year.
“There’s less funding and food costs more than it did a year ago or two years ago,” said Graham.
She also said that’s the struggle across the board for organizations that are helping people with housing and food insecurity.
“People that come to a meal program, this is their last line of defense for them.” Graham added, “There’s a lot of people falling through the cracks right now.”
A study from UW backs up what Graham is seeing. It showed about 30% of people in Washington can’t make ends meet. It also showed about half of those people spend more than 50% of their monthly earnings on housing.
It’s something Ian Jacobs lived through. He’s been without a home for the last six months. He also says his SNAP benefits aren’t enough to stretch for one month.
“I am almost dead out right now. If I didn’t have any other resources the virtual food stamp account that I’m living on would not last me long enough to feed myself. I would be going hungry one week out of every month,” said Jacobs.
O.S.L. provided food for several organizations. Some they normally bring food to, like Uplift Northwest and Compass Housing Alliance, and others who couldn’t come up with the food themselves. The Compass Housing Alliance’s Jeanette Rodney says this is her second Christmas working there. Their clients got a little more than food.
“They got gloves and jackets. the jackets are really nice, nice warm jackets; because a lot of them upstairs don’t have coats so they all got a Christmas gift. I could see the smiles on their faces,” said Rodney.
Jacobs says he wishes he could see this kind of empathy from everyone year-round.
“If anything, the holidays show us that we can do better if we band together and we hold together and we work together to solve the problem,” said Jacobs.
Graham said, “It’s important that all places have meals every day. people don’t eat just two days a year, that’s Thanksgiving and Christmas. People eat every day of the year.”
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