Gratitude to a Special Partner: Town & Country - Ballard
By Gypsy Walukones, Senior Communications Manager
We are so grateful to all our community partners and neighboring businesses for helping us bring food and hope to our neighbors!
Volunteers collect donations, rain or shine, from weekend shoppers at Town and Country
If you drive past Town & Country Ballard, you’ve likely seen their sign encouraging you to support the Ballard Food Bank – their default message when not promoting another community event. Town & Country stands out as a long-term supporter, consistently helping in many ways.
Town & Country Ballard is a key grocery recovery partner where we pick up food four days a week. In an average month, we collect 16,000 pounds through their generosity! Bread and baked goods along with fresh produce make up some of the largest categories. The items we’re able to bring in through grocery recovery help us have more variety to surprise and delight our food bank shoppers.
We’re also impressed by how quickly T&C shoppers fill up our donation bins in the store – all the way, every day – and the great response when the store hosts us for a food drive!
Beyond food donations, the store collects financial donations at the register from caring community members via their Giving Together program. as well as pitching in their own funds to help nourish neighbors and strengthen the community. When we reach out to ask if they’d like to host a food drive or participate in one of our fundraisers or events, they always give an enthusiastic yes.
The Town & Country team has also held their own creative fundraisers for the food bank, including a strawberry shortcake sale and auctioning off letters from their former sign during their rebrand a few years back.
Late last year, as the government shutdown and SNAP crisis hit our neighbors hard, the team at Town & Country reached out and asked to hop on the phone and talk through how they could help more. Their proactive generosity helped fill the gap for our community members and allowed us to serve delicious turkey feasts in the Kindness Café at a time when so many neighbors were worried they wouldn’t be able to afford a festive holiday meal.
Photo by Spencer N.
While it’s often easier for grocery chains to gear their fundraisers towards national and regional food assistance programs, Town & Country’s six markets work closely with local food banks like ours in the towns and neighborhoods they’re based in. Perhaps this commitment comes from their own history of neighbors helping neighbors and partnerships built on trust, ties that helped the founding Nakata family through significant difficulties including Alien Land Laws and the internment of Japanese Americans under President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066.
Recently, we’ve had lots of reminders that community is essential. We keep each other safe, meet each other’s needs in solidarity and reciprocity, and keep each other going through human connection.
It takes all of us – food bank staff and volunteers, supporting businesses, community partners, and YOU – to make our mission possible. We know there can be enough for everyone, and are grateful to Town & Country Ballard and all of our neighbors who help bring food and hope to everyone who needs it.