FERNDALE, WA (MyBellinghamNow.com) – After a series of jobs in different aspects of the food industry, 28-year-old Kaiti Lopez was looking for a new way to contribute to food security at the time that she made the jump into the operations manager role at the Ferndale Food Bank in mid-2024. Juggling a variety of tasks, Lopez makes sure to keep a level head while balancing the needs of their community as well as stretching their budget to its furthest dollar.
“There was this glaring problem: people don’t have access to food that they need or want,” Lopez said, recalling her time as a farm-based educator prior to the food bank position.
While receiving an Environmental Studies degree from Seattle University several years ago, Lopez found herself interested in the culture and community that came with sharing food and the systems in place from an environmental and social perspective. Making the jump from restaurant jobs to agriculture to non-profits that work within the food system, Lopez’s decision to work in a food bank seemed like the logical next step.
“The restaurant that I worked at [bought] from a lot of local farms and had buying relationships with farms in the area. So, that aspect brought me closer to food in a big way of seeing [that] the restaurant that I worked at had been in the area, has been open for 20 plus years,” Lopez said. “It was [a] vegetarian restaurant. So, a lot of people have [traditions]. ‘This is where we go for our Thanksgiving meal.'”
Food banks are a patchwork of government-subsidized non-profits that operate at various scales throughout the U.S. In Whatcom County, the local food banks keep things in house and work to meet the needs of the communities they serve.
The Ferndale Food Bank is one of a handful that serve the residents in the county, operating separately but in close cooperation with each other. According to the Ferndale Food Bank’s website, they serve over 7,000 people annually, which would equate to roughly 40% of Ferndale’s current estimated population. Lopez said the number of people they served over the last fiscal year (July 2024 to June 2025) jumped to over 8,100 people compared to the previous year.
According to Lopez, anyone that qualifies for The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) income limits is allowed to visit the Ferndale Food Bank weekly regardless of whether they live within the city limits the food bank resides.
Lopez said they regularly serve about 20% of the applicable population, with the number spiking an additional 20% in light of the recent government shutdown, which paused SNAP distribution throughout the country and put many without a paycheck earlier this year.
When asked about what it means to be serving a much higher number of shoppers and whether the food bank was keeping up with the demand, Lopez instead wanted to emphasize that the food bank is here for its community.
“We’re able [to] really put our emphasis into making sure that the things we’ve heard from shoppers [that] are the most important for them to get at the food bank [are available],” she said. “So, things like milk, [eggs] and protein, we are committed to having that available, which can really make a difference [to] somebody [if] they go home [with] eggs, milk and enough protein for their household for the week, that makes a big difference.”
Ferndale’s food bank has a budget of roughly $680,000 annually according to Lopez, which she and the rest of the team know how to stretch as far as possible. As more attention has turned to food banks in recent months, education about donations to the bank are different than historical models. Money takes priority over food donations as the operators of food banks can buy products wholesale or at reduced costs more easily than average consumers.
“A lot of people have ideas about what should go to a food bank, or an outdated model of the food that is at a food bank is whatever isn’t wanted elsewhere. I think it’s really important [to] me for people to know that they can come to the food bank and get food that is good for them, that they are happy to eat, that they’re happy to serve to their loved ones,” Lopez said.
Lopez’s days at the food bank start early and she works to handle several tasks throughout, depending on whether distribution is happening. Lopez manages the purchasing and fielding donations, as well as making sure the roughly 200 volunteers are aware what tasks need to be completed.
“I try to get here like 15 minutes before most of the volunteers do. I think the volunteers are always keeping track of when I’m arriving, though. So, if I start coming earlier, then they start coming earlier too,” she said. The workday is supposed to start at 8 a.m.
Lopez said that the food bank could not operate if there were no volunteers. Volunteering for some is a time commitment they’ve done for years, and Ferndale has at least 80 regular volunteers each week.
“Some people have been coming in for like seven plus years, 14 years, a really long time volunteering with the food bank.” -Kaiti Lopez
Distribution days are hectic as many moving parts pull Lopez to do different things, such as education and coordination of both volunteers as well as shoppers coming in and accepting donations.
“The food bank picks up [donations] from grocery stores every day of the week – like five different grocery rescue partners (we call it grocery rescue). So, throughout that, as people are coming in to shop here and get food, we also have food that’s coming in that volunteers are sorting through,” she said.
Because of the demands that come with making sure each day at the food bank goes smoothly, Lopez in her free time goes to yoga classes regularly and does pottery at a studio near her Sunnyland home in Bellingham.
Though the food bank is a free resource, Lopez wants to emphasize that a food bank is there for the people and not just as a last line of defense against hunger.
“I think that a lot of people think of a food bank as something like, you go there because you don’t have any food, which is true often, a lot of times,” she said. “We also want to be able to be here, to be an option for people to free up resources elsewhere in their life.”
For more information about the Ferndale Food Bank, head to their website at FerndaleFoodBank.org.
We are Whatcom is a weekly column featuring Whatcom County residents making a positive impact on the community. To submit a Whatcom County resident to be featured, click here.
