VFW donates $3,000 to school food banks

The Tillamook chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars recently raised $1,500, which has been matched by an equal donation from the group’s national office to Tillamook School District’s food pantry program.

Several of the group’s members gathered at Tillamook Junior High School on April 5, to give a check for half of the funds to Tillamook School District Family Resource Coordinator Carol Abrogoua.

“The bottom line is for kids to eat better, to eat healthy and to learn how to make this stuff,” said Paul Ferris, a member of Tillamook’s Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) who helped spearhead the initiative.

Ferris discovered the program through the national VFW that would match donations of up to $1,500 to a local foodbank earlier this year and brought it to the membership of the Tillamook post.

Post Commander Donovan Goff said that he had been unaware of the program before but that he was immediately receptive to Ferris’s pitch. “We think it’s a great opportunity that we’ve just been missing out on for the decade plus that I’ve been here,” Goff said.

After receiving approval from the post’s membership, Ferris began raising money, focusing his efforts primarily among fellow veterans who had served during the Vietnam conflict. Ferris was able to raise the full amount quickly and along with several other members of the VFW post has been volunteering at the food pantries.

Abrogoua operates the store-style pantries twice a week, on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 3 to 4 p.m. On Tuesdays the pantry at Tillamook High School is open, while on Thursdays the pantry at Tillamook Junior High School welcomes students and parents. Abrogoua said that she will also open the pantries as needed for students facing emergencies and that both pantries are staffed by bilingual volunteers.

The pantries receive shelf-stable items from the Oregon Food Bank and purchase perishable goods from local farms. The VFW’s donations will be used for those items.

The veterans said that they plan to continue volunteering with the food bank and will take advantage of the matching funds again in future years and mentioned the possibility of conducting a food drive in support of the pantries.