Alice Wallace: A legacy of compassion

SANDPOINT — In 1997, Alice Wallace was asked to oversee a month-long transition at the Bonner Community Food Bank. It’s now 216 months later, and she is still at the helm. As she navigates her way toward retirement, Wallace leaves a legacy of compassion within the organization.

Her mother, Florence Carter, was a no-nonsense New Englander who led the charge to start a food bank in 1980. To say Wallace picked up the mantle would be an understatement. A more precise description would be to say, by the time she retires two years from now, she will have steered the organization through two decades of rapid growth where physical space has doubled to keep pace with an ever-increasing number of families and individuals who need food assistance.

Not content to simply dole out government staples, Wallace and her staff have created a dignified place, where people can shop for their food in a market setting, obtain legal services when they need them and utilize programs such as Coats for Kids and food for the weekend for children who are home alone — both administered by the Bonner Community Food Bank.

A common picture of what a food bank looks like is a place where they hand out boxes of government commodities — this feels more like a grocery store.

Well, we had it described one day that coming in the front door looks like a doctor’s office and when you open the door to the market, it’s Alice in Wonderland. It is a nice set-up and we appreciate the fact that we’ve been able to do this.

At one point, Bonner Community Food Bank did hand pre-assembled boxes of food out the door. When did this ‘market’ layout first take place?

It’s a concept I’ve had for a long time, but just didn’t feel we had room at our other food bank to do it. This building was built perfectly for it.

It started when a man came in to get his food box and he said, ‘Please don’t put any pasta in my box; I’ve got so much of it at home.’

That led to us having a list, where people could check what they wanted us to give them. From there, it went into the idea that, ‘We could have a small grocery store here.’ Put the food on the shelves and people could pick out what they wanted using the points we give them, which is their money, so to speak.

What was the initial response to the grocery store concept?

Ladies love it and children love it, because John, our foreman, makes up a goodie bag whenever a child comes in. I’m not saying that men are slower to accept change, but the only problem we had was with some of the older men. They didn’t want to have to go back there and figure out points, pick something off the shelves and put it in a basket for themselves. They really just wanted someone to hand them out a box of food.

What kind of selection would a person be likely to see here?

It’s a wide variety of good things. We have six or eight different kinds of bread to choose from. When you go back there, you’re going to spend 4 points on a loaf of bread, which is roughly the equivalent of $1.00-$1.25. Hamburger buns are either free, depending on how many we have, or 1 point per package.

We have a variety of different kinds of beans — chili is our most-wanted and we go through many, many cases of chili. We have tuna fish and lots of different canned meats. Spaghetti. Macaroni and cheese. Lots of different juices. We have three or four different kinds of soup and we have cooking supplies on the shelf.

Then we have the freezers. This summer, we got in 1,500 pounds of ice cream at different times.

And we also have the government food, which, under the old program was called the commodities. That doesn’t cost any points and they can get that once a month.

Are there donations that are hard to give away?

One time, we got in 2,300 pounds of licorice — a pallet of licorice. That was a little tough to get rid of. People got licoriced out! (laughs)

Are there surprise donations that prove more popular?

This next month, we’re going to be getting fish, because Fish & Game is netting fish off the lake again and that brings us a lot of trout and white fish.

What things are hardest to come by?

Meat’s our hardest thing to get, because it’s so expensive I can’t buy it. We just had three pigs donated to us, cut and wrapped, from the fair, which is a big plus.

Where does most of the food come from?

I can’t complain about any grocery store in this town, because they all give to us. We have three grocery stores that work with Feed America out of Chicago. They have come to the conclusion that everything they’re going to discard is going to go to the food bank that’s closest to that store. The stores that are on that program are Wal-mart, Yoke’s and Safeway.

It’s called the Food Rescue program and we get a lot of food out of that, because it’s everything they’re going to get rid of — canned goods, fresh meat, salads. We’ve gotten over 40,000 pounds of fresh produce in this year from different stores.

We also get food from Winter Ridge and Super 1 Foods is another big donor.

Then there’s the food we get from Second Harvest. One of the loads they brought us up this year was 20-something thousand pounds of fresh produce.

Are individual donations part of this story?

Our community is fantastic. They really keep the food bank in mind. And it’s not just stuff they cleaned out of the pantry – they go grocery shopping for us. We have a number of churches that have a monthly donation that goes directly to the food bank. That lets us keep things like diapers and formula on the shelf for babies.

Who is your clientele?

A lot of people think it’s just people who don’t want to work and are trying to live off the system. I work real hard to make sure that’s not what’s going on.

Our clientele is made up of workforce families; it’s made up of seniors on a fixed income. Seniors are having a hard time these days, and it’s real hard for them to come in and ask for help. We have many veterans who come in and many disabled individuals.

We donate to all the soup kitchens in town, the teen center comes in regularly to get food for their kids and we help the senior center out with a lot of stuff.

Why is it hard for seniors to come in? Do some of them feel a stigma is attached to asking for help in this way?

Yes. It’s hard for them, emotionally. When we do a lot of the intake interviews, we learn that they’ve been living for some time on a very meager amount of food before they can finally get their head around coming in.

They’ve worked hard all of their lives, tended to a lot of community things and now it’s hard when they need to ask for help.

There’s a perception that a food bank is government-run and that it’s someone’s right to get food from it.

And I’ve been told that many times: ‘You have to feed me.’

That’s not the case here?

This food bank is privately owned by the sitting board at the time. They own it as a corporation and they make all the policy and all the rules on how I run the food bank. That said, the only other guidelines I have to follow are on the U.S.D.A food. I cannot turn anyone down for that. Anyone can come in and get U.S.D.A. food every 30 days.

    We do follow state guidelines for things like income, but we don’t have anyone standing over our heads saying, ‘You’re 50 cents over on your income, so I can’t feed you.’ They’re guidelines, but they’re not in cement.

Where does employment fit in all of this?

We encourage people to find work and as a rule, I would say the majority of our clients want to work. But they’re not always employable, no matter how hard they want to get a job.

A lot of people, this last decade, have grown up, but haven’t been raised. They don’t know about cleanliness, their dress, personal care at all. So it’s hard for them to get jobs. Even though there’s a lot of work out there — and I believe there is — there still are people who are not employable. So, what are you going to do? You’re going to help them.

You’ve built an organization that’s now involved with a lot more than just food. What other programs are you running?

We have our Coats for Kids program and the clientele we have are really people who need that help, whether they be kids or adults. We have legal services that come here when we have clients who sign up.

There’s the backpack program, which is food for the weekend for children who might be home alone over the weekend. They sign up for that through the schools. We’ve done 165 lunches for 2-3 years now and this year, we’ve upped it to 365.

The Food For Our Children program, which was started by Dennis Pence and a group of people, has been helping us financially.

The holidays aren’t too far off — any special programs during that time of year?

Some had asked us if they could get help for Christmas, so we came up with a Match the Families program. The family name isn’t given out, but they fill out the children, mom and dad, and they put down their ages, sizes and everything, along with a couple of things they would like, or things they need. Then we match it up with families here in the community.

The other thing is Thanksgiving, which we’ve done for years. That’s 900 turkeys we give out between here and Priest River. I always say to people, ‘If you think putting together one Thanksgiving dinner is tough, try 900!’ (laughs)

What does that dinner look like?

Of course, they always get a turkey. Stuffing, potatoes, yams, cranberries, vegetables, fruit, Jell-o and we’re trying to think of some extra little thing we can put in there. Lots of times, we’ll get a palette of something we weren’t expecting. For the last two years, the U.S.D.A had frozen blueberries, so that was nice. This year, we have frozen cherries.

The history of the food bank is also your family history. Can you give us the roots of how this all came together?

My mom was always involved in something. But when she came here in 1957, she hated Sandpoint. She cried for the first year she lived here because her family was in the East and my dad brought us out here away from everyone.     With us kids in school, she got involved in some non-profits and with the ministerial association, which evolved into a conversation about homeless people and hungry people who needed help.

The food bank started at Sandpoint Community Hall. The food was stored across the street in the basement of the courthouse. They’d talk to people, then run across the street to get a box of food and bring it back over. Then it got big enough to where my mom said, ‘We need to get a building.’     At first, they leased the old V.F.W. Hall and then they bought the building on Fifth Avenue and they were there about 22 years.

When were you pulled into the family trade?

(Laughs) I was asked to be on the board in 1996, and I was on it for about a year. There was reorganization in 1997, when they asked me if I would come in for a month until they got things organized. That was 18 years ago.

When did you move to this building and how much bigger is it than the Fifth Avenue space?

This building is twice as big, though it feels a lot bigger than that. We moved here in 2011 — 11/11/11 was the date.

What do you bring to this position that makes it a good fit?

I think I’m a lot like my mother, in that I have a heart to help people. You have to have a heart to work in this kind of thing. I like to help people and make their lives easier.

So now we reach the point where you’re drawing up a succession plan?

I am! For the last, eight or nine years, I’ve been saying, ‘I’m going to retire next year, next year ….’

I am planning on leaving in two years. I have just hired Debbie Love as my assistant and, hopefully, my replacement. That’s what we have planned. I’m already having withdrawal anxiety, because I know I’m going to miss it — a lot. But Debbie has the heart for this.

Have you ever had to chew anyone out?

Oh, sure. We had a guy come in about a week ago and try to steal some of the food. It was like, ‘Why would you do that?’ He took a ham and hid it in the bottom of a bag and piled potatoes on it to hide it. I told him, ‘You don’t have to steal anything in here — I’m giving it to you free!’

He went out of here madder than a wet hen. Then he came in a week or so later apologizing.

What’s the first thing you plan to do after you retire?

Take a trip. I was told by an acquaintance that the first thing you want to do is to have it all planned out that the first Monday morning that you would’ve normally gone to work, you go off on a trip. So I’ll be going back to Maine. I’d like to drive and take our time.