Bellingham Food Bank needs community support now more than ever.

Our editorial board was able to visit the Food Bank earlier this month to see its temporary operation on State Street.

The Food Bank is using the old bottling plant in the 1500 block of State Street as a temporary distribution center while its new building is under construction on the old site on Ellis Street near Bellingham High School.

Our visit led us to the conclusion that this spring is vitally important to the future of this important community institution.

The food bank needs help in two ways, both important to the mission.

FOOD NEEDED

If you or your organization has ever thought about helping feed the hungry in our community, now is the time.

Director Mike Cohen shared figures with us that show a marked increase in the number of visits to the Bellingham Food Bank this year — up more than 25 percent. The Food Bank counts the number of visits per month not just of people who show up at the door, but of the mouths those people have to feed. Thus if one person is getting food for himself or herself and two children, that counts as three visits each time the person gets food.

Using that standard, the Food Bank had about 7,600 visits in March of this year, up from 6,300 in March 2007. There were 7,400 visits in February and 7,750 visits in January, up from 5,500 and 6,085 in the same months last year.

This year’s figures are the highest ever, Cohen said. He said all kinds of people need help: those who used the food bank maybe once a month previously are now coming in more often, and a lot of people who never came to the food bank before are showing up in desperate need.

“Most people know about the food bank, but they never thought they would have to come here,” Cohen told us. “People come in and say, ‘I don’t have any food.’ They wait until they are desperate.”

We urge citizens and businesses to help meet the increased need.

Organize a food drive at your work, school, apartment building, neighborhood, church or social organization.

If you want to meet a more specific need, the food bank is looking for 12 community groups to adopt one month a year in which they would raise money to buy 2,000 jars of baby food. Cohen hopes creating a “baby food sponsor” system will help end the trouble the food bank has in getting enough baby food to meet the needs of hungry infants and children.

You can also bring down fresh fruits and vegetables from your own garden.

And you can bring cash. The food bank turns that money into eggs and milk and other items it must purchase to guarantee people have basic food to eat.

Donations can be dropped by the food bank offices from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday through Friday. There are several other smaller food banks in the county as well that offer food and always need assistance in raising food and money.

MONEY NEEDED, TOO

The Bellingham Food Bank also needs the community to get involved in helping finish the construction of its new home.

The new food bank building, about 10,000 square feet, will replace the dilapidated masonry building that was a danger to workers, volunteers and the hungry. It is already under construction on Ellis Street.

But Cohen said the food bank needs about $300,000 more from the community to help finish the building and is launching a public campaign to raise those funds.

Most of the money needed to complete the roughly $2 million project is already in hand. The food bank received many inkind donations from architects, engineers and construction companies. It also received a $400,000 state grant, $300,000 from the city of Bellingham, $300,000 from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and $50,000 from the Medina Foundation.

Haggen Inc. recently gave $75,000 to kick off the local phase of fundraising.

We urge residents who can help with this project to do so. Cohen said he is aware that it’s hard to ask citizens for food and money for operations and also ask for money for the building, but he said both are needed.

“We do a capital campaign maybe once in a generation,” Cohen told us. “We are asking people to dig deeper.”

After the new food bank building is completed, hungry Bellingham residents will benefit in a safer, easier-to-use environment, while the food bank will find it easier to store and sort food and distribute food to other smaller food banks in the county.

We believe strongly in the mission of the food bank and hope that any citizen who can will help out with the effort to feed the hungry in our community.