An hour before the Tualatin Food Pantry (TFP) opened at 4 p.m. on a recent Monday, people were already filling the lobby ready to shop.
“It’s first come-first served,” said Danielle Schneider, executive director of the TFP (formerly the Tualatin School House Food Pantry). “We hand out numbers to determine the order for people to shop, and a volunteer coordinator checks them in if they have been here before or visited another Oregon Food Bank (OFB) facility, or signs them up if this is their first visit.
“We are the fifth-largest food pantry in Clackamas and Washington counties combined and growing rapidly.”
The food pantry is set up like a grocery store, and after shoppers, who are limited to two visits per month at the TFP but can visit other Oregon Food Bank facilities, check in, they get a grocery cart and start shopping. Produce is the first stop, with Schneider noting that local farmers will drop off items such as tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, pears and more.
Shoppers can generally take as much produce as they want, but otherwise the most items they can take from each category are limited by the size of their family. In general, a small family of one or two can take one item; and a medium-sized family of three to five and a large family of six or more can take two items.
Bread is next, followed by canned food, which Schneider said is hard to come by, and then pasta.
Next is a snack area, followed by sauces, beans, rice and peanut butter; at the end of the aisle is a small baby area with a few baby items next to feminine hygiene products. At the end of another aisle is a big display of children’s books donated by volunteers for families to utilize.
Each shopper can pick up a half-gallon or full gallon of milk and three, four or five pounds of meat, depending on the size of their family. “It’s really challenging for us to secure donated meat,” Schneider said. Next to the meat are frozen vegetables along with treats like bagel bites and pasta bowls; each family no matter the size gets one-half dozen eggs; and there are bonus items like fruit cups.
There also is a “mini-mart” for the unhoused where they can pick up ready-to-eat food and a can opener if needed; and a “birthday cart” holds colorful sacks filled with cake mix, frosting, plates and napkins, all donated by the community, for kids having birthdays.
Grocery stores donate some food to the pantry that has not expired but is not up to their standards, or if a cooler breaks down, they will call for an immediate pick-up. “One year Target donated shredded cheese because a bank of their freezers went down,” Schneider said. “We had cheese for 2 ½ months. Their mechanical issue was our gain.”
TFP also benefits from stores’ over-purchases of seasonal items such as candy for Halloween.
“We do a lot with a very small paid staff because of all our volunteers who check shoppers in, restock the shelves, pick up food donations and much more,” Schneider said. “We have volunteer jobs for any age from 10 on up.”
The statistics on hunger in Oregon, and closer to home, Washington and Clackamas counties, are pretty startling. The state of Oregon currently has a 14.2 percent food insecurity rate, which is on par with the national average. According to the most recent statistics available, an estimated 40 percent are above the SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) threshold, while 60 percent are below the SNAP threshold of 200 percent, according to Mary Carman, OFB Food Assistance Network strategist.
One in six children experiences food insecurity in Oregon, and the most recent attempts to pass HB 3435, School Meals for All, and SB 611, Food for All Oregonians, did not pass out of committee for the second long legislative session in a row.
This lack of support leaves food banks scrambling. Between fiscal year 2023 and fiscal year 2024, the Oregon Food Bank saw a pantry visit increase of 31 percent across the entire state, according to Carman. “We are currently distributing the most food we have ever distributed in the history of the organization, but it is simply not enough to meet the growing need,” she said. “Food insecurity is the worst it has been in at least a decade, and with the anticipated cuts to SNAP and recently updated restrictions, as part of H.R. 1 (the recently passed “Big Beautiful Bill”), we know we will see an even larger increase of pantry visits.”
Carman pointed out that “there is an important distinction between a food bank (OFB) and a food pantry, in that a food bank is a regional distribution site and a food pantry is where a client can ‘shop’ for their food.”
The Oregon Food Bank is part of the Feeding America Network and has 21 regional food banks and OFB branches across the state. The Tualatin Food Pantry is located in Clackamas County, with an 11.4 percent food insecurity rate, while most of its clients live in Washington County, with an 11.7 percent food insecurity rate.
According to Schneider, in 2024, 11,200 households (duplicated) were served; 775,210 pounds of donated food were sorted and redistributed into the community; 41,714 people (duplicated) were served; and the food pantry was open a total of 664 hours for clients to access its services. TFP is open for shopping 13 hours over four days each week, which does not include its full operating hours for all the behind-the-scenes prep work.
The 5,600-square-foot food pantry has been located in the lower level of Rolling Hills Community Church on Borland Road since 2009. The food bank receives a “very generous rent rate from the church to operate out of their space,” Schneider said. “The deeply discounted rent rate makes it possible for us to have as much space as we do.” The 501(c)(3) organization is not affiliated with the church.
For more information on volunteering or services, visit www.tualatinfoodpantry.org or call 503-783-0721.
