The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) is world famous for its efforts in combating hunger and on Thursday a 53-foot long tractor-trailer rolled into Ocean Shores with 24 pallets of food bound for the North Beach Food Alliance of Ocean Shores, which is a division of the North Beach Senior Center.

Twenty-two volunteers, including members of the LDS Church, the Aberdeen Salvation Army Food Bank and the Aberdeen Lions Club, unloaded the truck.

North Beach Senior Center Executive Director Jeff Moyer said partnerships like this one with the LDS Church that began in 2022 are paramount to continuing efforts to help those in need.

“Donations across the board for everybody are down. This will be our fourth truck. It is called a commodities truck, we take that and distribute it out to food banks and various other agencies that will redistribute it to people that need it,” Moyer said. “They have a warehouse in Salt Lake City that’s a million square feet. They distribute throughout the country. It’s extremely important. We bring in and redistribute.”

An official statement from the Elma Stake Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints read, “Today, May 1, 2025, the North Beach Senior Center is receiving a truckload of shelf stable food commodities from Salt Lake City, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The North Beach Senior Center does a wonderful job of sharing the food commodities with many local food banks and organizations in need. We are so thankful to be a part of this great work and that today we get to see the results of the efforts of many to help those in need in the Grays Harbor area.”

Senior missionary Barry Klein of Aberdeen, who delivered the statement from the LDS Church, said helping alleviate food insecurity is an important element of the church’s works.

“They love helping everywhere, it’s amazing what they do, I’m really in awe of what the church does,” Klein said.

LDS Church member and longtime truck driver Casey Riley made the trip from Salt Lake City to Ocean Shores.

“I’m mostly just a truck driver. I’ve been driving for 27 years and they said ‘why don’t you come drive for us?’ We haul stuff all over the country and bring it to where people need it,” Riley said. “It is a core mission, that’s what we’re all about is helping people out, and helping the needy whenever we can. We donate to different food banks all over the country.”

According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 13.5% (18.0 million) of U.S. households were food insecure at some time during 2023, including 17.9%(6.5 million) of households with children.

The Washington State Department of Agriculture stated, “Washington state food banks and pantries, received a total of $14.2 million in state and federal funding from Emergency Food Assistance Program in state fiscal year 2024 to help provide 230 million pounds of food to 2.2 million Washingtonians struggling to put food on the table, amounting to 13.4 million visits.”

Unfortunately, a KFF Health News article recently reported, “In March, the U.S. Department of Agriculture cut $500 million from the Emergency Food Assistance Program, which buys food from domestic producers and sends it to pantries nationwide. The program has supplied more than 20% of the distributions by Feeding America, a nonprofit that serves a network of over 200 food banks and 60,000 meal programs.”

Moyer added that although North Beach Food Alliance has some different sources and does not rely heavily on federal funding, there are still challenges in getting food to those who need it.

“We are fortunate we don’t belong to any of the government programs. Our food sources are different, ours haven’t been as affected as much. Last month they have been, even our take is down,” Moyer said. “This truck will help us enhance our giving out to everybody. Our food bank in Ocean Shores, their guest count is about 250 a week, so that’s quite a bit. We do senior meal bags, we have 100 we deliver to houses in town. We do the Christmas, spring break and summer meal programs. We box up and deliver to the kids’ homes. Last year we had 3,500 kids over the 11-week period (for the summer meal program). Our food bank here, we’re probably 25-35% of their food they redistribute.”

Moyer encourages people who want to help to volunteer or make cash donations at their local food bank.

In addition to the LDS Church, the North Beach Senior center’s partner network includes the Save the Children Foundation, Food Lifeline, the Seabrook Community Foundation, the Thurston County Food Bank, We Do Better Relief, the Olympic Area Agency on Aging and many more.