This club has a long tradition of service, taking many forms. A longstanding committee called “Helping Hands” organized volunteers for local events like the Chilly Hilly and Halloween Trick or Treating on Winslow. More recently, a newly formed group called “Community Partners in Action” (C-PIA) was launched, with the intent of engaging in hands-on work with other organizations.
Shortly after the 2025 Rotary Auction and Rummage Sale came to a close, a small group of Rotarians began a conversation with Helpline House about doing a food drive during the holiday season. Through the C-PIA group, we agreed on a plan to recruit volunteers to greet shoppers at Safeway and Town & Country Market and provide shopping lists of needed items, as well as explain and facilitate other ways to donate – cash, gift cards, credit card and Venmo.
As we approached the weekend of the Food Drive, November 14th to 16th, we were overtaken by new events. The need for food had grown dramatically because federal moneys to food banks were cut significantly, the government shut down, and SNAP benefits were not paid. We knew that the Community was willing to take a stand against hunger, and saw that we would need help from other organizations to man the tables at the markets. We reached out to Island Volunteer Caregivers (IVC) and the Bainbridge Senior Community Center and received emphatic volunteer help! Over the three days of the Food Drive, more than 60 volunteers took 2-hour shifts and were overwhelmed by the generosity of our community! Bainbridge Island took a position against hunger and spoke loudly: no one should go hungry at the holidays! We collected more than 8400 pounds of food and more than $16,000 in gift cards and monetary donations.
In fact, Helpline had not expected the volume of food we collected, so Friday night they had to call in some volunteers to come in on the weekend to accept the food. Safeway’s manager reported to Sylvia Pizzini, who organized the drive along with Rosie Hollinger, that the store had one of it’s highest sales days ever!
While this was happening, Helpline House met with Rotarians to discuss a short-term problem it was having with a lack of refrigeration capacity. Club members brainstormed with Helpline House representatives and came up with a proposed solution: leasing a standalone refrigerated unit. We then turned to the Bainbridge Island Rotary Club itself and its members and raised the $5000 needed to pay for the cost of leasing the refrigerated unit for the first two months.
We’d like to extend a special thank you to Safeway, Town & Country, IVC, and the Senior Center, without whose generous cooperation this would not have been possible, and the Helpline House volunteers who showed up and worked all weekend to store the food collected.
If you’re inspired by this community success and want to be part of future positive change, learn more about joining Rotary!