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Beginning with the small spark of an idea by two men, Bud Pasmore and Doug Rae, the Walk and Knock Food Drive recently completed its 24th year and is Clark County's largest food drive.

Walk and Knock provides a significant portion of the food distributed by the nine-member Clark County Food Bank Coalition each year. Grocery bags are distributed throughout the county, and local residents are asked to fill those bags with food and leave them on their doorsteps the day of the food drive. Volunteers go door-to-door to collect the bags and deliver the food to one of ten-staging areas.

In its 24 year history, Walk and Knock has collected 5,695,018 lbs of food valued at just over $7.4 million. All of this accomplished by non-paid volunteers.

Keep in mind that this food drive happens only one day per year.

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Welcome to the Walk & Knock 2009 Food Drive

Saturday, December 5, 2009

For your convenience, a Walk & Knock grocery bag will be placed in the Columbian for you to fill with non-perishable goods. On Saturday, December 5, starting at 9 A.M., we will pick it up at your front door––or you can drop it off at any of our many locations!

For 24 years, the Inter-Service Walk and Knock Food Drive in Clark County, Washington has come to the aid of the community. Every year on the first Saturday in December, thousands of volunteers from all over the county go walking and knocking, collecting non-perishable foods. In 2008 the effort collected just over 141 tons of food and over $35,000 of which 100% will be used to purchase additional food. All volunteers are unpaid and all food stays in Clark County!

The Walk and Knock Food Drive encompasses the entire Clark County area. Volunteers come from local church groups, high school clubs, Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, Campfire, and several other organizations, as well as hundreds of other individuals who answer the call for help. Members from local non-profit organizations and other community leaders head up the various staging sites. Volunteers gather together Saturday morning and begin their routes at 9am. By 4pm the food laden trucks head to the Port of Vancouver where space in a warehouse is donated to store and sort the food. By the end of the following week, the food is distributed out to the food banks where it is needed.

Those who rely on the food banks often have to decide on which is more important, paying the light bill or the rent, or using that same money to put food in the mouths of their children. We may not be able to solve this problem entirely, but together we have an opportunity to let families put this decision off just a little bit longer.

WHO ARE WE AND HOW ARE WE FUNDED

The Inter-Service Walk and Knock Food Drive is a registered 501c (3) non-profit organization that serves Clark County by soliciting charitable donations of food, supplies and money, which in turn are given to the county food banks to be used for providing food to needy individuals within our community. The members of Walk and Knock include local Lions, Kiwanis, Rotary, Optimist, and Sertoma clubs, members of the Clark County Amateur Radio Club, and adult leaders of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts of America.

Its members fund Walk and Knock by donating an annual fee of $200 per organization. This pays for items such as insurance, postage and stationery, and other items as required by law. Most of the needed supplies and services are donated, and advertising is paid for by corporate and private sponsors.

No public funds are ever used for any thing other than for the purchase of food. Walk and Knock is 100% privately funded, a claim that very few charitable organizations can make.