The Issaquah Food & Clothing Bank is committed to providing quality food, hygiene items, emergency supplies, and resource referrals to anyone in need in our service area. We have a special emphasis on healthy foods and work hard to get fresh, local produce into the homes of our customers.
If greater resources are needed to achieve stability, contact our client services team to help navigate the complex maze of available resources.
From the beginning, it’s been about people helping people.
In 1971, our founder Bob Gray answered a phone call. And that phone call was a request to help provide food resources in rural east King County. He answered the call with a "yes" because he saw the need and he rallied his Pine Lake United Presbyterian Church members and other local churches to join the effort. Bob believed that "if people were hungry, they needed food and they shouldn't have to beg for it." It was a time when a group of compassionate seniors from the Issaquah Valley Senior Center saw that other seniors at the center needed food, so they simply began buying it. Initially, it was a grassroots effort where neighbors were helping neighbors out of a garage and then a portable shipping container. With Bob's vision and leadership, our local food bank, clothing bank, and financial assistance program was born. We give Bob Gray credit for being a part of laying the foundation for the kind, generous and well-connected community we have today.
In 1982, this grassroots support service effort initiated by Bob and a bunch of volunteers received it's nonprofit 501(c)3 status and became Issaquah Valley Community Services. The local Kiwanis Club served a significant role in gathering all the right people in an effort to create a more formal, walk-in food bank. Issaquah Valley Community Services was created to more efficiently distribute more food and to combine other local efforts into one core hub in the community.
A program to provide needed food was organized and was so successful that it quickly outgrew the portable trailers it was operating out of. With the City's help, the food bank moved into the old school administration building at 1st Avenue and SE Bush Street. In 1986, a Clothing Bank was added out of a trailer not far from our current location. Seeing the need to bring both banks together, the city bought the former Backamus Trucking repair shop and in 1992, Issaquah Valley Community Services moved into the renovated site where we are currently located.
Today the Issaquah Food & Clothing Bank provides support to hundreds of families each week. We now provide case management services, youth feeding programs, Groceries to Go food delivery program, holiday gift programs, school supplies, toiletries and more to local families in need of a helping hand.
Learn more about our Founder, Bob Gray.
A connected, supportive community where everyone has an opportunity to thrive.
Unite our community in nourishing and nurturing individuals by removing barriers to healthy food, vital resources, and connections to essential services.