by Bonnie DeCaro-Monahan, Development Director
July 24, 2026
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In the last seven years, while we have been diligently working to identify a viable facility expansion project to address our long-term space limitations in our current facility, the number of people accessing resources has grown dramatically. As of December 2025, we are now serving 147% MORE people in our market than we were in 2019. The result has been severe limitations in how we are able to serve people, including waitlists for our Groceries to Go home delivery program, which serves some of our most vulnerable community members. As our economy becomes increasingly difficult for hundreds of thousands of people in King County, the need continues to grow and our resources become even more critical.
We are thrilled to share good news! After more than a decade and countless hours of work by many dedicated people, we have successfully secured all the property needed to accommodate our facility expansion. On June 25, 2026, we purchased the Auto Freight building from Issaquah History Museums. This building, attached to our current food bank building, will enable us to expand to Bush Street and nearly triple our space with a second story.
This milestone moment follows our first big step one year prior when we purchased our food bank building from the City of Issaquah on June 30, 2025. Thanks to our dedicated partners who helped us secure $1,000,000 in Local Community Project funding from the State of Washington in 2021, as well as a generous $1,000,000 grant from the Simperman-Corette Foundation, both the Auto Freight building and our current food bank building are now owned free and clear, allowing us to enter into our future capital campaign with no property debt. Thank you to Issaquah Mayor, Mark Mullet, for his support while serving as State Senator, Rep. Lisa Callan, and the late Rep. Bill Ramos (also former State Senator), who championed the State funding and helped keep it secure for five years.
Our future facility will relieve many current limitations to food access for thousands in our region, create a more sustainable avenue for growth, and provide more opportunities for individuals and organizations to engage in helping our community thrive.
We are so thankful to be able to share this exciting news with you and will continue to share milestones along our journey. Next steps will be a campaign planning study this summer, prior to launching our capital campaign in 2027. If you are interested in learning more, please contact Stephanie at
stephanie@issaquahfoodbank.org.