The Freedom From Hunger community food drive brought roughly 3,100 pounds of food and $600 to the Kenai Peninsula Food Bank, organizers said Friday.
The drive called for community members to help replenish the food bank’s stockpile of food ahead of the winter months, also to “do something extraordinary for the community,” said Tami Larson, who headed the drive alongside an organizing committee and a team of volunteers.
The drive benefited from partnerships with local grocery stores, as donation boxes were placed at Walmart, Safeway, IGA, Fred Meyer, Three Bears and Save U More. At the food bank on Friday, an array of carts piled with cans and boxes of food could be seen.
The response shows that the community is filled with “big hearts,” Larson said.
“Alaskans are all about jumping in and helping people,” she said. “This embodies it.”
Larson said Friday she wasn’t even sure how many people had helped make the drive a success. There was a committee organizing the drive, but then volunteers also worked to encourage people to donate. Collection boxes were manned on Saturday to get the word out, and Larson said a local church youth group canvassed their neighborhood to drum up a full box of food.
All of the food brought in by the drive will be sorted into the food bank’s warehouse, Executive Director Johna Beech said, where it will go on to be distributed to people in need or used in the food bank’s kitchen.
“All of this food will get pushed out into the community,” she said. Building up the supply of food is important this year especially as challenges with federal funding mean “a potentially lean season.”
Larson said she hopes the drive is able to return in future years, marking Hunger Action Month in September and becoming something people expect as summer winds to a close.
The need never stops, Beech said, and the food bank will remain busy through the winter months for more food drives and events like the “It’s Scary to Be Hungry” drive-thru at the food bank on Halloween, drives at Kenai Aviation’s pumpkin drop and Tsalteshi Trails’ Spooktacular, and the annual Adopt-A-Turkey, among others.
For more information about the Kenai Peninsula Food Bank, find “Kenai Peninsula Food Bank” on Facebook or visit kpfoodbank.org.
Reach reporter Jake Dye at jacob.dye@peninsulaclarion.com.
Organizers stand alongside carts filled with food collected during the Freedom from Hunger community food drive at the Kenai Peninsula Food Bank near Soldotna, Alaska, on Friday, Sept. 19, 2025. (Jake Dye/Peninsula Clarion)
