Just a few months ago, that Thurston County Food Bank shopper—the one in the blue sweater putting a yellow box of pasta into her bag—may have been donating a box of macaroni and cheese.

That’s something Robert Coit, executive director of the food bank, expects to see more frequently if unemployment rates continue to rise in the southwestern Washington county.

“From 2007 to 2008, we had a 30 percent increase in traffic,” says Coit, who is a member of the Waterfront Kiwanis Club, Olympia, Washington. “Already (in April), we’ve experienced another 22 percent increase, and it’s going to get worse.”

Many former donors are now laid off. So people contribute less food and money. Adding to the food bank’s predicament is a change in the way grocery stores get rid of surplus foods. Instead of donating nearly expired items, they resell food to discount markets.

But the Thurston County Food Bank (TCFB) has a reliable, longtime partner to fill the gap. Since 1992, the Kiwanis Club of Olympia, Washington, has been growing and donating an average of 14,000 pounds of fresh, organic produce every year. This past April 4—Kiwanis One Day— the Kiwanians and an army of other volunteers spread fertilizer, tilled soil, hoed rows, erected bean poles, turned compost and planted potatoes in the club’s three-quarter-acre plot.