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Oli Sivula serves as a Harvest Vista at the Community Action Center (CAC) in Pullman, Washington. The Community Food department at the CAC works with the Palouse community to build food access and food security through gardening programs, a food bank, cooking classes, and other events which build community self-resilience. Community Food works in partnership with the case management offered on-site, as well as with partner organizations throughout the region to ensure they are addressing their clients needs.

The process of providing food assistance in a highly agriculturally-productive area can be difficult in a plethora of ways. To see fresh produce being grown across the street from where the CAC provides commodity foods to our clients is an experience that invokes a great deal of drive. The COVID-19 pandemic has swept through our food system in a way that many thought inconceivable. Yet, regardless of how prepared we were or were not as a food system, it is our shared responsibility to move forward together.

The Palouse region of eastern Washington and northern Idaho grows lentils and wheat of international demand, and is also home to countless small farms who work with local restaurants and farmers markets. In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, many avenues for distribution and income have disappeared or have been severely constricted. From grower, to restauranteur, to food service workers, the CAC has seen massive changes in the community’s needs. The CAC has worked diligently to forge new relationships throughout our food system, and maintain the ones built before. The Palouse Tables Project brought the region together around food in 2017, and now provides a framework for how we can work in solidarity. 

Many of the needs identified by the Palouse Tables Project were those surrounding a lack of communication. During these times, we see the breakdown of communication for a litany of new reasons, but the solution remains the same. Since the Palouse Tables Project, the CAC has worked closely with the Whitman County and Latah County Food Coalitions to build synergy and transparency among local organizations. Especially now, the ability to coordinate volunteer needs, freezer and refrigeration space, communities in need of food assistance, and vital community actions is a deciding factor in meeting the changing needs.