Robbie Rohr, executive director of the Vashon Community Food Bank, will retire next week.

Board President Chip Wright recently made the announcement, saying that former volunteer coordinator Emily Scott will return to assume Rohr’s job.

“We had over 50 applicants for the position, and I considered it a very deep pool,” said board member Mason Gerety of Scott’s appointment. “I feel that the food bank is going in a very good direction and is poised to do even more for the island going forward.”

Rohr has served in the position for four years.

Speaking about her long career in social services, Rohr said most of her prior work was spent supporting families and those with mental health issues, as well as advocating for domestic violence prevention and children’s rights.

“But I’d never done anything as tangible as working in a food bank,” she said, noting how many in the community are served by the organization: roughly one out of every nine residents.

Last year, the food bank recorded nearly 9,600 household visits to its facility in the Sunrise Ridge complex, including home deliveries to 30 or so residences provided by volunteers to homebound islanders.

The reliance many have on the food bank, said Rohr, has shaped the organization’s distribution model, using an approach she said may surprise those with misconceptions. The goal was to create a dignified shopping experience for clients at no cost where they would have access to a variety of goods. That includes anything from fresh produce year-round to fresh tofu, dairy products, coffee, baking items, meats, cereals, toilet paper and diapers.

“People’s image of food banks is, you go in and you get canned goods and stale bread, and you get a bag of food you don’t choose, and you leave,” she said. “We believe that access to nutritious food is a basic human right, and the value system of the organization is totally based on being nonjudgmental and offering people as high a quality of an experience as possible.”

Rohr said the food bank is open for anyone who has difficulty feeding themselves or family members. No documented proof of need or identification is required. Residents can shop there once a week.

To Rohr, the food bank fits squarely into ongoing conversations about the rising cost of living on Vashon. She said a combination of unaffordable housing, slim employment opportunities coupled with reduced work hours, high taxes and expensive childcare have taken a toll on everyone, from retired people to individuals in the service sector to working families. That combination, she said, means more people become food insecure and need assistance. But she emphasized that the circumstances that lead to clients using the food bank can befall anyone.

“It’s often illness,” she said, the most severe of which leave people out of work with no benefits and soaring medical bills. Or, a spouse dies, and their survivor is suddenly left to live on one income. People who struggle with mental health issues may need the food bank, she said, as well as local artists.

“If you support artists, support the food bank, because the percentage of artists on the island — performing artists particularly — who can’t make a living wage out of that is huge,” she said.

Half of the food bank’s client base is children and seniors.

“We need to be smart, recognizing that as a community if we want to thrive into the future — which of course we do — then we need to be proactive in addressing all of these things,” she said.

Rohr said she admires attempts to do just that. She weighed in on endeavors that have spurred debate among islanders, such as the 40 proposed micro-units slated for the Island Center Homes development by Vashon HouseHold, as well as Shelter America’s Creekside Village project, which is expected to consist of 40 one-, two- and three bedroom units.

“Somebody’s doing something to address the issue,” she said. “Is it perfect? Probably not. Is there perfect? No.”

Rohr also said she supported those who are pursuing the formation of an island hospital district, adding she doesn’t believe there is a better alternative and that more people should educate themselves about its merits.

“One of the additional challenges that Vashon has in terms of being this lovely, bucolic, rural community separated from the mainland by water is how we do long-term planning and decision making for the welfare of the community,” she said.

The food bank has tried its own hand at maximizing the impact it has on the island as a whole. Two years ago, the organization began participating in Harvest for Vashon, a collaboration with the Food Access Partnership of Vashon Island Growers Association (VIGA) and a national program, Rotary First Harvest.

Overseen by a full-time staff person and AmeriCorps Vista members, the aim is to dispense more fresh fruit and produce to low-income islanders by encouraging gardeners to grow excess produce designated for the food bank, which is then collected by volunteers.

Also new this year, said Rohr, the food bank will undertake a project to preserve surplus produce left over from the summer to extend its availability.

Volunteers, who provided more than 6,000 hours of service to the organization in 2018, regularly prepare emergency bags for pick up at several locations. They drive trucks to collect food from distributors in Seattle and Kent, tend to the food bank’s garden, and make and serve lunches daily for the summer Picnics in the Park program, which provided 5,200 free lunches to over 570 youth last year.

Rohr said on the busiest day, volunteers served 140 youth and had to go back to the food bank to prepare more meals for them after running out.

The program was started six years ago in lieu of support from the federal Summer Food Service Program — more than 20% of students in the schools qualify for free and reduced lunch, according to Rohr, but that is not enough to implement the federal summer food program on Vashon.

The food bank’s picnics in the parks program is supported by business sponsorships and donations. Rohr said it is something she, the board and staff are especially proud of.

For her part, Scott said that she would like to continue to see as many people served as possible, namely those who feel ashamed to be asking for help or admitting they need it.

“That’s the work of a leader in a nonprofit or in the local sector in direct local services,” she said, “to reduce that stigma as much as possible and to remind people that social safety nets exist for a reason.”

Scott, who has lived on the island since 2012, will complete her master’s degree in public administration from the University of Washington Evans School of Public Policy and Governance this June, when she will formally step into the role as executive director.

As the former volunteer coordinator for five years, Scott said her job at the food bank evolved from managing volunteers to grant writing, administration and community outreach. Having worked closely with Rohr, Scott said she expects to be hands-on — it is not at all unheard of for the executive director to run out and help with distribution, she said.

She said she is ready for her next challenge.

“That’s what I like. The idea of a 9 to 5, sitting behind a desk all day, it kills me,” she said. “… I am excited and honored to have been given the opportunity to come back.”