Food Lifeline

Food Lifeline is the largest hunger-relief organization in Washington State. Our service area includes 17 counties in Western Washington.  In FY 2021, through a network of more than 350 food pantries, meal programs, and shelters, we distributed 88.1 million pounds of food, representing more than 73 million meals.  Alongside our partners, Food Lifeline helped more than 1.37 million neighbors living with hunger and food insecurity.

Our guiding principles ensure we approach hunger relief by addressing root causes.  Root causes include poverty, racial inequity, and social injustice. We aspire to dismantle these systems, especially institutionalized racism, and white supremacy culture. We promote public policy and advocacy positions that reduce poverty and provide healthier, more equitable outcomes for all.

Food Lifeline works to both fill the immediate needs of people facing hunger and reduce food insecurity by co-creating long-term, community-led solutions that are focused on its root causes.

We Feed People Facing Hunger:

We provide nutritious food to hundreds of thousands of people facing hunger in Western Washington every year. We do this by sourcing millions of pounds of donated food, including fresh produce, from farmers, manufacturers, wholesalers and distribution centers, grocers, restaurants, and retail locations.

Volunteers inspect, sort, and repack food in Food Lifeline’s 130,000-square-foot Hunger Solution Center in Seattle’s South Park neighborhood. We distribute this food through our own distribution programs and in partnership with 300 food banks, shelters, and meal programs that serve people throughout Western Washington. This highly efficient system allows us to ensure the equivalent of 134,000 meals every day reach people who don’t have enough to eat.

We Solve Hunger for the Long-Term:

Feeding people today doesn’t alone solve hunger for tomorrow. The causes of hunger are complex and include geographical, racial, and social inequities that must be addressed. We work with nonprofit partners, government agencies, and legislators to challenge systemic inequities and social injustice and develop long-term, sustainable strategies to ensure that everybody has enough food to eat. The Hunger Solution Center is a hub for innovation and partnership that allows our community to join the movement to end hunger.