Seattle’s Free Food Truck Finds Success Amid COVID-19 Struggles

Curry spices, lentils, and rice are the first ingredients in a recipe for feeding Seattle’s growing homeless population.

The menu stays the same, a mixed vegetable curry, lentil soup, rice, cream of wheat, and an apple for dessert, yet it brings together people from around the community in an incredible way. But how is this accomplished in a time where coming together is becoming impossible, or nearly illegal?

The NW Share’s Free Food Truck has had to change its operations to adhere to COVID-19 state guidelines while providing even more food service. These guidelines include “increasing the frequency hand-washing, glove replacement, and sanitation of their food prep areas,” according to the Washington State Food Truck Association.

The truck has gone from operating one day a week and serving about 200 people pre-pandemic to operating five days a week and feeding about 675 people amid the coronavirus. This massive increase in people has not slowed down operations though. Harry Terhanian, the founder of NW Share’s Free Food Truck, has instead ramped up the program.

The Northwest Share Free Food Truck has been operating in the University District community for the past two years, after launching their vegetarian van due to closing NW Share’s original free restaurant, My Sweet Lord. The NW Share team has been passionate about feeding those in need since 2002. But, with COVID-19, the team has become even more dedicated to serving their food at no cost.

Terhanian has seen a recent surge in volunteers and donations for the food truck, which has helped him to provide more meals and bring people together safely. The food truck’s unpaid volunteers prepare and serve the purely vegetarian food to mainly homeless individuals, but also struggling students. The truck only offers meat-free food because it sustains “health, vitality, and mental clarity,” says Terhanian.

Terhanian founded NW Share with the hope of helping the homeless population in Seattle.

For him, “real human emotion happens when you see other people suffering you feel obliged to do something.” This karmic belief is what led him to open a food truck for the community, a job he never saw himself doing.

After two and a half years and hundreds of decisions, Terhanian launched the NW Share’s Free Food Truck. This free meal service, accessible to individuals in need from Washington’s University District to Redmond, is Terhanian’s passion project.

The NW Share founder dedicates all he has to the food program, even going as far as to manage a farm that provides food stock to the truck. He grows his own grains, vegetables, and fruits, while also raising cattle for fresh dairy ingredients. His farm alone supplies over one-third of the resources needed to provide this incredible amount of free meals. Alongside donations and support, Terhanian has found a way not only to give more free meals but to expand the Free Food Truck. In a few months, he plans to open his second Free Food Truck, which he recently purchased for $90,000 using recent donations. This means that the NW Share’s food truck has not only found a way to stay open but also find new opportunities to help the community amid a global pandemic.

Unfortunately, other food service programs in the greater Seattle area have not been as lucky as the Free Food Truck.

Sound Generations, an established non-profit organization since 1967, helps elderly and disabled individuals across the King County area. Their food program, Meals on Wheels, offers free meal services to those over 60 years old who are unable to shop or cook for themselves. With many elderly falling on hard times due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Sound Generations’ Meals on Wheels has seen an enormous increase in the high-risk population they serve, which has been taxing on the organization and volunteers.

“Working for a social service based non-profit that is providing essential services has not yielded a dull moment,” says Brittany Blue, chief marketing & philanthropy officer at Sound Generations.

For her, the pandemic has only shed a brighter light on how many aging adults live in King County who are just one crisis away from needing support in some shape or form.

The program has had to completely shift and pivot the way they deliver services to meet the growing needs of older community members. Due to COVID-19 health guidelines and regulations, Blue has found that older adults are much more isolated, despite the easing of COVID rules. This increase in isolated individuals has led to more people signing up for the program to receive meals at home.

“Food Security Programs saw a huge increase in demand for assistance,” says Blue, before going into detail on how they have closed senior centers in order to continue providing to-go meals to older adults.

Keeping up with COVID-19 safety guidelines also posed as a challenge to Meals on Wheels.

“We were faced with trying to mitigate the spread of the coronavirus to staff, volunteers, and the high risk population we serve,” says Blue, who remembers the hurdle of trying to get their hands on enough PPE gear for their workers back in March.

With increasing costs and fewer donations, it’s getting harder to serve the King County community. However, Blue is looking for the positive in things as Sound Generations continues to adapt and develop virtual programming to “ensure access for all that rely on Sound Generations’ services, including the Meals on Wheels food service program.” These virtual programs include online wellness classes, mental and psychical health check in calls, and telephone outreach from the Geriatric Regional Assessment Team (GRAT) who help to avoid overuse of services.

Recent US Census Bureau data was published measuring household experiences prior to and during the COVID-19 pandemic. These two sets of data show an obvious rise in food insufficiency across the United States as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.

According to Seattle & King County Public Health, there was a 23.2% increase in the number of households receiving food assistance due to food insufficiency from February to March this year, aligning with the COVID-19 shutdown. The amount of households reporting food insufficiency in King County are starting to lower since March, but are still higher than previous years.

From a spiraling economy to some of the worst rates of homelessness ever reported, these unprecedented times have brought not only uncertainty into daily lives, but into the kitchens of people across the country.

“You have a county that is one of the richest countries in the world, but along with all that economic development, you have a large population of poor people and then amongst them, you have a lot that is homeless and food-deprived,” says Terhanian, “now we see that population continue to grow as the economy struggles right now.”

For this reason, Terhanian believes it is more important now more than ever that people incorporate the Free Food Truck’s motto,“ Doing good to others” into their lives.