Congressman Derek Kilmer donned a shower cap and gloves Tuesday morning and helped volunteers at Coastal Harvest’s Hoquiam warehouse package holiday meal ingredients for area food banks and feeding programs. Brian Blake, state Representative from the 19th District, joined in later in the morning.
Blake dug in with both hands, along with a handful of volunteers, some of whom have been helping Coastal Harvest feed the hungry for more than a decade, according to volunteer coordinator Kat Kalenius. More than a thousand pounds of corn was on the menu, one of several shipments the warehouse receives a year.
The corn comes in from several locations in the state; this particular shipment came from Prosser. Kilmer and the others divvied it up into family-sized portions to be distributed to the 40 food programs in Grays Harbor, Pacific, Mason, Wahkiakum, Thurston and Lewis counties that Coastal Harvest serves.
This was the first stop of a day spent in Grays Harbor County for the congressman. After wrapping up at Coastal Harvest, he was scheduled to visit two area businesses, Hesco Armor in Aberdeen and Cosmo Specialty Fiber in Cosmopolis.