Tenino food bank faces funding and supply issues compounded by federal government shutdown

While the Tenino City Council meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 14, was a brief one as no major resolutions or ordinances were on the agenda, councilors discussed a number of issues during the work session leading up to Tuesday’s meeting — including drafting Tenino’s 2026 budget and ongoing assessments of previous year’s finances by the Office of the Washington State Auditor.

Last year, it was revealed budget misreporting resulted in the city’s expenditures outpacing budget revenues by an estimated $1.4 million going back to 2021 — leading to the city’s restricted water and sewer funds being tapped for budget items outside of water and sewer services.

Because using restricted funds on non-fund related items is a violation of state law, the city council had to retroactively approve use of the funds as an interfund loan. The City of Tenino is now paying back the loan into the sewer and water restricted funds over the next few years at a 4% interest rate.
Because of this, cuts will be coming to the 2026 budget in order to balance it, according to Tenino Clerk Treasurer Nancy Reddick.
“The budget is coming along. When you ask how it’s going, it depends on what you mean by that — because it’s not going to be pretty next year,” Reddick said. “... We’re getting together this week to try and get the rest of the budget numbers in. But, we’re gonna have to do a lot of cuts for next year unfortunately, if we want to be able to balance our budget.”
Per state law, municipal governments are required to draft and approve annual balanced budgets. While many other neighboring municipalities are also facing tough budget choices due to ongoing inflation and the U.S. dollar still losing value this year, the loan repayment further compounds the situation in Tenino.
The Tenino city government isn’t the only Tenino entity struggling right now either, as Tenino Mayor Dave Watterson announced the Tenino Community Service Center/Tenino Food Bank Plus is currently embattled, according to Tenino Food Bank Plus Executive Director Jody Stoltz.
“I did talk to Jody the other day … The food bank’s really struggling I just think, overall. Because they’re finding some of their funding is kind of going away with the shutdown, and also they’ve had a pretty large increase (in food bank usage),” Watterson said.
CT Publishing called Stoltz on Wednesday, Oct. 15, to find out more about the issues currently facing the food bank.
It had already been facing funding and supply issues stemming from cuts made by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration at the federal level back in March, which included The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP) and Local Food Purchase Assistance (LFPA) funding. TEFAP and LFPA assist low-income families or individuals buying groceries.
According to Stoltz, the cuts earlier this year also affected voucher funding the Tenino Food Bank Plus used to be able to offer for low-income families needing help paying for gas and utilities.
Neither of which have been getting cheaper, either. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics recently announced the Consumer Price Index inflation rate rose another 0.4% in August, and inflation has driven consumer prices up 2.9% overall from August 2024 to August 2025.
Outside of federal budget cuts, this inflation has been hitting the Tenino Food Bank, as they also deliver meals to many seniors throughout the region.
“We have to go get and deliver this food somehow,” Stoltz added.
With the ongoing federal government shutdown, funding which used to fund the food bank for gas for deliveries for home-bound seniors has now dried up, further squeezing the food bank’s budget.
“It’s cutting into our budget quite heavily because every week we serve home-bound seniors,” she said. “... It’s hard to recoup that money, and with everybody having to take the hit from inflation, now we’re pinching pennies to see that we can still serve our people.”

All of this is happening as Stoltz stated over the past year, the number of people overall utilizing the Tenino Food Bank Plus has risen.
“In 2024, we served 1,950 folks in the month of September. This year, it’s up to 2,117,” Stoltz said.
Stoltz stated a mother recently came in saying normally they shopped at WinCo Foods or other local grocery stores, but were at the food bank after seeing the price of the meat she normally bought for her family double in price over the last year — going from $4.99 a pound to $9.99 a pound.
Another local veteran told her even the prices at the Main Exchange stores at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, which are normally cheaper than off-base grocery stores, are now about on par with their off-base counterparts.
With many parents already working multiple jobs just to make ends meet, this inflation is hitting them hard, Stoltz said. It’s also hitting many of the home-bound seniors hard, who have no other source of income aside from Social Security or their retirement fund, if they have one.
In some instances, seniors are being forced to make extremely tough decisions.
“They’re weighing, do they pay for their medication, or do they eat? Or does their kitty eat for the day, or do they eat? We also take care of our seniors with cat and dog food to make sure they are feeding these animals,” Stoltz said. “A lot of times these animals are what keeps our seniors running mentally, that they have something they can care for and something they can love at home — especially those that are left alone in the world.”
Seniors make up the majority of who the Tenino Food Bank Plus serves, she added.
But families from as far away as Olympia, Rochester, Chehalis and even Spanaway, are now showing up at the Tenino Food Bank Plus to get food, too.
Due to the federal TEFAP and LFPA funding cuts earlier this year, many local food banks saw their supply budgets dwindle, forcing them to limit the amount of monthly visits one can make to the food bank.
Additionally, inflation is hurting many of the suppliers who normally have plenty of products to provide to food banks.
“Between the economy and the shutdown, they don’t have the food for us to procure. Northwest Harvest is having the same issue, where last year we could’ve gotten 5,000 pounds of food a month, we’re now getting just over 1,000,” Stoltz said.
While the State of Washington has been providing some assistance to ensure the U.S. Department of Agriculture Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) keeps running amid the start of the federal government shutdown, Stoltz isn’t sure what will happen to WIC funding after Nov. 1.
Despite all of these issues, the Tenino Food Bank Plus is still open at least, and Stoltz volunteered to forgo her salary in order to keep its doors open.
She stated Tenino Food Bank Plus is still taking donations of both food and monetary. To donate, click on the PayPal QR code on the food bank’s website at https://teninocsc.org/how-to-help/#Donations.
Stoltz is also organizing local fundraising events to help keep the food bank open, including an upcoming bingo night starting at 6 p.m. on Oct. 24 at the Tenino Eagles, located at 349 Sussex Ave. W. in downtown Tenino.
For more information on this event and other fundraisers planned, follow the Tenino Community Service Center and Food Bank Plus on its official Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/TeninoFoodBankPlus.