SEATTLE – Thousands of area families are being fed with 40,000 pounds of food donated recently to St. Vincent de Paul of Seattle/King County and Catholic Community Services/Catholic Housing Services of Western Washington.

“So many farmworkers are telling us they have lost jobs and are worried about feeding their families,” Guillermina Bazante, program coordinator at the CCS Farmworker Center in Mount Vernon, said in a news release. “It’s about getting the right help at the right time and this food is exactly what they need right now.”

The food, which arrived in Seattle April 29, was donated by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly known as the Mormons. The church maintains food supplies in Bishops’ Storehouses around the world to efficiently serve people in need, according to a news release from the church.

“Latter-day Saints try to follow Jesus Christ’s teachings by providing food, shelter and comfort where and when needed,” Michael R. Murray, a North America West area leader for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, said in the release.

Half the food went to SVdP’s Georgetown Food Bank, where it will serve more than 4,100 families, according to Jim McFarland, SVdP’s marketing and communications director.

The other 20,000 pounds went to CCS, which distributed most of it to 10 CCS/CHS farmworker housing communities across Western Washington, and sent some of it to food banks in Yakima and Spokane, according to Erin Maguire, a regional network builder for CCS.

The donation included a wide range of nonperishable food — things like pasta, sugar, flour, canned goods and even pancake syrup, McFarland said.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, SVdP is serving a total of 650 families a week at its Georgetown Food Bank and its Centro Rendu program in South King County, he said. At Centro Rendu, 350 families receive food distributed every Thursday.

With the governor’s stay at home order extended, “we will continue to expand our food distribution as long as it is needed in satellite areas of the county,” said Mirya Muñoz Roach, SVdP’s executive director. Those distributions are in addition to parish-based Vincentian groups that are dropping off groceries at the homes of those in need, she added.

“We always welcome donations,” Muñoz Roach said, “especially cash donations that would allow us to purchase perishable food, which is hard to store.”