SE Washington News

Kathy Hay wanted to pay her neighbors back. That’s why she opened a free food pantry for folks in need in Clarkston.

Another nice, warm-hearted, feel-good story to break through the gloom of 2020, right?

Well, not exactly.

Local government officials have sought to shut down the pantry or force Hay to pay hefty fees, forcing her to engage legal assistance and wage a public campaign.

But Hay still hopes for a happy ending.

“Like so many Americans right now, I know what it is like to worry about feeding my family. When I needed help most, my community of Clarkston, Washington, was there for me,” Hay wrote on a Change.org petition.

“Thankfully, I’m back on my feet and I want to pay that generosity forward. That is why I built a ‘little free pantry’ to allow my neighbors to help one another,” she wrote. “Little free pantries are like little lending libraries, except instead of books, they allow neighbors to exchange fresh vegetables, canned goods, and other foods with one another. For the first few weeks, things were great. My neighbors that had food to share left it in the pantry, helping dozens who needed it. No one complained, but that didn’t stop the county health board from showing up and shutting it down.”

Hay said she was told he needed to complete “a stack of paperwork” as well as pay a fee to keep the pantry open.

“They also told me that even after I finished the paperwork, I still could not share fresh produce or bread,” Hay said. “To add insult to injury, they sent me an additional invoice for nearly $3,000 for the cost of enforcing their laws against me. No good deed goes unpunished, it seems.”

She said Feeding America reports that the nation’s food banks are facing a “perfect storm” during the pandemic. It’s why people are working together to ensure people in their communities don’t go hungry. 

“Local governments, for their part, have largely taken a hands-off approach,” Hay said. “And yet, a handful of county health boards — including my own, the Asotin County Board of Health — seem to believe that paperwork and process are more important than charity.”

Erica Smith is a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice in Arlington, Va., a nonprofit, public-interest law firm working on Hay’s behalf. It has filed a lawsuit charging that her civil rights were violated when the pantry was shut down twice early this year.

Smith told SE Washington News that Hay has done an exemplary job with the pantry.

“There was never any genuine health concerns with Kathy’s pantry,” she said. “Kathy regularly checked the pantry to make sure that she would be comfortable feeding all the food in there to her own family. No one has ever gotten sick from Kathy’s pantry or, to our knowledge, from any of the thousands of little free pantries that exist across the country.”

Smith said Hay is simply responding to a very real need in her community. That should be the most important thing, he says.

“Asotin County should not be preventing Kathy or anyone else from feeding needy members of their community, especially in a town where so many struggle with food insecurity,” she said. “Local governments should be encouraging creative solutions to combating hunger, not threatening to criminally prosecute those who come up with solutions.

“Asotin County is discouraging charitable behavior in the community,” Smith said. “Asotin shut her pantry down and threatened to criminally prosecute her — just for trying to help others. Asotin even slapped Kathy with a $2,800 invoice for the time the county spent ‘educating’ her, enforcing their unconstitutional regulations against her, and even for time they spent talking to reporters.”

Smith says that has been an abuse of authority and a waste of time as well.

“Kathy shouldn’t have to fill out paperwork and follow arbitrary restrictions before sharing food in her own backyard,” Smith said. “You shouldn’t need the government's permission to help someone in need. Being able to safely share food is more important now than ever. People are financially struggling during the COVID-19 pandemic. And even if they could afford to buy groceries, they may be reluctant to go to crowded grocery stores. The pantry is a small-scale community solution.”

Hay’s petition has already gathered almost 5,000 signatures, many from her town and county, Smith said. People who support and admire her efforts are asked to sign it.

Hay is unbowed by her legal battle and determined to do what she thinks is the right thing.

“I believe that Americans have a fundamental right to help one another,” she said.