$584
$292
65
0
The Pike Market Senior Center & Food Bank defies easy explanation, but only because it does so much!
The Pike Market Senior Center is both a traditional senior center and a front-line human services agency. It pioneered integrating homeless elders into a senior center setting. Visitors will find familiar activities, games, and meals. But they can also access intensive social-work case management offered in a place where a vulnerable population can congregate and feel welcome. All services and programs are offered at no cost and meals are served seven days a week because many clients need support every day. About 1,500 older adults visit the Pike Market Senior Center each year.
The Pike Market Food Bank serves more than 6,000 people of all ages and specializes is assisting low-income and people experiencing homelessness residing in Downtown Seattle. In addition to regular grocery distribution, deliveries are made to disabled people in the neighborhood, and special bags of ready-to-eat food are packed for people experiencing homelessness.
So many people – more than 6,000 each year – visit our agency for so many reasons that it’s difficult to quantify the impact we have. However, we do collect data on all our programs, set goals each year, and then try to meet those goals. For 2021 we expect to accomplish the following:
We are on track to meet or exceed all of these goals, but we cannot do it without charitable support!
In Downtown Seattle, the Pike Market Senior Center strives to make each day better and safer for older adults; the Pike Market Food Bank serves people of all ages who face hunger. Together, we provide services, activities, and support to promote healthier, more self-sufficient, and more fulfilling lives.
Our vision is an inclusive, vibrant Downtown Seattle community where needs are met and everyone is valued and engaged.
In the 1970s, the visionaries who restored the Pike Place Market embraced the senior citizens living downtown and mandated the inclusion of low-income housing to preserve the essential character of the Market. Five buildings offering low-income rent to seniors and people with disabilities were developed and continue to house this population even as the surrounding area has become increasingly expensive.
The Pike Market Senior Center sprang out of this community's need for a place to gather and socialize. PMSC has grown in response to the needs of this community and those of the population of homeless seniors who live downtown. Each year, around 1,500 seniors came to us for free meals, healthy activities, and access to skilled social workers.
The Pike Market Food Bank joined with the Senior Center in 1981 and provides free groceries to anyone experiencing food insecurity. PMFB serves around 6,000 of our neighbors. PMFB has been expanding services in recent years to better serve homeless clients, homebound people, and the working poor in Downtown Seattle.
While many of us are looking at a brighter, post-pandemic 2021, the more vulnerable clients of the Pike Market Senior Center & Food Bank are still facing hunger, homelessness, and social isolation.
We are expecting a surge of clients when pandemic restrictions are fully lifted and we need the help of our community to make sure our programs are fully funded and ready to meet the challenges ahead.
Would you give $4 a month to support four nonprofits that are making a big difference? Join forces with other 52andChangmakers to automatically give to every Cause of the Week. Every Monday, you’ll wake up knowing you’ve already made a difference! As our community grows, so does the impact!
Together we’ve become volunteers in places we would have never expected, planted milkweed for butterflies, provided books to kids in need, helped save endangered turtles, helped turn excess food into nutrition, helped bring art to youth, educated one another about how we are connected to our delicate food systems, helped save abandoned horses and given old dogs new hope, watched foster youth shine in the spotlight of movie making, helped clean tires out of rivers… we could go on and on and on. It is an absolute joy to be a part of such an amazing network of humans making a difference.
“ALMA reconnects the lives of the formerly incarcerated back to the fabric of society. Our participants have the chance at attaining gainful employment and becoming self-sufficient. Urban Farming helps everyone involved explore the relationships between plants, animals and humans as a way of creating a profound connection to both nature and their community.” - ALMA Backyard Farms
While we’re writing this and you’re reading it, Pajaro Valley Loaves and Fishes is out there, finding ways to provide food to more people in need throughout Santa Cruz County, where one of three residents are reported to be food insecure.
ChangeMaker Login
Share