Walk for Rice — So Thousands Won’t Go Hungry
A contingent of young walkers and their family members from the Khalsa Gurmat Center. Photo by Jack Storms.
Nearly 27 years ago, Herb and Bertha Tsuchiya, and Sam Mitsui organized the first Walk for Rice to fight hunger in the Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) community. It was their vision to create a tradition that brings people together to fight hunger, as individuals and as a community.
Thousands have joined the annual Walk for Rice and have taken an active role in raising awareness and funds to fight hunger. Last year, Walk for Rice participants and donors raised enough money to provide nearly half of the funding needed to support the ACRS Food Bank, and our nutrition and emergency feeding programs. In 2016, the ACRS Food Bank provided over a million pounds of culturally familiar foods like rice, tofu, fish and fresh vegetables to our most vulnerable elders, youth and families. We served about 5,700 clients through our food bank and 23 other community sites throughout the Puget Sound region. Ninety-five percent of the clients served by our nutrition programs are AAPI and 62% have limited English.
The Walk began because Herb Tsuchiya, a retired pharmacist, was moved when he saw so many people in line at the ACRS Food Bank. He noticed that some of the food donated was not typical of the Asian diet. This need ignited the idea to organize a walk to raise funds to feed people in need, particularly in the AAPI community. Supported by local community churches Blaine Methodist, Chinese Baptist and Japanese Baptist, the inaugural Walk for Rice in 1990 took place along a pedestrian path on Beacon Avenue with 45 participants. It raised $1,800 that year.
Today, Walk for Rice is still a grassroots effort. It represents the diversity and strength of our community, drawing nearly 1,000 participants including elders, youth, families, elected officials and business leaders who come together to take action and raise funds to fight hunger in our community. While the ACRS Food Bank meets a basic need of providing food, it also serves as an entry point for members of our immigrant population, who may be in need of additional social and health services.
The 27th annual Walk for Rice is on Saturday, June 24, 2017 from 8 a.m.-1 p.m. at Seattle’s Seward Park. It promises to be another festive community event, complete with food trucks, a Zumba warm up, taiko drummers and of course, the Seattle Chinese Community Girls Drill Team to kick off the morning. Many participants take it to the next level and form teams, wear matching team T-shirts, don costumes, and even dress their pets in costumes. It’s a day of fun, and for a good cause!
Visit www.walkforrice.org to sign up to walk, register your team and make a donation. If you are interested in corporate sponsorship opportunities, please contact Mary Ann Goto at maryanng@acrs.org.
