RVFB as a Liminal Place

Rainier Valley Food Bank is a special place.

An in-between place. A place where people can feel safe & free to be themselves; where the flow of the day is often punctuated with intense moments of the raw, brutal beauty of authentic human relating. A place to have boundaries, assumptions, & personal limits constantly challenged to expand.

We’re not just here to give away healthy food every week. People sometimes come here to facilitate growth that is often both unexpected & profound. A volunteer recently told me that after spending a few weeks with us, he had finally learned the true meaning of compassion from a fellow volunteer.

Another recent addition to our team came to us through a local teen program called Taste International. A student at Franklin High, this volunteer was eating fast food five days a week. After volunteering with us for a month & realizing how fortunate she was to have such disposable income & learning about all the fresh foods we offer, she is now eating a much healthier—& less expensive—diet.

It’s in the liminal spaces in life – the places of transition from one state to
another—where the dynamic tension of creativity & resistance to change causes us to become more fully ourselves. When lives are enriched & transformed simply by interacting with other people who are different, we learn that we’re really not so different after all from our brothers & sisters all over the globe.

But no matter what our assumptions, boundaries, potential for learning new habits & acquiring new perspectives on ourselves & the world, one thing we all know beyond any shadow of doubt around here at RVFB: people gotta eat! It’s you reading this now—our generous cadre of caring supporters—who make this happen. Never doubt it for a second: when you give of your time or open your wallet to RVFB, you are feeding people, & feeding them well. And you just might also be transforming a life.

Sincerely,

Sam Osborne
RVFB Executive Director