Group Members: Sophia Rivo, Taylor Mace, Yen Vy Phan, Trynity Biando, Emily Dodge , Jinqiu Xiao
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According to the Task Force on Homelessness from the Auburn Open Data website, in 2024, King County, which includes Auburn, saw an estimated 16,868 individuals experiencing homelessness, a 26% increase from 2022, with 47% of that population being unsheltered. The demographic mentioned in the same article includes citizens of varying races, genders, and even ages. This statistic shows how prevalent starvation is in our local community and how limited resources are available to those who severely lack access to basic human needs, more specifically food.
As we mentioned in our Project Proposal, the amount of homeless people in the Auburn/Seattle area go through extended periods of time without meals. This in turn, results in malnutrition and perpetuates socio-economic problems. As a society, we tend to overlook the impact of other people’s starvation and how that directly affects us. Our homeless population, without a meal to satiate their hunger or a bed to sleep at night will commonly outsource and might even go to great lengths to find sustenance such as rummaging through garbage for leftovers or stay waiting outside food establishments in hopes that other people will provide a meal as a temporary solution. The malnutrition, amongst other negative effects, impairs their judgment due to lack of said sustenance and can affect their motivation or even will to live. That being said, we’ve decided to tackle this particular subject with hopes to raise awareness to others but more importantly, ourselves on how we can make seemingly small but great contributions to our society.
The Small Win should be a complex task that requires more than 1 person to accomplish (a basic definition of the purpose of a group), that can be accomplished within the timeline of 4 weeks, and that involves all members of the group in the Small Wins solution. In addition, it needs to be consistent with the college’s guidelines for the safety and security of our students. Please keep this in mind as you develop ideas.
Our group suggested that either volunteering at a food bank, donating non-perishable items to food banks or hand delivering food to homeless people would be great ideas to tackle the problem at hand.
With lack of time, our group was unfortunately not able to thoroughly evaluate whether we had the resources ourselves to donate items, nor the availability to hand deliver food. Ultimately, our group came to a consensus that we would spend our time volunteering at The Auburn Food Bank to 1) get a more in depth understanding of the activities that are done at the facility and 2) actively participate in gathering supplies that go directly from the sorting warehouse to partnered distributors.
On 02/24/2024, we reached out to the director of the Auburn Food Bank, Debbie Christian to schedule volunteer time. On 03/01/2025, we were then assigned to coordinate with their employee Leticia on how to sort various non-perishables in the warehouse for what they refer to as “Amazon bags”. In summary, we spent a little over two hours sorting said bags and were able to package approximately 100+ in total. Each bag included 1 package/item each of canned meat, tomatoes, soup, fish, and 4 packs of salami. These bags were stored in cardboard boxes which were delivered from the facility to an Amazon warehouse. The bags are then assumed to be delivered to individuals and families in need via Amazon delivery drivers.
It is well worth devoting any available time we have to contribute to our community. Volunteering was and is a great way to spearhead making small but significant changes which compound overtime into something bigger than what we would expect it to be. We as individuals now have a better understanding on why taking actions to help one another matter, especially if met with good intent and a mindset for bettering our community. Overall, we found great success in this noble cause and highly encourage anyone else that is willing to explore their own food banks in their particular area or region.
Rothwell, J.D. (2019). In mixed company: Communicating in small groups and teams (10th ed.). Oxford University Press.
City of Auburn (2025). Homelessness in Auburn: Addressing a Regional Issue Locally. https://data.auburnwa.gov/stories/s/Task-Force-on-Homelessness/cahb-uhn2/#:~:text=Forty%2 Dseven%20percent%20(47%25),about%20homelessness%20in%20King%20County)
Watch Auburn (2017). In Their Shoes. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnWJu4bpzbw&t=3s