Building Community In Kitsap County
Inside the doors of this former Coca-Cola bottling plant, Cori Kauk is the food bank director and a perpetual motion machine.
“The need is growing in Bremerton and throughout Kitsap County,” says Kauk. “In 2024, the Bremerton Foodline Food Bank served 23,819 duplicated individuals in the first half of the year, and in 2025, they provided services to 33,058 duplicated individuals in the same time frame. This is a 39% increase in just one year.”
While the number of people the food bank serves is impressive, it’s only part of what Bremerton Foodline Food Bank does. The food bank also serves a critical need by operating as one of Food Lifeline’s Regional Distribution partners. Every two weeks, her food bank receives a shipment from Food Lifeline, which supplies eight other food banks in Kitsap County.
Her team also stocks and delivers food to 10 additional smaller food banks, shelters, and meal programs in Kitsap County, for a total of 18 small and rural non-profit organizations that are dedicated to providing healthy food options to thousands of guests across the county.
Additionally, they serve multiple housing programs.
“It’s all about building community,” says Cori. “If we share our work and resources with others, it comes back to us tenfold.”
Bremerton Foodline Food Bank is also a member of the Kitsap County Food Bank Coalition. Cari says the group is a critical piece of the rural service puzzle. The coalition frequently communicates by asking partners, ‘What do you need?’ or ‘What do you have a surplus of?’
“We’re working to create systems to store and share more resources for our partners,” says Cari. “How do we share food even more effectively back and forth across Kitsap County?”
Bremerton lacks the booming economy of, say, East King County, so securing support from the business community is more challenging. As a result, Kauk says non-profits must be more strategic and collaborative.
“We need to do what we say we’re going to do,” says Kauk.
To help this happen, Food Lifeline recently awarded Bremerton Foodline Food Bank $80,000 through a Retail Agency Capacity Grant, funded by Feeding America. The grant will be used for a new 10’ x 20’ freezer cooler. Making it easier for the team to move more than two million pounds of food every year to their partner agencies.
“We are beyond excited for this upgrade!” says Cori. “The new fridge and freezer will massively streamline our operations and increase efficiencies so that we can make a greater impact.”