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Living in a food desert means 27 miles one-way for this family’s groceries

Long drives are part of life in east Whatcom County

By Sophia Gates Staff Reporter

Melissa Kaemingk’s grocery shopping routine for her family of four usually goes like this. 

On Tuesday mornings, she drives from her Maple Falls home down the road to the Foothills Food Bank. 

If she goes early enough, Kaemingk explained, “they have really good stuff.” 

After that, she gets back in the car and drives another 27 miles to the WinCo in Bellingham to spend one hour shopping for food. Then, it’s another 27 miles home. 

For Kaemingk, the worst part of the distance is having to travel to see the doctor or pick up medicine. Her pharmacy is a grocery store in Bellingham.

Long drives are part of life in east Whatcom County, where most of the area’s 8,589 residents travel to town to buy a large portion of their groceries. The federal Department of Agriculture considers the region a “low-income and low-access” area — a term it now uses instead of “food desert.” That means at least 33% of the population lives more than 10 miles from a large grocery store and the area meets certain criteria to be classified as low-income. 

The Foothills Food Bank is part of the Foothills Community Food Partnership, which allows various groups to coordinate their services and releases reports on food access in east Whatcom every few years. 

Melissa Kaemingk departs the Foothills Food Bank. (Hailey Hoffman/Cascadia Daily News)

In 2023, the county approved a “food system plan” to advance goals like “ensure access to healthy food for all” — recommendations to meet that goal include waiving grocery stores’ permit fees in food deserts and collaborating with community groups.  

“When a community doesn’t have access to healthy and affordable food, it impacts all aspects of their life,” said Aly Robinson, a community health specialist with Whatcom Health and Community Services, which is part of the food partnership. 


It impacts health, she explained, because people aren’t getting the nutrients they need. It impacts finances because people are driving longer distances, using more gas. 

For Kaemingk, 31, the distance is doable. That’s partly because of resources like the food bank.

She said she sees “tons” of her neighbors at Foothills. “They either work there, or they shop there.” 

Census estimates from 2023 put the median household income in east Whatcom at $70,673, lower than the state’s $74,884. Last school year, more than half the students in the Mount Baker School District qualified for free and reduced lunch, according to the Foothills Community Food Partnership’s latest food access report.

Melissa Kaemingk looks at loaves of bread at the Foothills Food Bank on Jan. 14. Kaemingk relies on the food bank to support her family, especially since affordable grocery shopping at a larger store is at least a 25-minute drive one way. (Hailey Hoffman/Cascadia Daily News)

Kaemingk stopped by the food bank one January morning, greeting both Operations Manager Darryl Hirschkorn and volunteer Pat Newell with a hug. Her youngest son attends the East Whatcom Regional Resource Center’s preschool program, located nearby on the property the center shares with Foothills. 

The food bank is laid out like a grocery store, with two aisles clients walk through collecting what they need. Most food items are labeled with numbers prescribing how much people can take depending on their family size. 

Kaemingk grabbed some flax oatmeal packets: “My kids actually like these.” Her sons are 5 and 3. She bypassed the dessert table where a few packages of cupcakes remained — Kaemingk, a believer in juice cleanses, is health-conscious. 

Though she has a degree in social work, Kaemingk found the profession too draining to be sustainable. She now does security for the Mt. Baker Ski Area and drives the resort’s employee shuttle. She works two 12- to 14-hour days a week. Her husband, Brennen, used to work at the ski area too, but this year he has three shifts a week at the North Fork Brewery instead. 

Without benefits like the food bank and Medicaid, the couple would not have days off together, Kaemingk said, as they’d have to work much more. 

Brennen, left, and Melissa Kaemingk chat in their kitchen in Kendall as Melissa gets ready to head to the food bank and grocery store. (Hailey Hoffman/Cascadia Daily News)

The mountain is more than a job for the Kaemingks: It’s a way of life. 

“The closer we are to town, the farther we are from skiing,” she said. 

Trips to Bellingham come with a calculation: Is it worth it to spend the gas to go? Kaemingk and her husband try to combine errands, they explained, grabbing groceries when they’re already going to the hardware store, for example.  

This practice is called “trip-chaining,” Robinson explained, and is common in the area. 

Kaemingk’s family gets around by car, but that’s not true for everyone in east county. 

Taking the bus to Bellingham “can be an all-day endeavor,” said Noelle Beecroft, president of the Foothills board of directors. “So that means they may have to take off work that day, do it on the weekend, find child care.” 

Beecroft also runs the Whatcom County branch of Washington State University’s SNAP-Ed program, which provides nutrition education and advocates for healthy food access.

Getting to east Whatcom grocery stores by bus is more difficult, or sometimes impossible, said Cheryl Thompson, a Foothills board member. “You’re going to spend all day just to get groceries if you wanted to go to Everson.” 

Melissa Kaemingk loads up bags of groceries received from the food bank. (Hailey Hoffman/Cascadia Daily News)

After the food bank, Kaemingk visited nearby Kendall Market and then drove to Nugents Corner Market near Deming. Nugents is closer than Bellingham, but it’s still 20 minutes from home. 

Both stores have undergone changes in recent years. Kendall Market expanded its offerings from typical convenience store fare after a new owner took over in 2022. A manager said the market’s prices were much higher before the changeover. It carries little produce, however. 

Nugents Corner Market opened in 2020, taking over the then-vacant property that once housed the Dodson’s IGA store

At Nugents, Kaemingk scanned grocery items with an app that told her whether she could buy them with the federal Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children. The program gives eligible families an allotment of free staple groceries each month. 

Before the app, Kaemingk felt more judgement from others when shopping with physical coupons. But in Washington, as opposed to her former home in California, she hasn’t felt stigma around receiving benefits. Recently, she said, another mom saw Kaemingk was shopping with WIC coupons and offered advice for how to use up all the milk the program provides. 

The WIC app tells Melissa Kaemingk that she doesn’t have enough benefits to buy more cheese for that month. WIC — Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children — provides additional food benefits to families. (Hailey Hoffman/Cascadia Daily News)

Kaemingk shops at local stores if she runs out of an essential item, like eggs, or for WIC foods. But due to price, she saves her big shopping trips for Bellingham. 

Thompson, who managed Crossroads Grocery for 16 years, explained east county stores face challenges such as a limited number of vendors willing to deliver to rural areas. Delivery fees add to the cost of food as well. 

Bigger stores can also order more food in bulk, she said, which is more cost-effective than the quantities smaller rural stores are ordering. 

“It’s not as simple as just building a grocery store out here,” she said, “because that grocery store, unless it’s part of a larger chain … the prices are going to be higher” and people will still have to go to Bellingham for other reasons, like health care and jobs. 

A full-service chain grocery store opening nearby would save Kaemingk a lot of gas. But she sees the potential drawbacks, too. 

“Then you’re competing with the local grocery store,” she said. “There’s always that big guy, little guy fight.” 

Sophia Gates covers rural Whatcom and Skagit counties. She is a Washington State Murrow Fellow whose work is underwritten by taxpayers and available outside CDN's paywall. Reach her at sophiagates@cascadiadaily.com; 360-922-3090 ext. 131.

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