A Community-Led Effort in the Y-K Delta
When ex-Typhoon Halong swept through Western Alaska, it didn’t just damage homes. It ruined the traditional foods families rely on all winter — whitefish, berries, seal oil, moose, dried fish, and the freezer stores built up over months of work. In the Y-K Delta, the loss was deeply felt.
Almost immediately, people began asking the same questions:
“How can we help make sure families have their food again? Where can we donate?”
The Kuskokwim River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (KRITFC), Bethel Community Services Foundation, Alaska Sea Grant, and the City of Bethel came together quickly with a simple approach:
Let’s just start and get food moving now.
And people responded immediately.
Flyers appeared across Bethel and online — in stores, on Facebook, and through a QR code that traveled fast by word of mouth. Anyone who wanted to donate or request food could easily find out how.
Volunteers stepped in: Jesuit Volunteers, ANSEP students, Tundra Women’s Coalition’s Teens Acting Against Violence, Bethel Winter House, and families throughout the region. People have been offering what mattered most — whitefish, herring in oil, seal oil, muktuk, moose, berries, geese, ducks. Foods that carry memory, comfort, and meaning.
Backed by a grant recommended by the Western Alaska Disaster Relief Fund advisors, the partners launched a Traditional Foods Partnership to help refill freezers before winter tightened in. They bought boxes and shipping materials, made space in community freezers, and spread the word about what was needed most.
“Our hope is simple,” said Terese Vicente, KRITFC’s Policy & Programs Director. “We want to get food into families’ freezers as soon as possible.”
To reach as many families as possible, KRITFC joined Coffee @ KYUK, using local radio, the fastest way news travels across the Delta.
Thanks to local leadership, dedicated volunteers, and thousands of donors who reached across miles and time zones, families throughout the Y-K Delta will have something familiar in their freezers again, as well as a measure of steadiness, warmth, and hope.
