They have forks, and they're not afraid to use them

For the past two weeks, giant forks have invaded the Seattle area–showing up at landmarks, restaurants, public parks, IKEA and even a Sounders soccer match.

Teams of enthusiastic people stood on overpasses waving the oversized forks and holding signs that simply read, “whythefork.org.”

And a @whythefork account on Twitter started posting tweets on everything from the history to cutlery to videos of fork lift stunts gone wrong.

What was this all about?

As KOMO News revealed, the answer to “Why the fork?” is: “Because it’s time to take action against hunger.”

Hunger Action Week was dedicated to raising awareness about hunger in King County. Now let’s do something about it!

United Way of King County is teaming up with a 12 local hunger relief organizations to raise $75,000 for projects that will start making a difference—right away.

YOU can help by supporting these projects with a donation at http://whythefork.org. Through April 14, all gifts will be matched dollar-for-dollar. That means that your gift will be doubled!

• Chicken Soup Brigade: Buy a van to deliver groceries to people who are sick or homebound.
• Clean Greens Farm and Market: Get more locally-farmed produce to families in the Central District
• Community Lunch on Capitol Hill: Serve 10,000 suppers to people going hungry
• Des Moines Area Food Bank: Deliver summer meals to low-income kids around Des Moines
• Downtown Food Bank: Help a food bank at Pike Place Market serve more struggling seniors
• Farms For Life: Get farm-fresh produce to people facing stresses like joblessness or domestic violence
• Food Lifeline: Get more fresh fruits and vegetables to hungry families in Seattle
• Issaquah Meals Program: Renovate a run-down kitchen that serves 700+ meals on the Eastside
• Meals on Wheels: Replace failing freezers
• Rainier Valley Food Bank: Remodel a tiny–yet extremely busy–food bank in Rainier Valley
• Somali Youth and Family Club: Make more culturally-appropriate food available to Somali refugee families
• South King County Food Banks: Update their technology so that they can serve more people

Please click here now to stick a fork in hunger! Give today, and tomorrow more people will eat. Thank you for helping end hunger in our community.

A food bank is not always the most pleasant place to be but the folks at Rainier Valley Food Bank are trying very hard to create a respectful environment for their guests and are looking for some musically inclined volunteers to help them achieve this goal. 

 They are looking for individuals or groups that can come in and either play a musical instrument or DJ at the food bank while clients are picking up food.  Musicians from all genres, especially world music, are encouraged to apply. Interested in volunteering? Find out more here.

Rainier Valley Food Bank is now the fourth busiest food bank in Seattle. With a staff of three, a band of loyal volunteers, and the mission of “healthy food for our hungry neighbors,” it feeds 10,000 people each month!

Click here to read the story.

You gave $10 (and more!), spread the word on Facebook and Twitter, and asked your friends, family and co-workers to come together to help people in need. Thanks to you, struggling families and individuals in King County will be able to put food on the table, keep the lights on and stay in their homes.

It was especially amazing to see the community respond to our call to help the Rainier Valley Food Bank, which was robbed Wednesday night. People donated $3,576, United Way of King County matched it, and a grand total of $7,152 went to the food bank just in time for Thanksgiving.

During times like these, it’s even more gratifying to witness such an outpouring of support from so many of you in our wonderful community. Thank you for giving!

Note: We heard from several of you that we went overboard with our Give 10 e-mails and that getting a United Way message in your inbox every day was a little much. We thank you for your feedback and promise in the future to keep our e-mail messages as un-spamlike as possible.

Unbelievably, this is the exact food bank that KING 5 highlighted last week in its Give 10/Tell 10 story. You can donate at http://www.uwkc.org/give10. Please spread the word to your friends, family members, co-workers, and the people in line with you at the coffee shop, etc.

Thank you very much to everyone who has already given! It would be great if you could continue to spread the word today because of the United Way match. Thanks!