It all started when the four smoothly running all-volunteer food banks hired an outsider with no personnel skills as executive director for $75,000 a year. Patricia Hennessy has wreaked havoc whereever she has gone, starting with the firing of the volunteer managers of the Tri Area and Quilcene Food Banks.

Almost 20 volunteers have quit due to her mismanagement and verbal abuse of volunteers. Five volunteers have been “fired.”

On June 25 she fired two more hard-working and committed volunteers at the Tri Area Food Bank. Let me speak of one: Hannah Stai. I worked with Hannah at the food bank and found her to be an ideal coworker — friendly, cooperative, always ready to help with any job that needed doing, respectful of others and committed to the values and goals of the organization. She even used her First Aid training to assist an injured volunteer and was bruskly pulled away by Hennessy, with the executive director saying, “I’ll handle that!” Hennessy, in fact, didn’t handle the injury, and Hannah drove the injured volunteer to the ER.

When Hannah asked why she was being removed from her volunteer position, Hennessy gave her no reason and said she “had to get off the property or she’d have me arrested.” Hannah who suffers from fainting spells, due to a serious injury, asked for a few moments to sit in her car and calm herself because it was unsafe for her to drive at that moment. She was told by Hennessy to leave immediately or be arrested.      

The language Hennessy used in the termination letter, that Hannah was “not committed to creating a safe, respectful, and inclusive environment” is total fabrication on the part of Hennessy, and is in fact boilerplate language she then used to fire the next volunteer at the Quilcene Food Bank.

Another time Hennessy pulled up and parked right where volunteers were sorting food for distribution. They asked her kindly if she could park somewhere else as they needed the space. She replied, “I will park anywhere I want to!”

The problem at our food banks is the new, highly paid executive director, not, the dedicated, hardworking volunteers.

G. Wachter