How it started

Our partnership with the Pike Place Market Food bank began in a space that rarely feels remarkable: an email inbox.

Our founder spent weeks, assembling a list of food banks across Seattle and wrote to each one.

“I was not pitching Heartline as an expansion of services. I was trying to understand where existing systems encountered friction. The places where information becomes opaque, where people are expected to navigate health decisions without language, clarity, or time.

Most replies were brief. Some never arrived. I kept writing.”

Pike Place Market Food Bank remained on our list long after others were crossed off. Not because of the name, but because of the way the space functioned. There was a particular organization in their facilities that we could only admire, It was clear that efficiency and dignity were not competing priorities.

“I wanted Heartline to learn in that environment, not attempt to replicate it elsewhere”

When our first conversation finally happened, it was not oriented around what we could bring. It began with questions about what already operated well, what staff noticed but could not always solve, and what families consistently asked for without receiving.

Success stopped being measured by distribution counts or attendance numbers. It began to look more like alignment. Materials written in language people actually use. Resources that integrate into existing workflows instead of sitting on the margins. Support that does not rearrange the system, but strengthens its capacity to care.