SNOHOMISH — Elizabeth Durand gave out her famous hugs to any of her food bank clients who’d accept Tuesday, Nov. 21. It was her day to say goodbye after 14 years of being the director of the Snohomish Community Food Bank.
Durand is exiting to take a new course. University course, that is.
Genealogy has always held her interest. She has a knack for digging up information, she said. So she’s going to do something with these skills by taking full-time classes to learn forensic genealogy -- a relatively new field that combines DNA testing with building out family trees to get to the possible root of solving missing persons cases and cold cases. The technology has been used locally to crack one dozen cases of long-unidentified people in Snohomish County, including solving cold case homicides, by researching distant relatives.
It’s the impactful stuff Durand said she hopes to accomplish. To solve the identity of a person would “help a family get closure” or help catch a bad guy, she said.
“It’s almost like putting together a puzzle, and I love putting together the pieces,” Durand said.
Leaving the food bank is a bittersweet moment, Durand said, but it’s time.
Her gratitude for the Snohomish community is enormous.
“Snohomish makes it happen,” Durand said, and she could always count on contacts to step in when the food bank had a big ask.
Durand transformed the food bank’s operations. In her first year, she changed coming to a food bank into a shopping experience where clients picked out what they wanted versus getting a preset bag.
In her time, she established pre-packs for homeless individuals, helped start the Snohomish Cold Weather Shelter, and worked together to establish the summer Kids Cafe meal program. The food bank got a new freezer, more volunteers and set up a shuttle to transport people to the food bank.
“It was like a startup,” Durand said.
She’s a doer who cares, said Rosemary Randall, who helps at the Snohomish Community Kitchen that holds twice-weekly free community dinners.
But what people may not know is Durand uses her network to help direct food and resources where it is needed to prevent waste. For example, when coronavirus pandemic restrictions limited the kitchen to giving to-go sandwiches and light meals, its bread was excess food bank stock.
They also arranged the shuttle to give people rides to the Kitchen to eat, and coordinated to have food bank families pick up toys in the Fire District 4 headquarters through the Christmas House nonprofit.
“She can make things happen — a doer and networker,” Randall said.
Durand also had a stint leading the county’s food bank coalition, which she stepped away from in June.
Word leaked of her departure over the past few weeks and Durand said she’s been getting raftloads of letters and emails.
Durand took over for Daryl Bertholet, a well-liked food bank director who died suddenly in the summer of 2009.
