Heart of Federal Way revealed in response to free pantry

Published 6:00 am Thursday, November 27, 2025

When Tim Moen first posted a photo of his free pantry on a community Facebook group on Nov. 7, he wasn’t expecting the response he got.

“I wasn’t expecting anybody else to want to help. I just assumed people would just swing by, pick up what they needed, and it would just be on me,” Tim said, who started the pantry with help from his daughter Zoey Moen.

Instead, people showed up in a big way, both to access the food and with an outpouring of cash and food donations. Their free pantry is located at 520 S. 317th St. in Federal Way.

The pantry consists of a simple wooden structure built by Tim, several large waterproof bins filled with dry goods and meal-in-a bag kits, and a mini fridge stocked with half gallons of milk and a half-dozen packages of eggs.

This response quickly pushed Zoey and Tim into management roles, responding to a flood of messages asking for help and offering support, coordinating transportation for people and heading to the grocery store as soon as they received new donations.

At one point, Tim said in the time it took to grab more items from his house to stock one empty bin, the bin he had just stocked was already empty.

For their work in feeding the community, Tim Moen and Zoey Moen are the Mirror’s Hometown Heroes for November 2025.

‘I’ve been in that situation’

A few weeks in, the donations and the food pickups are slowing down and the two have decided they also need to find a balance with the project. They will now only shop once a week and can’t respond to messages asking for live updates on pantry stock.

This pantry is one of many that individuals and businesses in Federal Way have created in response to community needs. Many have also rallied to raise funds and food donations for local food banks.

Tim told the Mirror that he was inspired by his own experience of food insecurity.

“I’ve been in that situation, and was turned down by the food bank once before, and I remember what that felt like, and I felt I needed to help out the best I could,” Tim said.

He first saw the idea of building some sort of free pantry from a video on social media, and felt it was the most direct way he could help. He already had a small refrigerator on his porch that he kept full of snacks and drinks for delivery drivers, so he added that to bins he purchased and put it all together on a shelf he built.

The community response was very emotional for the dad and daughter team, Tim shared.

“We saw people coming to donate and drop stuff off, people sending money, people so thankful for the help, the diversity of the community and how they each gave what they needed, and how that was appreciated by their culture,” Tim said.

This diversity in the community helped them add items to their shelves that they hadn’t thought of, like tortillas and Asian soup packets, and even items like laundry detergent.

While many people told them that they would need to lock up the bins at night and protect the pantry from thieves, they told the Mirror that this wasn’t an issue.

In general, people have been considerate and generous in every way. In multiple cases, they saw those who got help from the pantry turn around to pay it forward as soon as they were able, and shared what little they had.

One single mother with a baby and no access to transportation reached out to Tim and Zoey asking for help. Zoey took her a bag of food, some milk and the formula.

Later she was able to get to a food bank and received a bag of onions that was more than she could eat, and she brought the extra back to the free pantry to pay it forward to someone else.

Another person who was helped by the pantry brought some donations as soon as she had the relief of receiving her SNAP benefits.

One woman told Tim and Zoey that she and her family were living off of the food from their food pantry, and even she only took a small bag of items, they said.

While the overwhelming community response was heartwarming and welcomed, Tim and Zoey said that at first the pantry became a time-consuming project.

Tim was able to take some time off work in between projects, but now has to return to work, and Zoey also works full time with a long commute to North Seattle.

The tasks of responding to messages and comments to coordinate donations and pickups, the nonstop need to refill the pantry, and the time spent shopping, sorting and storing the food required a big investment of time and energy.

After a few weeks, Tim and Zoey realized it wasn’t sustainable to continue at the pace they were going, and with the continuation of SNAP benefits and an end to the government shutdown, they felt they could scale back.

“It just got to be too crazy and we couldn’t keep up with our daily lives,” Zoey said, adding that they found a way to find balance and still be able to help.

Zoey’s advice to those who might want to follow their lead: “Be mindful that you can only do what you can … you don’t need to push yourself to do more.”

Now they plan to shop for the pantry once a week. They posted an update on Facebook that they won’t be able to give live updates on the pantry stock anymore, but still welcome donations and will keep the pantry going for as long as the community can sustain it and needs it.