A plane filled with food and supplies landed in Kivalina Monday afternoon. Canned foods, powdered juices, baby formula and paper towels…it’s the usual shipment of freight for Kivalina’s store, but it was held up a couple of days since there’s no store to house it all. Henrietta Adams has been the store manager for about a year, and after it burned to the ground Friday morning, she’s been working to set up a temporary shop in the smaller warehouse.
Yesterday was their first day of sale since the fire. Adams worked all day setting up shelves and manually pricing items. She said the supply is slowly being replenished, but it’s not enough for the 400 residents of the northwest Alaskan coastal community.
“We have some stuff to sell, we’re just not fully supplied,” said Adams.
And refilling stocks to their level before the fire could take a while. Even with regular shipments of food every week, there’s just nowhere big enough to store it all.
“Our shipments will probably be smaller because we’re working in a very small building compared to our big store,” said Adams. “But we’re going to do our best to continue doing orders and get freight regularly.”
With the loss of just one building, the community’s entire back-supply of food was devastated. But Colleen Swan with the volunteer fire department said it’s not just food. The store was Kivalina’s outlet for cashing checks, so Swan said residents are relying on relatives in Kotzebue to make those transactions. For those on the state’s Heating Assistance Program, their accounts were set up through the store’s cash registers. Swan said now that it’s gone, she’s seen how much the community depended on that one building.
But even with essential services complicated, Swan said everyone in Kivalina is being very patient. She’s heard residents over the VHF radio asking to buy or trade goods with others in town, and looking out for neighbors if they have certain items to spare.
Over at the school gym, a makeshift distribution center is established to collate donations flown in from surrounding communities. Adams said volunteers are hard at work making sure donated items are dispersed equitably.
“They divided some stuff up into households and delivered boxes to each household,” said Adams.
Even with this recent hardship, Swan said everyone is grateful for the generosity of their neighbors throughout the region. Over the weekend, Maniilaq sent in a large order from Anchorage, and Red Dog Mine contributed gas for all the volunteer vehicles. Swan said, right now, the items most in need are Carnation milk and size five and six diapers for babies, personal hygiene and paper products, condiments, rice, and basics to round out meals. All donations can be shipped to the City of Kivalina, free of charge on Bering Air.
