Nucor Steel, West Seattle's own steel manufacturing plant, has for some time been dedicated to helping the hungry and disadvantaged in West Seattle. On Friday Dec. 20 they came through again with donations of food and cash to both Providence Mt. St. Vincent and the West Seattle Food Bank.

"What they do is every year, the employees of Nucor have a food drive for the holidays," said Food Bank Director of Operations Steven Curry. "Not only do they have a food drive, they have a financial drive. We've been given upward of $15,000 to $20,000 and 3000 lbs of food in the past."

This year Nucor gave the Foodbank a check for $20,900 and 2740lbs of food.
The portion from the employees was $5164.12 which Nucor matched for $14,845.80. "It's one of the better donations we get all year," Curry said.

The Food Bank is always hoping to help the hungry in our area and Curry explained their main needs right now. "Proteins are always big, peanut butter, canned tuna, canned chicken. Baby items are still big because we are doing a lot of work to make sure we provide supplemental food for children and any kind of canned items. Anything is good."

They get help from other companies too. Curry mentioned Safeway with their $10 in-store bag purchase."That has been wonderful. Last year in that program alone, Safeway accumulated 30,000 lbs of food for us. I think this year it will be more.

At Providence Mt. St. Vincent (the Mount) the company donated $2500 in cash to help approximately 160 of the 500 employees with extended families be able to provide a special holiday meal. The company and its employees also took part in a Giving Tree at the Mount to help some of their employees and specially selected residents with some added holiday cheer.

Matt Lyons, General Manager and Walter Reese of Nucor Steel presented the check to Swain.

Executive Dir. of the Providence Mt. St. Vincent Foundation Molly Swain pointed out that The Mount and Nucor have a shared steel heritage. William Piggott who founded the Seattle Steel Company in 1903 which later became PACCAR was responsible for the construction of the building they are in today.