TUKWILA — Everything in Robert Frederickson’s life was going fine. Until it wasn’t.
He was making decent money driving for Uber. He lived with his daughter in a nice house on tribal land in Skagit County. His son, who lived with his mother in Bellingham, stayed with them on weekends.
There was this one weird thing, he was thirsty all the time. He couldn’t get through a shift without a 7-Eleven Big Gulp. Usually he’d need a couple, sometimes Sprite, sometimes root beer.
“I just couldn’t figure out why I was always thirsty,” he said. It seemed foreboding, like a premonition. But it was just soda.
Frederickson, 56, was perched on that ragged edge of American life, where a stroke of bad luck — a lost job, a health crisis — can mean the difference between paying the bills and not, between making rent and not, between getting by and not.
Each year, The Seattle Times Fund for Those in Need raises money for charities that help children, families and older adults. Throughout the season, we tell the stories of people and organizations who make a difference in the lives of thousands, and the impact donors can have.
Calamity struck twice for Robert Frederickson, just a few weeks apart.
He lost his job. He was forced out of his home. He moved from Skagit County to White Center, where he and his daughter had to stay with his mother, sleeping on the couch and in the garage.
He got groceries at The Salvation Army food bank down the street.
He ended up staying for years, until he could get healthy, get another job, pay off his debts, get back on his feet. Grandchildren were born and moved into the cramped little house. His son still came from Bellingham to stay on the weekends. Throughout it all, the easy thing in his life, the thing he didn’t have to worry about when all else was uncertain, was the food bank.
No matter what, there would always be dinner.
“They use that word ‘godsend’ and a lot of times people don’t really consider what that means, but that’s what it felt like: a true gift of God, that I could go over there every day, didn’t have to worry about anybody eating,” Frederickson said. “And the one thing I noticed within weeks was my stress level was gone. Just that one thing of being able to know everybody’s going to eat.”
“No judgment”
The Salvation Army, one of 13 nonprofits supported by reader donations to The Seattle Times Fund for Those in Need, provides food, shelter, rehab and emergency services to more than 100,000 people a year in King County, according to its annual report.
Locally, the organization provided more than 160,000 nights of lodging in its shelters and residences. It helped 2,500 households pay the rent and nearly 1,000 people fleeing domestic violence to rebuild their lives.
Salvation Army food banks, like the one in White Center that Frederickson frequented, gave out more than 72,000 boxes of food in the past year, no registration, no qualifications needed.
“There’s no judgment, you know, it’s like I’m here because I’m in trouble and people in trouble should be helped, no matter how they got there,” Frederickson said. The fact that he used to be doing a lot better financially was of no consequence.
Bill Talbot, social services director for the Seattle White Center corps, said it typically serves about 100 people a day, five days a week from the food pantry. He and his staff drive a circuit of local grocery stores seven days a week, picking up dented cans, bruised produce, food nearing expiration.
“We don’t limit how many times you can come to our food pantry,” Talbot said. “People in Seattle, we have such a high cost of living that you can have a really good job and still struggle to make ends meet. Many of our people that come here are working two or three jobs and they still need to come get food.”
An accident, a diagnosis
Frederickson was driving with his daughter, returning home after work — him for Uber, her at a South Lake Union Starbucks — when the first disaster struck. They were sideswiped on Interstate 5. They were fine, but the car was all banged up. It still ran, but it was pretty ugly. And no longer usable for an Uber driver. So Frederickson lost his income.
A few weeks later, Frederickson was sitting at home when he got this strange feeling. Like he was going to pass out.
“And that if I do, I won’t wake up,” he recalled of the sensation. “It was like this blackout on the edge of my consciousness, trying to push its way in.”
He went outside to get some air. He had a friend drive him to the hospital in Anacortes.
The doctor told him his blood acid levels were so off the charts, he should be dead. He had diabetes, which had been undiagnosed.
One of the early symptoms of diabetes is thirst. Which Frederickson addressed with the Big Gulps. Which raised his blood sugar. Which made him thirstier. Which led to more Big Gulps. Which … et cetera, et cetera.
“I had had catastrophic health insurance; I canceled it because I was so healthy,” he said with a rueful smile.
He walked out of the hospital a couple of days later with a $12,000 medical bill and no way to pay it. He already owed $10,000 on the car that he couldn’t drive for Uber anymore.
“And I had all these other debts besides,” he said. With no income, he couldn’t pay his rent.
“The only place to go was my mother’s,” he said.
There were only two bedrooms, already occupied by his mother and his brother, both of whom had health problems. He took the couch, and his daughter took the van in the driveway until they got the garage fixed up.
Eventually he got a part-time night job cleaning an office building. He started doing deliveries for Postmates and DoorDash.
But money disappeared, as it does, to paying down debts, to child support for his son.
He kept going to the food bank. The groceries weren’t glamorous, but they were sustaining. There was always meat, canned vegetables; his granddaughter loved the apples they usually had.
“There was always ground turkey,” he said, laughing. “Apparently the general public doesn’t want nearly as much ground turkey as is available.”
He learned to “doctor it up” so his granddaughter would eat it, mix it in soup, fried rice or spaghetti.
“Let me tell you something,” he said. “If you hide it in stuff, kids will eat it.”
Frederickson got a new job a couple of years ago, driving limos for Bayview Limousine. He moved into his own apartment in Tukwila.
A member of the Alaska Tsimshian tribe, he’s written a book under his tribal storyteller name, Ravenspeaker.
Called “Building a Man,” it’s about, per the jacket copy, “the adventures and misadventures of a young American Indian as he fumbles his way toward answers.” It will be released by the end of the year.
He’s paid off his debts. He still goes to the food bank, but just once a week or so. To bring a box of food to his mom.