Valley Community Emergency Food Bank Keeps Growing

The Valley Community Emergency Food Bank has been helping out county residents for decades, the first 50 years out of the county shop building and since 2002 at it’s current location, 1010 1st Ave. N. Over the years, the current location, which is an older house in a residential neighborhood, has been showing its age while the needs of the county continue to increase causing the nonprofit to grow out of their space.

“This is a converted, old two bedroom house. You can see that it’s worked in the past. It’s served us well for 20 years, but we’re at the point where we don’t have any place to fill bags,” stated board member Patrick Gilchrist. The bags are grocery bags that are provided to the community by the Food Bank on distribution day, the third Tuesday of each month. A typical bag includes cans of fruit, cans of vegetables, rice, ravioli, hamburger helper, boxed potatoes, cereal, meat, bread and milk, and costs $39 each with a typical distribution day cost of $7,406. The food bank’s mission is to provide a supplemental source of food and enough is provided for a week’s worth of meals. However emergency assistance is handled on an as needed basis.

When touring the inside of the building, every square inch of the house is utilized for storage of the food between distribution days, from refrigerators to freezers to storage shelves to hold the non-perishable items. Even the house’s bathroom has storage shelves in it, and the bathtub is utilized as storage for toiletry items such as toilet paper and Kleenex.

Utilizing every little bit of space, the Food Bank is currently outgrowing their place and the house is showing its age with structural issues. The board, comprised of Brenda Tarum, Gilchrist, Mary Hughes, Kathy Smith, Jory Wall, Jeff Remus and Hollie Young, are all volunteers. As they see the needs continuously increase, they are beginning to fundraise and apply for grants to secure a long-term home. Though recent grants have been awarded to the Food Bank, they could not be utilized for building or food, so donation bins have been purchased to be placed throughout the community. “There are drop off boxes for donations at Frances Mahon Deaconess Hospital, all three of the Glasgow schools, Reynolds, Albertsons, First Lutheran Church, Glasgow Evangelical Church and the Catholic Churches,” explained Smith. They are also looking at applying for the Community Development Block Grant to help fund a new home. “There’s going to be a necessary match portion and that’s where the donations come in, to try and build a Capital Improvement Fund,” said Gilchrist.

In addition to donations provided by the communities in which they serve, the Food Bank also receives food from the Montana Food Bank Network on a monthly basis but it’s not always known ahead of time what will be delivered. The board members and volunteers then need to figure out a way to supplement in order to deliver a complete bag on distribution day. “It may be something really useful, like two flats of spaghetti sauce....some of the things they do give doesn’t flow with the rest. Like five spare ribs that are cubed. How do you spread that out?” explained Smith. “We may get a random flat, double box, of corn. There’s a few items each month, we don’t necessarily know and we have to supplement to match that.” In addition, Albertsons and Reynolds and even generous individuals have provided donations to allow the supplementation of what is delivered to allow the assistance of others.

Over the past 12 months, they have seen a significant increase in community needs with the total number of households served increasing from 49 percent from 2019 to 2022. The number of children showed the highest increase, 92 percent, from 2021 to 2022, and the number of adults increased 40 percent and seniors 35 percent. Last year, a record number of 250 applications were completed, which included 526 people. “It’s the Valley Community Emergency Food Bank. There are no tax dollars that come in. There’s some grants that come down from the government, but it’s really all about donations,” stressed Gilchrist.

Recently the Food Bank received two generous donations, one in the amount of $300 from the Sons of American Legion and $300 from the American Legion Valley Post 41. Roubie Younkin from the Valley County Extension Office has also organized “Grow A Row” in Valley County, which is a national program for gardeners who wish to plan, pick and provide fresh produce to those in need. Many in the area have planted an extra row in their gardens to donate, and during the August distribution day, fresh beets, squash and tomatoes were handed out.

All donations, whether it’s to food or the building, are tax deductible and may be mailed to Valley Community Emergency Food Bank, PO Box 63, Glasgow MT 59230. Several churches also allow the donation to be earmarked to the Food Bank. “We’re trying our best to make sure, when donations are given, we’re respecting people’s wishes of where the funds go to,” stated Gilchrist. “The Valley Community Food Bank could not make it without generous support of local business, specifically Reynolds and Albertsons, volunteers and the community.”