Store effort helps fund cancer work

The Safeway stores and Whitefish and Polson team up twice a year to collect donations for breast and cervical and prostate cancer research. Every October the stores accept donations from their employees and from their customers at checkout.

Whitefish store manager Randy Beebee also sampled some of his store bakery's finest meringue pies by taking several in the face to raise more money. "Safeway is proud of what we do as a company to raise cancer awareness and help fund research and preventive treatment, and we especially want to thank our community for its ongoing support," he said.

About $5,800 was donated recently to the Flathead City-County Health Department toward the Montana Breast and Cervical Health Program, according to Director Sally Kay Bertelsen. That money will go directly to pay for mammograms and pap smears for women in the area.

The local effort is part of a national program funded by the Centers for Disease Control. "The great thing about this fund-raiser is that the money stays here. Those who gave are directly benefiting women right here in their own community," Bertelsen said. "Even though the community is growing, this kind of generosity makes it still feel like a small community."

At least 500 women ages 50 to 64 will be screened.

For more information about the Montana Breast and Cervical Health Program call Bertelsen at 751-8162.

Peggy Reichardt got a lift recently when someone returned the handbag she left at Super 1 Foods in Kalispell. Reichardt had left it her cart, complete with her cell phone and digital camera. When she returned to the store a half hour later, she found that an unidentified Good Samaritan had returned the purse and all its contents.

One of the Evergreen Food Bank's volunteers, Leonard Blanc, wants the community to know about Super 1's weekly donations to the pantry. Every Tuesday two pickups arrive at the store's back door and are loaded with produce, dairy products and bakery goods for the pantry.

Those at the Evergreen Food Bank thank Super 1 for generosity throughout the year.

The American Legion Post 137 was instrumental in arranging assistance for a family of four whose husband and father is on active duty in Iraq.

Darrissa Cowden, wife of SSG Kenneth Cowden, wrote to thank the Kalispell Post for helping them when their old furnace became inoperable. They were able to provide the family with an emergency $1,300 grant through the National Americanism and Children and Youth Division of the American Legion and also arranged for electric heaters for the home until a new furnace could be bought.

Carson Brothers installed the furnace at cost with donated labor.