Food bank feeds budget with thrift store

After suffering massive funding cuts in the state legislative session, the Flathead Food Bank cooked up a plan to help itself with Second Helpings, a thrift store scheduled to open in September.

Lori Botkin, food bank executive director, said this year’s legislative session was rough, with legislators saying no to many programs including those providing basic sustenance to food banks across Montana.

“One thing they said no to was hungry families,” Botkin said. “We lost 25,000 pounds of food a month. That’s huge.”

Montana Food Bank Network was denied $2 million. Botkin said that organization used group purchasing power to buy boxed and canned goods, including protein foods such as chili, at wholesale prices for food banks statewide.

“That was 40 percent of our food,” she said.

Botkin said those cuts could not have come at a worse time because demand at the Flathead Food Bank is up by 50 percent due to widespread and long-term unemployment.

In November 2010, families picked up 100,000 pounds of food, breaking all previous records.

“We have not gone under that [level] since,” she said.

Last year, the food bank gave out over a million pounds of food to more than 50,000 people. The total was up 400,000 pounds from the year before.

Botkin and the Flathead Food Bank board of directors anguished over what to do with so many more mouths to feed and supplies shrinking.

“We’ve pushed our donors as hard as we can,” she said. “They can only do so much.”

The answer was to raise the money themselves by opening a thrift store. Botkin studied some test marketing and found the operation would pay for itself while bridging the gap left by cuts in state and federal dollars.

“Our goals are quite extensive,” she said. “ Our No. 1 goal is ongoing sustainability for the food bank.”

Other goals include developing new employment opportunities as well as new volunteer positions. Botkin said the food bank is working with a variety of groups to solicit volunteers to help at the thrift store.

They got started by coming up with an appropriate name — Second Helpings — then found a space.

“We were lucky enough to get the old Corral West space right next to us,” she said.

The space has 11,000 square feet.

With startup seed money from a grant, the food bank hired two people for the thrift store with plans to add two more in the near future. A request for donations of used clothing, small electronics, appliances, home decor and furnishings, collectibles, sporting goods and books brought in a good supply to start organizing.

“You wouldn’t believe what a positive response this has gotten,” Botkin said. “A lot of our customers used to be donors. They can’t afford to give [money] now but they can donate used clothing and have other ways to help.”

Even torn or stained clothing is acceptable. Botkin said. Second Helpings has an outlet that will buy bales of those items to recycle either as clothing to poor countries or to recycle into other items like carpet padding.

“They make all kinds of products,” she said.

In an effort to draw in a younger age shopper, Second Helpings plans to offer teenagers credits in their teen boutique for donating gently used in-style clothing.

“We will have some really hip stuff in there,” Botkin said. “We’ll also be encouraging young people to recycle.”

According to its brochure, Second Helpings also will recycle paper, cardboard, metals and glass.

She wants appliances either working or broken. The thrift store has made an arrangement with a local small-repair technician who will fix the appliances, then sell them and split the profit with the food bank.

Botkin had good news for thrift-store shoppers. Second Helpings wants to offer goods at lower prices than found at similar shops in town to encourage bulk buying.

Plans call for the store to have one price for each class of items such as jeans. That way, she said people will find some outstanding bargains.

“We’ll have some really great prices,” she said.

Although called Second Helpings, the thrift store will operate as part of the Flathead Food Bank. As a qualified nonprofit corporation, all donations are tax-deductible.

Botkin points out that all the dollars shoppers spend in the thrift store stay in the Flathead Valley to create a sustainable source of money for the food bank.

“It’s to help feed families in the Flathead,” she said. “We’re pretty darned excited.”

Reporter Candace Chase may be reached at 758-4436 or by email at cchase@dailyinterlake.com.