Need is great for food, shelter
<p>Volunteer Jerry Quinn, right, hands out turkeys from the back of his pickup truck Tuesday afternoon at the North Valley Food Bank in Whitefish. Families in need were given a turkey along with a box full of milk, bread, coffee, cookies and more. The food bank helped more than 350 families during its Thanksgiving food distribution.</p>
<p>Volunteer Elder Mudge unloads donated turkeys into the back of a pickup truck Tuesday afternoon at the North Valley Food Bank in Whitefish.</p>
<p>Frozen turkeys sit in the bed of a pickup truck waiting to be given away Tuesday afternoon at the North Valley Food Bank in Whitefish.</p>
<p>Tickets were given out to claim turkeys being given to families in need Tuesday afternoon at the North Valley Food Bank in Whitefish.</p>
Charitable groups in the Flathead Valley say they are seeing higher demand for their help this Thanksgiving.
Volunteers with the Flathead Food Bank in Kalispell were kept busy with a Thanksgiving food distribution on Monday.
Some 1,025 families in Kalispell signed up for a meal, with another 100 in Bigfork and Martin City and 50 in Marion and Evergreen.
“We’re up about 300 families from last year,” director Lori Botkin said of this year’s demand for help.
“The situation is people are still hurting and it doesn’t appear to be getting any better from where I see it.”
Donations have been coming in a little slower than last year, but were strong enough to keep the food bank from running out of turkey, chicken or other food this Thanksgiving.
Just as the food bank ran out of pumpkin pie mix Monday, someone dropped off a batch of pumpkin pies. “The community has been great,” Botkin said.
Starting as soon as next week, the focus will switch over to Christmas food baskets. The food bank will need turkeys and hams and has a vital need for more volunteers to help stock and sort food.
In Whitefish, the North Valley Food Bank was busy on Tuesday with its annual Thanksgiving food distribution.
The food bank made about 50 home deliveries for senior citizens and the disabled and handed out about 350 boxes of food.
“It looks like it’s a bit higher this year already,” Director June Munski-Feenan said of the demand for food.
A line formed out front as the food bank handed out boxes of food, some as heavy as 50 pounds for large families.
Munski-Feenan said next year she hopes to have a canopy out front for the people stuck waiting outside.
“We’re trying to get a new building and hope to start next year. I hate to see them out there shivering in the snow or rain.”
Donations have been coming in strong. The food bank got a moose, an elk and two deer last week.
“We go after everything we can,” Munski-Feenan said.
“We get roadkill and confiscated animals and the hunters bring stuff in. Maybe the wife says, ‘Don’t you dare go bringing another old deer or elk in.’ That helps us a lot, and the men get out there to hunt.”
In the midst of Tuesday’s busy distribution, a string of young school children came in to make their own donations. “That was a good time for them to come in and see what happens,” Munski-Feenan said.
In Kalispell, the volunteer Social Corners organization at St. Matthew’s Parish has been the busiest it’s ever been, pastoral assistant Rod Stell said.
“This is the busiest year we’ve ever had,” he said of demand for the group’s charity services.
Started 15 years ago, Social Concerns offers food and financial and temporary assistance through the generous donations of parishioners, businesses and private individuals.
The group also has been trying to match unemployed people who are able and willing to work with part-time jobs in the community, to help keep them earning a paycheck.
“Pretty much every night we’ve got people in one, two or three hotels,” Stell said of the demand for shelter.
With winter weather here in the valley, that temporary shelter assistance can be a blessing. The Samaritan House homeless shelter in Kalispell has been operating at near capacity.
“We are waiting on one family to come in then we only have one unit left,” Cary Krager said Tuesday afternoon.
The shelter can house about 45 people and had 36 occupants already with the family on its way.
“We’re always full for Thanksgiving time,” Krager said. “We’re full all the time for these last two years.”
Krager suspects the shelter’s high occupancy rate is a function of what remains a lackluster economy. Those same hardships also are hitting the charity groups that strive to help people in need, she said.
“I think people are running out of options. Even the charitable programs are running out of money,” Krager said. She added that the shelter can always use food, warm coats, gloves and boots — “particularly boots” — this time of year.
To contact any of these organizations, call Flathead Food Bank, 752-3663; North Valley Food Bank, 862-5863; St. Matthew’s Church, 752-6788; or Samaritan House, 257-5801.
Reporter Tom Lotshaw may be reached at 758-4483 or by email at tlotshaw@dailyinterlake.com.