Kalispell couple competes to support nonprofit capital campaigns

In a battle to see who can help the community the most, a Kalispell couple serving on two separate nonprofit boards are using friendly rivalry to benefit fundraising capital campaigns to benefit food access and housing.

It’s clear how much fun Margit Baake and Todd Rogers have when they talk about the hours they spend volunteering and working for the boards of the Flathead Food Bank and Samaritan House, respectively. Ribbing here and teasing there, Baake and Rogers push each other’s buttons for the benefit of the organizations.

The couple met online six-and-a-half years ago and have been together ever since. This week they are in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, to tie the knot in a private ceremony.

“It’s going to be just the two of us. So, a very simple wedding, just the two of us on the beach,” Baake said.

The wedding and honeymoon will be a break from their work on their board’s capital campaigns, which are set to expand the scope of both organizations' work.

Baake was already in the world of nonprofits when she came into contact with Flathead Food Bank Executive Director Jamie Quinn and other board members who recruited her to join. She joined the food bank board two-and-a-half years ago and soon convinced Rogers to get involved with the Samaritan House board.

THE FOOD bank is working with the Montana Food Bank Network to be a hub for services in the region. Quinn said the organization has some recent experience doing this through a program enacted during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, where excess food from local farmers was distributed across northwest Montana.

After moving in 2021 to the Gateway Community Center, the food bank has contended with logistical challenges — working with coolers, freezers and what was available at the old mall, they are in need of better cold storage. Food is delivered on pallets, which means it has to be put away by hand.

“I can get up to 20,000 pounds of frozen product in one afternoon delivered. So, there's no turning around and leaving that for the day — that has to be completed, cannot stop that. So that's backbreaking work for volunteers and staff … and that's really what we're looking at, is making our space more efficient for ourselves,” Quinn said.

Upgrades to the facility would allow the organization to be a sort of distribution center for other smaller food banks in the region. The food bank is looking to raise $12 million for the renovation.

While the food bank is looking at renovating its building, the Samaritan House is making strides to break ground on a new one.

The expansion project includes 18 two-bedroom and three-bedroom family apartments and up to 27 single occupancy units, with more than half of those set aside as veterans’ housing. Samaritan House Executive Director Chris Krager said it’s a two-phase project, with phase one being about halfway funded and phase two receiving much of its funding from Veterans Affairs grants. Each phase is expected to cost between $6 and $7 million.

Rogers said compassion from both nonprofits “bleeds into the rest of the community” and is excited to watch the expansion get underway.

“It is literally boots on the ground digging holes, building structures, and it's going to have a great impact on this neighborhood and the community as a whole in a positive way to show that people might be homeless, but they're still people — and it's really about creating a sense of compassion for all of us, as a community,” Rogers said.

It’s not unusual for the two organizations to be connected in this way, leaders of both say they work together all the time — serving the same people in the community who are facing hardships.

Quinn said it’s Krager who will provide housing for the same people she sees struggle with food insecurity.

“So, pretty much everybody that Chris sees has already come to us at that point in time, because we're the No. 1 agency that's going to help to keep people in their homes in hopes that they're not going to wind up at his doorstep. If we can cut that food costs for them, hopefully, then they can maintain that rent,” Quinn said.

WHEN THE FairBridge Inn, Suites & Outlaw Convention Center closed its doors to 100 tenants in January of 2022, the nonprofits joined forces to help ease the fallout. Quinn said the food bank gathered extra supplies needed for the Samaritan House to absorb people who became homeless after the hotel evicted them.

“It comes up periodically that we will have a time where there's a need for greater collaboration, and that's amazing to see. You know, people just generously call saying ‘what do you need?’ And that's how we make it,” Krager said.

There’s a collaborative spirit between Krager and Quinn and their organizations, but the competition comes back into play when Baake and Rogers start discussing reaching their respective goals.

“You two (Chris and Jamie) are all Kumbaya. Behind closed doors, me and Todd are like, ‘Guess who we got? Guess who we had come to talk to today?’ And then one time, he's like, ‘I need that guy's contact info,’ and I was like, ‘no you don’t!’” Baake laughed.

Baake was recently appointed as the head of the food bank’s capital campaign committee, which Rogers said has “added fuel to his fire" for the Samaritan House campaign.

Though, he’s not entirely confident he can beat his fiance’s fundraising skills.

“Margit's gonna win, but I'm gonna give it a good shot. Because she is persistent … and that organization is so fortunate to have her as part of that committee. When they made that announcement, I was like, ‘oh, that's an easy one. That's a victory. That's huge,’ So, I have no doubt they're going to do it,” Rogers said.

More information about the Flathead Food Bank can be found on their website https://flatheadfoodbank.org and more information about the Samaritan House can be found on their website samaritanhousemt.com.

Reporter Taylor Inman can be reached at 406-758-4433 or by emailing tinman@dailyinterlake.com.