New food bank director impressed by generosity of community

Sitting in his office at the back of the Flathead Food Bank, Chris Sidmore excuses himself to take a phone call about an egg delivery.

“We’re getting eggs for a dollar per dozen,” Sidmore says after the call. “And it’s phenomenal because we’re literally watching them go off the shelf to people who need them.” 

It wasn’t that long ago that the executive director of the food bank was looking around to find  eggs and hoping to get the best price possible. 

“I think I called everybody in the state who has a chicken,” he said. “People are so generous. And I think it is important, especially as a nonprofit organization to run lean and be fiscally responsible. It’s important to make good decisions — and that comes not just from me, but the whole team of the staff and board of directors.”

Sidmore remembers his family getting a few meals from the food bank when he was young and in high school he put in volunteer hours there. Now, since August he’s been leading the organization.

“As a kid, I benefited from the food bank so it’s really come full circle,” he said. 

A graduate of Flathead High School in 2003, he went on to earn a business degree from the University of Montana. After college, he worked in Bolivia with an organization that provided microloans to women. 

“That’s where I kind of fell in love with working poverty alleviation and nonprofits,” he said. 

The premise he says in microfinance is that by providing people in poverty with access to capital through a loan and instruction about running a business, they can turn that into success. He gave an example of a group of women starting out with a business selling eggs from chickens and then that provides the profit to repay the loan and grow into shoes and then maybe that grows even further into paying for an oven to bake pastries to sell. 

“You just go around and you know, help people to really help themselves,” he said. “And it was just cool seeing these transformations as these women have been told, ‘You're not really that special’ and they’ve never been treated well. And then all of a sudden they’re making a little bit of money. They have the work ethic but didn’t have the capital.”

Following his work in South America, Sidmore returned to the States working as a project manager for a restoration company based in Oregon. The work had him traveling all around the country setting up wraparound services in areas impacted by a natural disaster.

While he enjoyed the work, taking the position at the food bank allowed him to be home in his own bed every night. 

Less than a handful of months into his new job, he’s already experienced the food bank handout about 800 meals for the Thanksgiving holiday and it's in the midst of preparing for the Christmas holiday. 

Sidmore often says he feels like he’s living in a Hallmark movie watching how generous the community is in donating to the food bank through checks, food and volunteer hours all so it can turn around to support those in need. The food bank has seen about 50,000 visits to its pantry so far this year and provides about 14,000 bags of food each year to students in 19 different schools. 

“My favorite thing around here is the sense of community,” he said. “People are grabbing my arm and saying thank you so much for the meal because without this I wouldn’t be having a Thanksgiving. I appreciate that, but it’s really the volunteers that deserve the thanks.”

Features Editor Heidi Desch may be reached at 758-4421 or hdesch@dailyinterlake.com.