Newsroom

North Valley Food Bank’s Top 10 Moments of the Year:

1. Over 10,000 Ready-to-(H)eat meals: Our culinary team worked tirelessly to make fresh ready-to-(h)eat meals every week! This program ensures that all of our neighbors have access to nutrient-dense food and local produce no matter what their living situation is. You can learn more here.
2. Record Number of Customers Served: 2,064 different community members accessed our services this November, many of them weekly! As food insecurity remains at an all-time high, we continue to sign up more than 90 new families each month! This has been the busiest holiday season of our organization’s history. See more here.
3. Our First Harvest Fest and Pay-What-You-Can-Eatery: A highlight of the year was our Harvest Fest that celebrated our fall apple harvest to keep bears out of town, invited partner organizations and marked the launch of our pay-what-you-can eatery idea, where everyone was welcome to enjoy delicious meals made from seasonal ingredients.
4. Welcoming Kids to the Table: A strong focus of 2024 was to make the food bank a welcoming space for children and eliminate stigmas related to food insecurity. We started culinary and nutrition education for children and youth, partnered with youth centered organizations like CRYJ and the Kalispell Heart program, moved our kids snack program to a pick your own snack model, and added a mural in our kids corner to spark joyful food experiences. Thanks to increased support from the Backpack Assistance program, we expanded our kids snack program to Trego!
5. Whitefish Credit Union’s Mini Documentary: The Whitefish Credit Union published an inspiring member story about NVFB highlighting our work in rural NW Montana. If you missed it, watch it here. Since the story came out, we have delivered 250,000 pounds of food to our pantry partners!
6. Neighbors Helping Neighbors: We are celebrating you, our donors, volunteers and supporters! You have gone above and beyond to invest in food secure communities! I would like to give a special thank you to the generous members of our June’s Table Giving Society, a group of philanthropic leaders who give $10,000 or more to sustain our food bank programs!
7. Making our Community a Safer Place for Everyone: Behind the scenes, our team, board and volunteers spent countless hours on training and risk management. We participated in Mental Health First Aid, AED and First Aid, narcan and de-escalation trainings. With the increased amount of community members accessing our facilities, we installed an AED and in partnership with the Flathead harm reduction program, now have a public naloxone (narcan) distribution box in our bathroom. 
8. Abundant Local Produce for All: NVFB purchased 30,000 pounds of produce from our local farms this year. In addition, we harvested 11,542 pounds through our farm to food bank program thanks to our partners Wicked Good Produce, Raven Ridge Farm, Two Bear Farm, North Shore Farm, Mountain View Garden Farm, FVCC Farm and the Whitefish Community Garden! These partnerships ensure that everyone can eat the rainbow!
9. Team Work Makes Dream Work: For the first time, customers chose their holiday favorites from our store instead of receiving prepackaged holiday boxes. This was possible because of detailed planning by our amazing team and excellent implementation by our dedicated volunteers!
10. Personal Connections and Community Care: Every day, we build connections through personal conversations with our customers. Recently, one of our customers called me because she wanted to send a holiday card to June’s Kitchen (which is written on all labels of our ready-to-(h)eat meals in memory of our founder). This year marked the first time in her life she had to use the food bank due to multiple unforeseen circumstances. She shared how valuable the healthy AND delicious meals have been for during a time when she is facing health related challenges and couldn’t believe it when I told her that they were made in house right here at NVFB!