Food bank advocate dies at 86

June Munski-Feenan, 86, the petite and persistent redhead who shepherded North Valley Food Bank in Whitefish since its humble beginnings, died Jan. 21 of cancer.

Her death came less than two months after the new North Valley Food Bank opened in early December. One of the most successful independent food banks in the state, it had long outgrown its quarters in a small old house on First Street in downtown Whitefish.

Most of the Whitefish community was not aware she had been battling cancer for more than two years. She had refused medical treatment because she wanted to pour every ounce of energy into getting the new facility built, according to Dennis Theissen, acting president of North Valley Food Bank and Munski-Feenan’s son-in-law.

A lifelong valley resident, Munski-Feenan grew up on a farm near Columbia Falls in a family with three sisters and five brothers. To keep food on their large table, her family farmed and her father also worked at Stoltze Land & Lumber Co.

After graduating from Columbia Falls High School, she married her first husband, Walt Munski. While raising two daughters in Whitefish, she attended a business college in Kalispell, then took dental assistant courses in Great Falls.

For 17 years she assisted Dr. John Atchinson, a local dentist, until her mother got sick and moved into the Munskis’ home. Over the years, Munski-Feenan adopted Whitefish as her hometown.

Munski-Feenan said she weathered trying personal times while managing the growing food bank. She took care of four terminally ill relatives, including her first husband, Walt, who died from Lou Gehrig’s disease. A few years later she married Bob Feenan, a friend from childhood.

“I don’t know how I was so lucky to get two good husbands,” she said during a 2001 interview.

Munski-Feenan’s involvement with feeding the hungry began in the late 1970s. With no storage space for contributions, she stacked more than 100 loaves of bread under her Christmas tree to feed the hungry over the holidays. A snow bank in her backyard became a makeshift cooler for jugs of milk. From those first loaves of bread, she grew an organization that has fed tens of thousands over the years.

She was a consummate networker, tirelessly dedicated to feeding the hungry. She was a penny-pincher who never took a paycheck because it literally would have taken food out of hungry people’s mouths, she ardently maintained.

Munski-Feenan was honored by the Whitefish Community Foundation in 2008 with the Great Fish Award for her significant contributions to bettering the Whitefish community. During her acceptance speech, she told the audience, “Eighty-one years ago, God dropped off a little girl at a ranch near the State Mill north of the Blue Moon, and I’ve been giving them heck ever since.”

The Whitefish Rotary Club gave its Spirit of Whitefish award to Munski-Feenan in 2010. The Whitefish Chamber of Commerce honored Munski-Feenan for her lifetime contribution to the community in 2013.

Munski-Feenan had been in hospice care for the past few weeks. Her last appearance at the North Valley Food Bank was during its grand opening on Dec. 5.

A funeral mass for Munski-Feenan will be held at St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Whitefish on Saturday, Feb. 1, at 11 a.m. A reception will follow at the Whitefish Moose Lodge.