Anonymous donor buys land for Bigfork Food Pantry

Big changes are happening fast for the Bigfork Food Pantry.

It all started when a gentleman walked through the door on a distribution day and was appalled at the cramped conditions of the food bank.

 “He thought we had to have another space,” food pantry secretary/treasurer Sue Stuber said.

Despite moving into a larger space about five years ago, the pantry is cramped. The pantry distributes over 4,000 pounds of food every month, and its clientele keeps growing. The pantry now serves almost double the number of families it did when they moved into their current space.

“Every time we’re open we see a new family walk through that door,” Stuber said. “We can’t handle it where we are any more. There are a lot of changes that need to be made at our current location, but we can’t do it because we don’t own the property.”

The gentleman helped save the day. He bought land in Bigfork next to the pantry’s present location and donated it to the pantry. He even met with an architect and drew up plans for better building. For the pantry to own its own building, they needed to make another big change.

The Bigfork Food Pantry has long been a branch of the Flathead Food Bank, a nonprofit organization. In order for Bigfork Pantry to own its building, the group needed its own tax identification number, which mean they had to leave the Flathead Food Bank network.

“The next thing you know we have a board of directors, and we have wonderful people on our board of directors,” Stuber said. They met with the Flathead Food Bank network and made the split. The pantry is now incorporated and got their non-profit approval two days before Christmas, making them now an independent food bank.

All of this happened over the last two months, which are also traditionally the Bigfork food bank’s busiest.

“We can’t help but feel that it is happening this fast for a reason,” Stuber said. “We’re just so excited.”

The pantry is hoping to raise all of the money needed for the new building. The board hopes to have numbers on the cost of the new building after the New Year, when the property will be signed over.

The new building will be about twice the size of the current space, which is about 2,500 square feet. It will be designed specifically to fit the pantry’s needs, and will include a walk-in freezer, “which is the biggest blessing we could possibly have,” Stuber said. Freezer storage has been one of the major space issues for the pantry. Sometimes they are offered food from another pantry that has excess, but has to turn it down because there’s not enough room.

The new board of directors has five people, though Stuber said two are planning to serve on the board while the pantry works through the transition of becoming independent and building a new space.

 “Every one of them have bent over backwards and given us so much of their time,” Stuber said.

Columbia Falls, Lakeside and Polson also have pantries that operate independently. Stuber said it has been very helpful visiting those pantries and seeing what they have done as independent outlets to serve needy families. “It’s been an amazing journey to all of us,” she said. “I don’t even know how to thank people anymore. They have absolutely just blown our socks off.”

The anonymous gentleman initiated the momentum. “I don’t even know the word to describe this man,” Stuber said. “He just has the biggest heart, and he cares so much about the people here in Bigfork.”