Donations give food bank, backpack program, a big boost

The Columbia Falls Food Bank and the Backpack program for local kids both recently benefited from donations.

The Columbia Falls Rotary recently donated $3,000 to Farm Hands Nourish the Flathead, which runs the Backpack program. The donation includes $1,500 from member donations and $1,500 from the club.

Separately, Mann Mortgage also recently donated $2,500 to local food banks, including $500 to the Columbia Falls Food Bank.

Farm Hands for the Flathead Director Gretchen Boyer said the donation came at a great time. The Backpack program, which gives kids and their families food over the weekend, recently went from about 250 bags of food a week to 700, Boyer said.

Each bag costs about $6 apiece to put together and includes fresh fruit.

“The Rotary donation was awesome,” she said.

The program is also designed to help local farmers sell their produce and it also helps folks with SNAP benefits, which assists low-income folks with food purchases. Right now people on SNAP can double their purchasing power at local farmers’ markets, which are ramping up this month.

The Farms Hand program is funded through a patchwork of grants and private donations. One donor recently bought the program a van, Boyer said. It operates out of a former classroom at Glacier Gateway School.

To learn more or to support its mission, visit https://nourishtheflathead.org/home/

Mann Mortgage has also set up a GoFundMe page to raise additional funds for Food Banks at: https://www.gofundme.com/f/mann-mortgage-food-bank-donation.

All proceeds from the Mann Mortgage effort go directly to the food banks.