GVFB NEWS

 LOCAL SUPPORT FOR LOCAL FAMILIES 

June 2023

Note from Jill

Dear Friend, 

I was recently asked if federal benefits are important. For perspective I will share our numbers, keeping in mind that federal dollars like unemployment, SNAP benefits, and tax credits for families with children were available at the height of the pandemic. We also know that our community became a haven for those looking for safe second households, in part contributing to skyrocketing housing prices. Below are the counts of number of households receiving food boxes for the month of May in the past 5 years at the Gallatin Valley Food Bank.

Thank you for caring for your community and its members. Times are challenging and we are seeing it daily. 

Gratefully,

Jill Holder, HRDC Food & Nutrition Director

New Friday Hours

Help us spread the word about Friday mornings!

We are now open for shopping on Fridays from 9 am to 12 pm. This will replace our former Friday afternoon hours. We hope this gives those who are busy in the afternoons the opportunity to shop! The Bread Room will be open from 8 am to 1 pm on Fridays.

Calling All Home Gardeners!

It's that time of year! We're looking for donations of home-grown produce from your gardens! These donations go straight to our store's shelves to help us provide fresh produce to those who are in need of nutritious food.

If you would like to donate any of your garden harvest, we will happily accept them! Please be sure to note the date the donations were harvested.

Food Drive Highlights

Stamp Out Hunger
May 13

For this year's Stamp Out Hunger, we were able to collect over 3,500 pounds of food from our Bozeman community for the people we serve. We're thankful for everyone who donated, our volunteers, and of course our local post office letter carriers for picking up every pound of food!

Operation Conquer Hunger
June 22

This year, Bozeman's own MTNTOUGH Fitness Lab partnered with MTN OPS' Operation Conquer Hunger locally to help us pack 8,500 packs of food for the Healthy KidsPack program!

Around 125 volunteers showed up to help us make sure no child in our community goes to bed hungry. This event is HUGE for the KidsPack program and will take us through around 10 weeks of food assistance this coming school year. It will also help the Montana Food Bank Network distribute food bags to kids across Montana, where 1 in 8 children are experiencing hunger today.

We are immensely grateful for the whole MTNTOUGH Fitness and MTN OPS team for showing up for our community's kids!

School's out and you know what that means! Kids Summer Lunch is in!

The Kids Summer Lunch program provides nutritious meals for kids and teens all summer long in a safe, fun, and sunshine-filled (usually) environment. This year we're serving at 7 sites around town every weekday.

July updates:

• Summer Lunch will not be operating on July 3 and July 4.
• Double meals every Friday at: Bozeman Public Library, GVFB, MSU Community House, Story Mill Park, and Walton Park
• Looking to volunteer for Summer Lunch? Sign up here or email summerlunch@thehrdc.org!

Garden Update

From our garden manager, Cally Ward:

Summer garden greetings friends of HRDC!

The Gardens are off to a beautiful start this season! We have had an unusually cool and wet spring which presents challenges for some crops and boons for others. We have enjoyed the rain as it is reducing our amount of effort spent watering. 

We are so grateful for the collaboration with many entities in Bozeman that make our growing efforts possible. All of our vegetable starts are lovingly grown for us by David Bombaur and Allison Rongalie at the MSU Plant Growth center as well as the staff at Towne's Harvest Garden, our compost partners are YES Compost and Happy Trash Can, and as always none of this would be possible without YOU our selfless volunteers. So far this season we have had over 800 volunteer hours in the garden!

Every growing season presents uniquely difficult challenges and we harvest the fruits of our diligence and perseverance. Growing food is a constant learning opportunity as is the work of cultivating a resourced community! With your help we can continue to bring equitable access to nutritious, delicious food to our beloved Bozeman! 

Visit this link to read Cally's full update on the gardens at GVFB, Story Mill Learning Garden, Warming Center ComUNITY garden, and Fork & Spoon. It's worth the read!

People of GVFB

For their full bios, visit our website!

Our Future

Market Place update:

Our new home changes daily. From all reports we are looking at an October move-in! It is inspiring to see a space that you have only dreamed about take shape. Walk-in coolers are in place so our staff won’t have to handload and unload every crate of milk, meat, or produce. Private intake rooms are built so families can share their burdens in privacy, not with a room full of people. The children's corner is taking shape to engage kids and make it so parents can have a little stress lifted while they get the services they need.

The Fork & Spoon and Kids Summer Lunch will have the production space they have needed and will have space to grow and put more homemade nutritious food into our Gallatin Valley Food Bank. No longer will there be daily trips to our offsite storage, and the Fork & Spoon can shop in our food bank by walking down the hall instead of driving a couple of miles across town!

Best of all is the customer experience—we can get them connected to all of our services under one roof. Now that is progress!!!!

Stay tuned for more pictures and updates coming soon!

Upcoming Events

All June: Pride Month! Pride Month is a time to celebrate, support, and advocate for the LGBTQ+ community. June is coming to an end, but it's not too late to celebrate locally this summer!

July 4: Happy 4th! We will be closed for Independence Day.

July 8: Bozeman Beach Benefit, a fun, all-day festival in support of Blueprint, HRDC's program for young adults experiencing housing instability. Join us for a day of art, live music, great local food, and much more!

July 14: Fundraiser for Headwaters Area Food Bank at the Three Forks Rodeo. Get your tickets here.

July 18: Guest Chef Night at Fork & Spoon: Linda Huang, The Hummingbird's Kitchen

July 26: Fork & Spoon will be a vendor at Bodhi Farms' Montana Farm to Table Food Festival. Get your tickets here.

August 10: GVFB Volunteer Party!

August 26: HRDC's The Boar (Blueprint Obstacle Adventure Race) 1k and 5k supporting and spreading awareness for youth experiencing homelessness in our community. Sign up here. 

August 31: Join the Headwaters Area Food Bank for grilling at the Farmers Market with local farm partner Good Mama Farm!

Belgrade Mobile Distribution dates: July 10, July 24. August 14, August 28

Save the date: September 4 - We will be closed for Labor Day.

HRDC Highlight

Gallatin Valley Food Bank is a program run by HRDC. HRDC is a nonprofit Community Action Agency serving Southwest Montana. HRDC has over forty programs across various service areas, including the Mighty Spork, a pay-what-you-can food truck and an extension of the Fork & Spoon.

The Mighty Spork

Do you know about the Mighty Spork food truck, a mobile version of the pay-what-you-can restaurant Fork & Spoon? It's the first of its kind in Montana and brings delicious food to different sites across the community.

Using the pay-what-you can model, the Mighty Spork is able to provide meals at low or no cost to families in need of food resources while simultaneously allowing community members who have the means to easily support the Spork's efforts.

Stay up-to-date on the Mighty Spork site schedule, special events, this season's menu, and all things Spork related at this link.