KALISPELL – A Flathead car dealership contributed $50 to Flathead Food Bank‘s Backpack Program for Kids for every car sold in August.
The program was recently presented with a check for $21,000 to go toward the program which serves about 400 kids each week. Inside the bags are nutrious items like cereal, milk and juice.”
The program operates in schools during the school year and send bags of food home with children to help keep them going.
“Food is to important to people’s lives to be successful. We want people to come in and see and and we want to serve them.,” Flathead Food Bank Executive Director Jamie Quinn said.
Quinn says the bank serves more than 7,500 families a year. She says the Backpack Program is different than others because its children and more are impacted in the Valley than can be imagined.
“In total we have got 19 schools a week that we are delivering 400 bags to. They’re coming in as kids in need [are] identified by their teachers and school administration as unfortunately showing some signs of needing some additional food support,” Quinn explained.
“A lot of these kids don’t have a say in the situation that they’re in. If you are an adult you have a little more decision making that you can do to chane your life these are little kids stuck in a bad situation. So, it’s critical to come together to support these kids that are hungry,” said Kalispell Ford, Volkswagon and Toyota Marketing director Les Moore.
“Without that, we would not be able to feed the kids that we do,” Quinn said.
Around 1,600 bags each month are distributed each to children through middle school through the Backpack Program.
-Nicole Miller reporting for MTN News
