Essential Eats Distributors provides rural and indigenous populations in Montana with things that would be tough to get in these remote areas. They are at it again with there bike program but this year with some new recipients.
Essential Eats Distributors has been doing its bikes for the Blackfeet drive for three years, bringing bikes to extremely rural indigenous populations.
This year the program expanded to include the Crow people and the town of Lodge Grass in Eastern Montana.
"We look out for our youth and their well being and just thinking of a way in this time to keep them healthy and keep them fit we thought why don’t we get them bikes," Essential Eats Distributors board member, Samuel Enemy-Hunter said about the need for the program in his hometown. "We come from an area that is very impoverished and a lot of families cant afford bikes,"
The COVID pandemic certainly didn’t help the program this year and its not such an easy thing to pull off to begin with.
"It’s a big partnership moving bikes all over the state and getting mechanics into town and getting permission from the counsel and the schools to get things done," said founder Sara Wecker. "We were lucky to find the Spring Rotary here in town to help finish assembling our bikes that we worked with Walmart on Mullan to get."
"So I put the word out on email and boy I had all kind of guys, ya we got time we got garages get them over here!" Rotary Club of Missoul Sunrise member Carl Prinzing said. "So we did that and we put together the last remaining set of bikes she had from Walmart
The bikes are assembled and will be on their way to Lodge Grass to bring some optimism and to fulfill a deeper meaning according to officials.
"A lot of the kids do not have Facebook because we don’t have internet down there," said Enemy-Hunter. "It would make the difference to them because really in this day and age you're taking what we would have had as tribal people horses and replacing that with bikes so they can get around and go longer distances than their feet can take them."
Essential Eats is always looking for donations and you can find out how to help on their Facebook page or make a donation at any Stockman bank in Montana.
