KALISPELL — The 2025 Great Fish Community Challenge came to its end with its award ceremony on Tuesday night, bringing all 85 nonprofits together for a celebration of their accomplishments.
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"Just an awesome night because we bring everybody back together to celebrate all of our hard work during the Great Fish Challenge. And this year was an exceptional year," said Whitefish Community Fund president and CEO Alan Davis.
Many awards were given out at the ceremony, including the New Fish on the Block award dedicated to first-year participants, which was won by the Flathead 4H Foundation, which raised $59,730 for their cause.
"It was overwhelming, it was, we felt really honored by the people who thought to donate to us, very generous, a lot of people supporting us for the first time and believing in our mission and our youth here in the Flathead," said Flathead 4H Foundation board member Jill Kahanek.
The biggest award of the night was the $10,000 Great Fish award, which was won by the North Valley Food Bank.
"I'm just really grateful for the Whitefish Community Foundation to organize this challenge every single year and to bring everyone together and all the donors supporting it and all the amazing nonprofits that make the Flathead Valley what it is," said North Valley Food Bank executive director Sophie Albert.
The ceremony didn't stop there. The Whitefish Community Fund announced their record-breaking match fund reached $1,372,532, giving each organization an extra $17,000 to the amount they raised.
"We had an exceptional year from all aspects, donor engagement was high and that translated to a record match," Davis said.
The last event of the night was finally finding out what everyone had been waiting for — the total amount raised was $8,098,663.
