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Potatoes and hand sanitizer a quarantine giveaway

Posted at 5:01 PM, May 15, 2020
and last updated 2020-05-15 21:30:50-04

MISSOULA — This weekend the United States of Hope, or USOH, along with several partner veteran groups will be handing out free potatoes and hand sanitizer as well as info on other services to help people through the COVID-19 pandemic.

The giveaway takes place in Missoula and Lolo on Saturday and then moves to Helena on Sunday.

A similar event took place in Bozeman and its success spurned the Unites States of Hope organization to put together its own event for western Montana. Organizers worked with local health departments to ensure everyone’s safety and they could actually still use a little bit of help.

"Our volunteers will be masked. They will have gloves and if you want us to put it in your trunk that’s fine pop the trunk. If you want to hand us your keys and we will open it up. Whatever, however you feel the most comfortable that’s what we want to do," USOH volunteer coordinator Alan Ault said.

"Any semi-truck drivers out there that want to help out let us know. We can either have 33,000 potatoes tomorrow or 66,000. So we do need one more truck," USOH president and founder Samuel Redfern said about the need for one more semi.

Redfern also thanks all the volunteers and organizations like Pattee Creek Market, Sterling Commercial Management, local fire departments and law enforcement whose help is making the event possible.

They are also especially thankful for ranchers Joe Dooling and Walt Sales for organizing the potatoes while distilleries Wildrye Distilling and Steel Toe Distillery provided the hand sanitizer.

There will also be 1,500 bottles of hand sanitizer as well as countless other resources and you can find all the details on USOH’s facebook page or website.