In a Nutshell: A visit to our rural pantry partners

After a three-hour drive, the life-size Sasquatch between the Yaak Mercantile and the Dirty Shame Saloon greets us at the entrance of town. Most people who visit the Yaak are tourists gone astray. The town has less than 500 residents who have built a life in the wilderness among bears, elk and wolves.

We head down a gravel road past log cabins, campers, and abundant trees to arrive at the Yaak Food Cupboard. The Yaak Food Cupboard is one of Montana’s small rural pantries currently operated by three generations in one family on their property. The pantry manager, L., shared the following after welcoming us: “This all started when we realized that some kids didn’t bring lunch to school. A few of us got together to prepare food boxes secretly and drop them off at families’ homes after dark. After a few years, we decided to start a food pantry. We opened in January of 2000. Since we have been in a garage, in an ambulance barn, in a trailer, in the red shed down the road and finally here, in the house we built across the driveway.”

One of her grandchildren runs around the garden, another eats the first strawberries of the season directly from the patch. Down by the river, a moose cow and her calf enjoy the shade. What seems like an idyllic place to live in the summer is one of the most isolated towns in Montana. “It’s the Yaak. It’s a hard place to live,” says L.

In June, several of the North Valley Food Bank (NVFB) board members and I had the opportunity to visit three of our partner pantries, the Troy Food Pantry, the Libby Food Pantry and the Yaak Food Cupboard. We learned about their experiences and challenges. NVFB started our rural pantry delivery program, delivering food to small rural pantries in Lincoln and Glacier counties, in early 2021. What started as an emergency response effort when our partners requested help to transport free “Farmers to Families” produce boxes provided by The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), has evolved into a successful, collaborative program.

The rural pantry delivery program is now a lifeline for many of our rural neighbors. While food banks across the state saw record numbers of customers over the past year due to the rising cost of living and lack of affordable housing, our rural neighbors faced additional struggles such as limited access to food sources, high rates of unemployment, increased taxes and high cost of gas.

The Yaak Food Cupboard operates in a food desert. The closest grocery store is more than 40 miles away. The Yaak Mercantile used to be a small mom-and-pop shop, where one could buy essentials such as bread, milk, eggs, aspirin, cough medicine and ice cream. Now it is geared toward tourists. One of the locals shared that he “tried to buy eggs recently — a dozen eggs were more than $7 and they weren’t even Emu eggs.”

Additionally, when kids are out of school in the summer, it puts a financial burden on families. In rural Montana, accessing the Summer Meals Program, a federally funded, state-administered program serving no-cost, healthy meals and snacks to children and teens, can be a challenge. In the Yaak, for example, the closest Summer Meals Program site is 56 miles away in Bonners Ferry, Idaho.

Providing access to the Summer Meals Program, as well as the Summer Pandemic Electronic Benefit Transfer (P-EBT) program, ensures access for children living in remote areas. P-EBT is federally funded, operates across the U.S., and works like SNAP, providing grocery benefits. P-EBT has been vital for thousands of struggling families, especially in rural Montana.

While Montana administered the program in past years, the state opted out in 2023, leaving kids hungry. This decision put an additional strain on NVFB and our pantry partners during times when we are already experiencing skyrocketing demand for food assistance. The Yaak Food Cupboard, for example, serves more than 100 families regularly.

Since the inception of the rural pantry delivery program, NVFB has delivered 500,000 pounds of produce, dairy, and essential groceries to our pantry partners. This wouldn’t be possible without our incredible partners, the Montana Food Bank Network (MFBN), who provide donated food and free produce through TEFAP and coordinates food deliveries with us, and HOPA Mountain and Oro Y Plata Foundation, who fund essential groceries for the Yaak Food Cupboard.

If you want to learn more about the rural pantry delivery program or support NVFB and our rural pantry partners, please visit northvalleyfoodbank.org/rural-pantry-delivery-program.

Sophie Albert is the executive director of North Valley Food Bank. Albert provides insights into happenings at the food bank, rural food insecurity, stories of the community and more in the monthly Whitefish Pilot column titled, In a Nutshell.