Letters to the editor
A caring, sharing community
We all are truly blessed to live in such a beautiful and caring community like the Polson area. The Polson Loaves and Fish Food Pantry is truly a community asset available to those in need!
The Polson Loaves and Fish Food Pantry clients, volunteers and board are especially thankful and appreciative of the wonderful support it receives from local businesses, organizations, churches, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, and private citizens. We recognize the public has many opportunities to donate to worthy causes and feel honored and entrusted that you chose to help the Polson Food Pantry fulfill its mission, i.e., of providing supplemental and emergency food to those in need.
The pantry provides monthly emergency and supplemental food items to area residents (seniors, children/families and individuals) in need of assistance at the rate of an excess of 404 client families or 1,021 individuals per month. With the current challenging economic environment, more and more folks are turning to the pantry for food assistance.
Loaves and Fish dispersed an excess of 153,500 pounds of food items locally during 2011. While numerous locally sponsored food drives contributed significantly to our disbursement effort, approximately 44 percent of those food items by weight came from our local supermarkets, Safeway and Super 1. We all owe them a “special” thank you for helping the pantry help those in need!
This fall’s annual Town Pump Match Program was joined by Mission Mountain Les Schwab Tires to create an overall $7,000 match program on the Polson Food Pantry’s behalf. We are pleased to announce that our generous community (businesses, service organizations, churches and caring individuals) helped the pantry exceed its goal.
As a reminder, the pantry is open for disbursement of food on Tuesdays and Fridays between the hours of 10 a.m. and 2 p.m. and on Saturday mornings between 9 a.m. and noon.
Again, many thanks to the Polson area businesses, service organizations, schools, U.S. Postal Service, churches, Salish and Kootenai Tribes and individuals who support Polson Loaves and Fish Food Pantry and its mission to help others. Without your help our efforts would be greatly diminished!
Sid Rundell
Loaves and Fish Food Pantry
Share the Spirit
Share the Spirit Holiday Assistance Program has been providing toys, clothes and Christmas gifts to Lake County children from needy families since 1998. We are fortunate enough to partner with Hellroaring Marine Contingent and the Marine Corps Toys for Tots program which helps us manage the daunting task of providing for these children. During the 2011 Christmas season, we served 1,055 children in Lake County. In our 14 years of operation, we have served more than 10,000 children with your help and the help of many volunteers.
A huge thanks to the businesses who agreed to be our tree locations and to the local churches who gave so generously. Thanks also to the school kids from St. Ignatius and Polson who adopted many of our tags and shopped carefully and wisely. We truly appreciate their help.
Kim Liebenguth spearheaded the Lake County Sheriff’s program to adopt 175 of our kids and challenged Polson High School classes to collect toys for them. Thank you very much to all the people who so generously picked up Share the Spirit tags from our trees filled with children’s Christmas requests, with help from everyone we were able to help make their holiday brighter.
Volunteers make this program a success; they donate hundreds of hours throughout the season when most people would rather spend time with their families. A special thank you to all of our wonderful volunteers.
This year, Share the Spirit headquarters were fortunate to have space donated in the old Tamsco building, owned by Mike Maddy, local Soroptimists provided funding for food certificates, donors provided funding for electricity and propane. All of these donations add up to a very successful year for our community in spite of the economic downturn for our all volunteer organization.
Share the Spirit is a 501(c) 3 non-profit group registered with the Internal Revenue Service. We also provide school supplies to Lake County Elementary schools in August and personal care bags to all of the county agencies twice each year. Donations can be mailed any time to Share the Spirit at P.O. Box 1341, Polson, MT 59860.
Thank you and God Bless!
Toni Young
Share the Spirit
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