Comfort Food Challenge raises $20,000 for Helena homeless families

More than 200 people filled the Carroll College Campus Center for the Comfort Food Challenge and helped raise about $20,000 for Family Promise of Greater Helena, turning an evening of local dishes into direct support for families facing homelessness in Helena and the surrounding area.

The fundraiser ran from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. Sunday, April 19, and brought together Carroll College and Family Promise in a setting that organizers used to make the problem more visible. Guests sampled comfort foods prepared by local participants at an affordable price, while the money raised was expected to go straight toward services for unhoused families in Lewis and Clark County and nearby communities.

That need is not abstract. Family Promise says it has served children and families in crisis for 16 years, and its website says it helped 205 families in Lewis and Clark and Broadwater counties through its 2025 prevention, shelter and Community Response Program services. The organization’s model combines overnight housing, meals and caseworker support aimed at helping parents move toward employment, childcare, health care and stable housing.

The stakes are rising as Family Promise works to expand that response. Construction is underway on a 16-room overnight shelter, and the organization hopes to begin serving people there by spring 2026. The new space would add another local option for families who need a safe place to sleep while they try to stay together and get back on their feet.

Carroll College has long been part of that effort. The college has said it has partnered with Family Promise for years by hosting families and helping provide meals through local congregations and the campus community. Its Hunthausen Center for Peace and Justice also regularly organizes service activities tied to Helena nonprofits, including Family Promise.

The Comfort Food Challenge showed how that partnership works in practice: a central campus venue, a steady stream of neighbors, and a fundraiser that converted a shared meal into roughly $20,000 for direct help. In a city where housing insecurity continues to affect parents and children, the night offered more than comfort food. It produced money, visibility and another piece of support for a local system built on donations, volunteers and coordinated community care.