LDS Church Gives Record $1.3 Million to Helena Food Share

One in seven Helena residents struggles to find enough food. One in five children in the city don't know where their next meal is coming from. Those numbers drove the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to write the largest humanitarian check in Montana history: $1.3 million to Helena Food Share.

The gift funded the entire commercial kitchen, retail refrigeration units, and 1,200 square feet of cold storage inside Helena Food Share's new 20,000-square-foot Community Food Resource Center at 1280 Boulder Avenue. The $12 million facility, built with contributions from more than 800 organizations and individuals, opened October 15, 2024.

"[The Church] made this kitchen," said Kim Dale, Helena Food Share's program operations director. "This was the game changer. This is the part of the building for us that takes us into the future."

The numbers behind that assessment are specific. In its first year of full operation, Helena Food Share projected the new facility would distribute 1.1 million pounds of food, a 25 percent increase over its previous capacity, to 4,740 households representing nearly 10,000 people. The commercial kitchen was designed to produce soups, breads, and other prepared foods at scale, converting items that would otherwise go to waste into meals. "This is just going to be life-changing for the amount of food we can use instead of wasting it," said Sally Beck, the organization's kitchen manager.

That scale of output is measured against two decades of rising demand. Helena Food Share saw a 2,600 percent increase in food services over 20 years, now reaching people within a 90-mile radius of the capital. Its previous warehouse at 1616 Lewis Street held 100 pallets of dry goods in 2,100 square feet. The Boulder Avenue facility stores 260 pallets in 4,300 square feet, with cold storage growing from 240 square feet to the church-funded 1,200.

The partnership between the Church and Helena Food Share stretches back 20 years, built through volunteer hours and annual food drives connected to the Church's live nativity events. Sister Sarah Crowell, a Latter-day Saint missionary volunteer, was among those who helped christen the new kitchen: the first items it produced were cookies baked for the facility's open house celebration on October 15.

President James B. Stanger, first counselor in the Helena Montana Stake presidency, said the collaboration is rooted in something more direct than institutional goodwill. "We wholeheartedly support the Helena Food Share's mission to serve our neighbors in their time of need," Stanger said. "We know that [Christ] would do that if He were here."

Dale framed the donation's stakes in terms of the people walking through the door. "It really empowers us to increase the nutritional value first and foremost for the customers that walk through our door," she said. "Having partners that believe in food security for all is critical."

Former executive director Bruce Day, who retired after nearly a decade leading the organization, handed off to new director Jordan Evertz as the building opened. The Community Food Resource Center at 1280 Boulder Avenue is open Monday and Thursday from 12:30 to 6:30 p.m., and Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday from 12:30 to 3:30 p.m. Food donations are accepted during the same hours.