It has been interesting to see the shift in the type of client that has happened in the past few years at the Flathead Food Bank. Up until mid 2008, we were seeing more young families, with both parents working at least one, sometimes two jobs, and still not being able to make ends meet. They have had to use our services on a consistent basis. We were watching our emergency food bank system become more of a supplementary food source system, used more consistently just to help families get through until the next paycheck arrived.

Towards the end of the year, we were seeing more and more families; Parents laid off or losing their jobs, scared and nervous about where they were going to be in a month or two and reaching out for help in areas that they had never had to explore before. Our staff was working hard to field many questions, direct people to help within our community, and sometimes, supplying clients with needed information or just an ear to listen to the challenges that they were having. The demographics of our client base was changing also - although we were serving more families, the percentage of families with children went down from the year before as did the percentage of seniors. The age group that increased over 5% from the year before was the 18-54 age range. It was the working people that were using our pantries more. It goes right along with the economy, doesn't it?

So here are some numbers for you to think about. In 2008 we served 15,501 food boxes to 3,124 households. This number was up over 18% from the previous year! Most of that happened in the second half of the year. The second week of August we served 186 families valley wide, and the third week we served 305 … it never slowed down after that and the week before Thanksgiving, we served a record 524 families valley wide! January and February of 2009 were just as busy, with distribution days slowing down a bit in March.

The Flathead Food Bank supplied 580,993 pounds of food to local families last year. This was 90,000 pounds less than in 2007. We served many more people, but our supplies were lower, which took our average pounds per person from 17.5 pounds in 2007 to 14 pounds in 2008. Donations were strong, but the Flathead Food bank still needs your help to be successful in meeting our mission of feeding hungry families in the Flathead Valley. Thank you in advance for all of your help. We could not do it without you.