Founded in 1983, the Montana Food Bank Network (MFBN) is a private nonprofit organization that solicits, gleans, sorts, repackages, warehouses and transports donated food and distributes it to charitable programs that directly serve needy families, children and seniors. From a main warehouse and office in Missoula, a branch warehouse in Miles City, and a Cannery located at Montana State Prison in Deer Lodge, MFBN distributes emergency food throughout Montana. We are the largest centralized source of donated, emergency food in the state.
Montana Food Bank Network is one of over 200 members of America’s Second Harvest, the nation’s largest domestic hunger-relief charity. MFBN is also a member of the Western Region Food Bank Association “Dare to Share” which allows us to receive and share donated food with our closest neighbors in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Utah and even Arizona. Through leveraging power and economies of scale, we can provide the equivalent of 8 meals for every dollar donated to MFBN. Our administrative and fundraising costs are just 9 percent of our total budget, which means 91 cents of every dollar donated goes to support programs to provide food for hungry Montanans.
To date, MFBN has distributed millions of pounds of food to roughly 200 community and emergency food programs — including soup kitchens, food pantries, shelters, Kids Cafes, low-income daycare centers, and senior, youth, rehabilitation and outreach centers — throughout the fifty-six counties in Montana. We partner with agencies who feed people who otherwise would go hungry or not eat enough, and are largely comprised of women and children, the elderly, people with disabilities and the working poor. Across the 400,000 square miles that comprises Montana, MFBN delivers food to remote communities and on Native American reservations which often rely on us to provide 100% of the food they distribute. In addition to providing food, MFBN offers partnering agencies ongoing support, services and education by providing them with a variety of tools to help strengthen their programs.
In 2000, in partnership with the Montana Legislature, MFBN created a wet pack cannery program at the State Prison in Deer Lodge as both a vocational program and a way to help feed the state’s residents. The following year, MFBN merged with the Montana Hunger Coalition, with the goal of addressing the root causes of hunger through education, public policy and advocacy work. We regularly conduct research about hunger in Montana and play an active role in public policy issues in the state and national levels.
Currently, MFBN is in the process of tripling the capacity of the main warehouse in Missoula, expanding the fleet of semi and refrigerated box trucks that travel the state, hiring additional staff for education, outreach and operation functions, and maintaining a second warehouse in Miles City which services the east part of the state.
