Distinctly Montana Magazine

D I S T I N C T LY M O N TA N A • FA L L 2 0 1 7 84 F O R T H E L o v e O F . . . ANOTHER OUTSTANDING MONTANA NONPROFIT. T H E L I V I N G S T O N F O O D R E S O U R C E C E N T E R ARTICLE AND PHOTOS BY HUNTER D'ANTUONO A HANDSOME, 5,000-SQUARE-FOOT BRICK BUILD- ING SITUATED STRATEGICALLY IN THE HEART OF DOWNTOWN, it sports a massive kitchen, filled with gleaming, stainless steel industrial-grade food processing equipment. Whether it be a start-up catering business experimenting with new recipes, or students studying in the culinary job training program, or volunteers prepping freezable and microwavable meals concocted from scratch for the center's senior meal program –– dubbed "e Pantry Supper Club" –– the kitchen is always busy. e place also sports a large, bright community meeting room, which is rented out almost every day of the week. Around the corner is the actual food pantry itself, stocked with local beef vacuumed-packed in the freezers and cardboard boxes holding organically-grown produce from area farmers. As a self-selecting pantry, clients have latitude about what items they can take home. A volunteer, clad in a red apron, accompanies clients, educates them on their food choices. Up to 50 percent of the center's food acquisition dollars are spent on Montana farmers. Local farmers also reap the benefits of using the food center's kitchen as a place to affordably process and package their produce––something that adds significant sale value to what they grow. e food center also collaborates with area schools, processing selections of nutritious fruits and vegetables for the school year. e $1.6 million facility opened in January of 2015 and every square foot and piece of equipment is already paid for. Nearly half a million dollars of the funds came from a grant, while the remainder was raised privately. e center's executive director, Michael McCormick, said he prefers to not call his financial sup- porters donors, but rather investors, because the center's primary goal is not simply charity, but economic development. McCormick estimates that the pantry provides emergency food support for about 300-340 households in Livingston every month through their Food Box Service program. e average household size in town is 2.2 people, for a total of about 700 individuals, or nearly 10 percent of the population of Livingston. "I concluded we needed to step up and take a leadership role in the community," he said. And it is the departure from the traditional food bank model that is the hallmark of the Livingston Food Resource Center's success. e center originally started as the Livingston Food Pantry and was located in an old automotive garage on the outskirts of town. When the economy crashed in 2008, "the pantry was being run over" with people needing food, McCormick said. McCormick worked in the corpo- rate sector for 30 years, as a "cold- hearted capitalist," he quipped, where profit is always the end-game. He had come on fishing vacations in the southwestern region of Montana for a decade before retiring in 2007 and moving out West from coastal Maine. HUNGER IS JUST ONE AILMENT OF POVERTY. THE LIVINGSTON FOOD RESOURCE CENTER IS FAR MORE THAN A FOOD BANK. Executive director Michael McCorrmick poses in front of the Livingston Food Resource Center Trays prepared with fresh for senior food program Lenny Gregrey whips up a signature pizza A volunteer gives a tour to visitors

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