The Livingston Food Resource Center

We believe that feeding our citizens is fundamental to everything else we do as a community. Hours: Tuesday 1:00pm - 5:00pm Thursday 1:00pm - 5:00 pm The Livingston Food Pantry: During 2014, The Livingston Food Pantry provided emergency food service to an average of 340 households each month and distributed more than 200,000 pounds of food to people in need. The Livingston Food Pantry provides a number of programs that are designed to serve the specific needs of well defined segments of people-in-need in Livingston and Park County. Children – More than a third of the families served by the Pantry have at least one child under the age of 18 living in the household. During 2014, the number of children served increased by 35%. The Livingston Food Pantry places great importance on serving and educating children to help make them healthy adults. Specific programs for children include: Back Pack Program – More than 40% of Livingston’s elementary school children depend on free and reduced price meal programs during the school year. For many this is their primary source of food each day. To help bridge the weekend and holiday gaps when school meals are not available, The Livingston Food Pantry provides bags of supplemental weekend food to an average of 260 elementary school children every Friday. Summer Lunch Program – Children who depend on meal programs during the school year often deal with food insufficiency during the summer months when school meal programs are not available. In response, The Livingston Food Pantry provides free, nutritious lunches, Monday through Friday, to all Livingston school age children in need – all summer. During the 2014 summer an average of 45 lunches were served each day. Breakfast-In-The-Classroom – The Livingston Food Pantry provides a daily selection of nutritious breakfast foods to all children attending school in Wilsall and Clyde Park. The easy-to-eat food items are consumed by children during their first period classes. Kids Cooking Camp – The Pantry’s Kids Cooking Camp is a fun-filled week designed to help children learn kitchen safety, sanitation, basic cooking skills, and how to make quick and healthful meal alternatives to chips and pop. This program teaches children healthful dietary habits that will help make them healthier adults. School/Student Pantries – The Livingston Food Pantry operates a student pantry in Livingston’s middle school. The student pantry provides emergency food, school supplies, and personal care items to children in need. Healthy Eaters Club – In collaboration with the Albertsons grocery store in Livingston, The Livingston Food Pantry distributes coupons to children through each of the programs listed above. Each set of coupons is good for a specified amount of a fresh fruit or vegetable – free. The coupons can only be redeemed by the children. The redemption rate for the coupons has been significantly higher than expected. The goal is to introduce young children to fresh food and healthy eating habits. Adults and Seniors – More than 80% of the adults served by The Livingston Food Pantry need assistance because they are unemployed or underemployed. This high percentage is driven primarily by the relatively weak local economy, and lack of marketable job skills among Pantry clients. As a result of employment challenges, 97% of the people served by the Pantry are ranked as Low Income, most living at or below federal poverty levels for their household size. Programs designed for adults include: Monthly Food Box Service – Once each month Pantry clients can make food selections that include fresh and non-perishable food items. This food box service is designed to provide enough food to feed each member of the household for a period of five to seven days. Bread and Produce Service – Pantry clients can visit the Pantry as often as they need to for bread and fresh produce when it is available. Senior Commodities Program – People over the age of 60 with limited, fixed incomes can qualify to receive a supply of basic commodity food items each month. This program provides support to more than 70 Livingston seniors each month. The Livingston Food Pantry Community Garden-The Pantry started the Community Garden four summers ago to provide a gathering place where local people can grow fresh produce for themselves and their families. Through collaboration with other Livingston service agencies, garden space is made available to Counterpoint, The Mental Health Center, The Drop In Center, the Park County Senior Center, and families and individuals so that they can enjoy the benefits of gardening and social interaction with their neighbors. Crock Pot Days – Crock Pot Days are designed to demonstrate that nutritious meals can be prepared using just a crock pot and food items available at the Pantry. Samples are offered to Pantry clients and recipes and ingredient lists are distributed. The goals are to encourage healthier diets, and family participation in meal preparation and consumption. Crock Pot Days are conducted once each quarter. Special Community Service Days – Service Days are conducted at the Pantry on a regular basis and are designed to introduce clients to other service organizations that might provide specific support such as, assistance with utility bills, health screening, voter registration, nutrition education, and free flu shots. Job Application Support – On a regular basis, assistance is made available to Pantry clients to help prepare resumes and practice job interview skills. In support of this effort, the Pantry offers Free Haircut Day once each quarter. The Community Kitchen: The Community Kitchen is a licensed, food processing, catering, and meal preparation facility. The Community Kitchen is designed and equipped to provide the tools and support needed by local farmers, caterers, entrepreneurs, and small-scale food processors to engage in new product development and processing. The Community Kitchen is used by multiple and diverse users at scheduled times throughout the day and week. It provides users with access, on a time-share basis, to a licensed production facility that enables them to start and expand food production and catering businesses without the prohibitively high costs of creating their own commercial kitchens. The hourly cost for using the Community Kitchen is $12.00 for entrepreneurs through their start up and development phase, and $15.00 for established businesses. The Community Kitchen provides assistance to entrepreneurs and existing food businesses for the development, testing, processing, marketing of value-added food products, and an interest-free micro loan program. The Community Room: The Community Room is a designed to support a wide array of Food Resource Center and community functions. The Community Room is used for meetings, classes, meal service, and community events. The Community Room is available for rent on an hourly basis. The rental fee is $25.00 per hour and includes the use of tables and chairs. The Community Kitchen can be rented in conjunction with the Community Room for an additional $20.00.