Great Falls community kitchen diverts wasted food into free meals

GREAT FALLS — With one of three area food banks, St. Vincent de Paul of Northcentral Montana handles 60,000 pounds of food each month, according to executive director Deb Kottel.

“And we can’t keep up with the need,” she said.

Kottel and others sought an additional way to distribute food to those experiencing food insecurity. They envisioned a service that could take in bulk food and repackage it, as well as a place that could cook and prepare food for people in the community.

Kottel said that Mike Dalton, who maintains the Westside Orchard Garden, was the spark that set off plans to not only prepare meals but to intercept edible food that might otherwise be thrown away.

“Why can’t we have a kitchen that can rescue food from institutions?” Kottel recalled Dalton saying.

That was the start of the Fresh Rescue Community Kitchen, which held its grand opening Thursday in downtown Great Falls. The facility will provide a number of services, including cooking and serving hot meals, distributing food to families and doing some educational programming for area kids in the classroom at the front of the building.

Food distribution is a final stage of the kitchen’s mission. A large part of the model starts earlier with a food sourcing strategy that’s meant to reduce food waste. A third of food in the United States gets thrown out, according to ReFED, an organization that combats food waste.

St. Vincent de Paul has partners in grocers, hospitals and other large food providers to take food that isn’t marketable but still edible. Area Hutterite colonies have been especially generous in donating surplus food, Kottel said.

It took years to acquire and retrofit the building into a working community kitchen. It started in 2020 when NeighborWorks Great Falls sold the building to St. Vincent de Paul for $1.

“It’s a 130-year-old-building, and I went and looked at the history that NeighborWorks had,” said Gary Ritter, who volunteered to coordinate labor and construction. “And it was in a pretty bad state of repair.”

Nelson Architects and TD&H donated architectural and engineering work, respectively. AT Klemens donated construction, plumbing and electrical expertise. The 819th Red Horse Squadron from Malmstrom donated labor and construction work.

“This community really, really stepped up,” Ritter said.

It took a lot of work to rehabilitate the building. Workers removed 44 tons of concrete and gutted the structure before remaking it. Benefits Health System donated commercial kitchen equipment that it purchased from area restaurants that had closed. They include the walk-in freezer and refrigerator that take up half of the back room. 

When dealing with donated food, safe transportation and storage are key. Kottel said they were required to get state permits to ensure their equipment and practices followed food handling guidelines. Another local organization, Leadership Great Falls, raised money to purchase a refrigerated van to transport food.

Other organizations donated money to get the project to the finish line, including the United Way of Cascade County, Boys and Girls Club of Cascade County, Johnson Madison Lumber, Home Depot, Town Pump, Browning Kimball Foundation and others.

Work on the building wrapped up in October 2023, and St. Vincent de Paul got started preparing food for its Angel Room, which is part of its homeless outreach program. As many as 100 daily meals are prepared for the Angel Room.

Since then, the organization has been forging partnerships with food suppliers. 

“It’s a phenomenal amount of food that’s going to be diverted,” Ritter said.

The recent grand opening featured focaccia with donated wild game meat prepared by Tony Lucas, a retired engineer and volunteer cook.

As operations ramp up, St. Vincent de Paul is looking for help to make the community kitchen hum.

“We’re always looking for volunteers in many capacities and many disciplines,” Ritter said.

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