The Flathead Valley is known for its beauty, year round recreation, and friendly people. However, there is another aspect to this special valley that many locals, seasonal residents, and visitors do not know about: youth homelessness.
Youth homelessness is not just about lacking a safe and stable place to live. It is a serious problem that affects every aspect of a child’s life. It involves food insecurity, physical and mental health issues, sporadic school attendance, and academic struggles. It’s also about ‘aging out’ of the foster home system at 18 and suddenly having no safety net.
The Kids Fund grew out of an informational event sponsored by Whitefish Community Foundation in 2019 where several local nonprofit organizations that serve at-risk children described their roles, shared their daily challenges, and answered questions. A young woman who had been able to find a way out of homelessness with the help of one of these nonprofits spoke about her journey.
I have served on the board of Whitefish Community Foundation for many years, and I knew about the hard work of these organizations, but the information and stories they shared that night shocked even me. We left the event feeling there had to be something more that could be done to help local nonprofits better serve these children.
Dave and I determined that Whitefish Community Foundation was the right vehicle to accomplish our goal. Knowing that the Foundation thoroughly vets all nonprofits before granting any funding, we felt secure that our contributions would go to worthy organizations where every dollar would make a difference. We met with Linda Engh-Grady and decided to create a new fund specifically to help nonprofits working to impact youth homelessness and hunger. We chose to make our gift to this new fund a matching opportunity for donors.
The Kids Fund connects donors with local nonprofits that are working to better the lives of at-risk children through sustainable programs. Kids Fund grants focus on the areas of homelessness, health, education, and safety. The fund’s mission is to help qualifying nonprofits create sustainable programs that really ‘move the needle’ and help them get to a deeper level of service.
Since its inception in 2019, and through the very generous contributions of our matching donors, the Kids Fund has made transformational impact. We are very proud of the positive change that the Kids Fund is making in children’s lives.
-Sherry Lesar
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