The Lovin’ Spoonful

Naomi Davidson stood at the counter in the Kalispell Central Christian Church basement buttering slice after slice of bread, slipping the plastic sleeve off each new loaf and piling the plates high. Behind her, B. Bradford Fenchak slowly stirred a sweet and spicy chicken stew. Out in the church’s dining room, a jug of cranberry juice was set out next to a gallon of milk with freshly brewed coffee waiting nearby. It was 4 p.m., and shortly, some 50 hungry people would join Davidson and Fenchak at the church for dinner.

The two women are the leaders of Community Kitchen-Feeding the Flathead, a local soup kitchen that served 8,690 meals between January and September, thanks to countless pounds of food donations and $3,556 in monetary contributions. That’s an average of 248 meals per week.

“The only [other] cooking I did was for my family,” said Davidson. “This is like cooking for your family, but bigger.”

Davidson, who used to run a sewing business, started the Community Kitchen in 1989 with two friends. Fenchak, who homeschooled her kids and worked on the Flathead Food Bank Board, founded Feeding the Flathead in 1998. The two women merged their efforts in 2004 to serve the community more efficiently. Eighteen people showed for the first dinner, but over the years the number of diners has swelled, on some nights, above 100.

“There’s an invisible population in Kalispell of hungry and homeless people,” Davidson said. “We serve everyone from the down-and-out homeless to college kids… I love knowing that someone can come to a warm, dry place and have a hearty meal. We welcome them, they’re our guests.”

The soup kitchen, which Fenchak calls a “moveable feast,” operates nearly every day of the week at 6 p.m. at one of five churches around Kalispell. They always provide a main dish with a vegetable or salad and dessert. Usually, Fenchak and Davidson have help in the form of groups like local Boy Scout troops, AmeriCorps groups, local football teams, and regular volunteers from a pool that’s about 100 people strong.

The holidays, full of decadence and cold, snowy days, can hit hungry or homeless citizens the hardest. Davidson said that during this season, she thinks especially of struggling families, of the elderly, and of somebody sitting in a room alone while the world outside celebrates.

For these people and any others in need, Community Kitchen-Feeding the Flathead serves a Christmas Day Dinner of turkey and ham — “with all the trimmings,” Davidson said — followed by pumpkin pie. Each guest will leave the Christ Church Episcopal in Kalispell with a holiday present, and, hopefully, a glow from the church’s warmth and the community’s Christmas cheer.

Dinner will be served at the Christ Church Episcopal, 215 3rd Ave E, Kalispell, on Dec. 24-26 and 28-31.