WHITEFISH — The North Valley Food Bank is holding its annual Harvest Fest and this year is going to be bigger than ever.
The food bank harvests fruit from public trees in Whitefish every fall. This year, not only are they harvesting but they are having a festival afterward with activities for all ages.
There will be a cider press, ‘pay what you can’ pop up restaurant, games, crafts, educational activities and live music.
The event helps the City of Whitefish mitigate food attractants for bears as they enter hyperphagia as well as supplying food for the food bank.
“All the food that we bring back is either going to go out, like, directly from our store, which is on Wednesdays and Thursdays, to community members that need food, or we will bring it back to our kitchen that's in the food bank and process it into delicious meals. So, things as easy as apple sauce, but then also we make, like, really yummy, like apple curry, and things like that, that customers like don't really know what to do with this abundance of apples and we'll show them how to do that." - North Valley Food Bank Community Outreach Coordinator Maddie Culhane
The Harvest Festival begins at 10 a.m. on Saturday, Sept. 14, 2024, at the North Valley Food Bank which is located at 251 Flathead Avenue in Whitefish. All are welcome to participate in either the harvest or festival or both.
Other organizations will have booths at the event for educational activites.
Montana Fish Wildlife & Parks will be providing Bear Aware information and education about the Grizzly Wolf Discovery Center in West Yellowstone as well as hunting information.
Dirt Rich will be providing information on composting as well as collecting all compost.
Additional information about the Harvest Festival can be found here.
