At 5:00 a.m. on Wednesday, May 8, Missoula’s Poverello Center had a sewage blockage and they were forced to close their kitchen and men’s dormitory. Director of Development and Advocacy Jesse Jaeger was happy to announce that they were able to partially open their kitchen a week later.

“We can use our kitchen here at the Poverello Center to make sandwiches and soups, but we are not going to be able to fully open up the kitchen and do full meals until after the full remediation happens, which we don’t have a timeline on yet” Jaeger said. “The men’s dorm was a total loss. We still do not have use of it. It is going to be several weeks before we can use that room.”

Jaeger says they are currently using other parts of the building to house people that were in that space. There a couple different ways folks can provide support.

“We could really use food donations, specifically sandwich making materials,” Jaeger said. “We could use apples and granola bars. There is a full list on our website. We could also really use cash donations. This was a significant loss and caused significant damage. Insurance will cover some of it, but we expect that we will have to pay quite a bit out of pocket.”

According to Jaeger, they are the main source of food for hundreds of Missoulians and they were able to feed people because of community support. They made 2,500 sack lunches last week.

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