A food pantry on the Blackfeet Nation celebrated its second birthday Thursday.
FAST Blackfeet has helped sustain the Blackfeet community with boxes of food for the last two years through its O’yo’p’ Food Pantry. A name that means “We are eating” in the Blackfeet language.
Nonie Woolf, board chair with FAST Blackfeet, says the pantry has been busy every month getting food to people with no other options.
“We serve about 2,721 individuals on average per month,” she says.
Woolf says good food can be hard to come by due to lack of well-stocked grocery stores and lack of reliable transportation on the Blackfeet reservation. So in January they decided to buy a van.
“Our program increased 3.6 to 4 times during covid," Woolf says. "We were able to purchase a van, and do an out-of-town pantry. So basically the O’yo’p Food Pantry expanded to cover all of the reservation.”
The nonprofit plans to expand its operation eventually and build a resource center to better provide the Blackfeet community with healthy food.
Taylar Stagner is Yellowstone Public Radio’s Report for America Indigenous Affairs reporter.
