In one year, Ronda Stevens, the Kalispell Public Schools and Evergreen School District Homeless Education liaison, has filled a void to empower and support students who are homeless or in need.

Stevens has traveled throughout the state to get guidance and prioritize goals for the position, which is funded through federal grants, and put into practice effective strategies to meet student needs.

Currently, Stevens works with about 250 students who essentially are homeless.

“First I establish that a student has a free breakfast or lunch. The second thing I do is make sure they have transportation to and from school,” Stevens said. “My number one concern to make sure they have everything the need to come to school.”

Stevens learned that when it came to a child without a coat, shoes or clothing, teachers would use their own money to buy the items.

Stevens set out to fulfill these needs and put her heart into two of her biggest goals this year — creating high school food pantries and setting up a building to store clothing, hygiene products and school supplies.

The result was the HEART Fund, HEART Locker and small food pantries located at Flathead and Glacier high schools and Linderman Education Center.

“I decided on [calling it] HEART, which stands for homeless, education and resources together, because it is all of us working together,” Stevens said.

Monetary donations or gift cards collected through the HEART Fund go to students or district families with immediate needs such as shelter or gas.

“The HEART Fund are the monies donated to address emergency situations for the students if there isn’t a resource I can connect them with or whatever their need is — I have some funds to help,” Stevens said.

Stevens has been able to help about 100 students through the fund. Currently, the fund has about $2,000. Stevens said she would like to maintain about $5,000 in the fund.

“When it was so cold this winter I used a lot of funds to at least get families into motels,” Stevens said.

Stevens is particularly excited about completing the HEART Locker. The HEART Locker will be the site for clothing, shoes, bedding, hygiene products and school supplies free of cost to students in Kalispell and Evergreen schools.  

Stevens stressed that the HEART Locker is not a thrift store, nor is it open to the public. Staff members will be able to get whatever they need for — or accompanied by — students.

The HEART Locker is housed in a portion of a district-owned warehouse on 33 Meridian Road. At one time, the warehouse was slated to be the site of a new district central kitchen, but it was later determined the property was too small.

Although Stevens has kept these locations stocked with bins of food, hygiene products and school supplies throughout the year, expanding to larger food pantries was an end goal.

Stevens has focused on the high school population, which doesn’t have food programs in place as do the elementary schools that supply students with food over weekends or breaks.

Right now the pantries are being stocked with nonperishable food items that require little to no preparation such as a protein bar or instant noodles.

Linderman’s pantry has been open for about three weeks. Flathead’s food pantry is slated to be accessible toward the end of May after a refrigerator is installed. With the refrigerator, Stevens hopes to meet with the district Food Services Department and discuss storing perishable food.

Stevens said one of the priorities is to make students comfortable knowing they can discreetly access food or fill their backpacks to cover food needs over breaks or weekends.

“While most students look forward to weekends and spring break, that’s the worst time for some of these kids, you know, they’re without support,” Stevens said.

Churches, student and community groups are on tap to keep the pantries stocked and clothing organized at the HEART Locker.

Community and staff support will be key to making the endeavors successful.

This is not the first time the district has opened a free clothing “store.”

In 2011, the Crosstown Closet was opened by a couple of staff members and located in the basement of Linderman, but after 11 months it closed because of a lack of traffic and inability to safely monitor students.

Stevens remains optimistic this time around.

“As far as the HEART Locker or the pantry goes, we can only start at what we know [is needed] today, and, as we get better at this and communicate more with the students, we’ll get better at communicating the needs,” Stevens said.

Stevens said she wanted to thank Flathead industrial art teacher Brock Anderson’s shop class for building shelving for the HEART Locker and Glacier industrial arts teacher Dennis Latimer’s shop class for building shelving for the Linderman food pantry. Stevens said Plum Creek donated wood and Sherwin-Williams donated paint. She also thanked Mild Fence for installing fencing at the HEART Locker.

“As far as donations, they are endless in the community,” Stevens said.

Stevens has also teamed up with the Kalispell Police Department to obtain bicycles to provide to students.

An open house is scheduled from 3 to 6 p.m. April 17 for school district staff to learn more about the HEART Locker.

For more information call Stevens at 751-3630.

Reporter Hilary Matheson may be reached at 758-4431 or by email at hmatheson@dailyinterlake.com.