June Munski-Feenan, the petite and persistent redhead who shepherded North Valley Food Bank in Whitefish since its humble beginnings, died Tuesday of cancer.

Her death at age 86 came less than two months after the new North Valley Food Bank opened in early December. The spacious distribution center was Munski-Feenan’s swan song.

Unbeknownst to most of the Whitefish community, she had been battling cancer for more than two years but refused medical treatment because she wanted to pour every ounce of energy into getting the new facility built, according to Dennis Theissen, acting president of North Valley Food Bank and Munski-Feenan’s son-in-law.

The food bank had long outgrown its quarters in a small old house on First Street that had been remodeled and added to through the years.

Lin Akey, one of the co-fundraising chairmen for the new food bank, said he stopped at the food bank on Thursday “just to hug the group.

“My reaction to the crew is that Whitefish’s Mother Teresa has left the building,” Akey said. “I called her that for years just to make her blush, but it’s so true. To go through the last year and a half gathering the community to put bricks and mortar together so the food bank would live on is huge.”

Munski-Feenan had been in hospice care the past few weeks. Her last appearance at the food bank was at its grand opening on Dec. 5.

Akey’s recollection of Munski-Feenan’s persuasive ways is being echoed among the dozens of people she worked with through the years. She’d look you square in the eye, tell you, “I just need a minute of your time,” and would then proceed to enlist help for whatever needed to be done, he said.

Munski-Feenan was a consummate networker, tirelessly dedicated to feeding the hungry. She was a penny-pincher who never took a paycheck because it literally would have taken food out of hungry people’s mouths, she ardently maintained.

Carol Atkinson, who also helped with the fundraising for the new food bank, marveled at that level of dedication.

“What a passionate person,” Atkinson said. “She’s a treasure and people like that don’t come along very often ... she’d come to meetings and with a twinkle in her eye would say, ‘I’ve talked to someone who’s going to give us a whole lot of money.’”

The latest “someone” Munski-Feenan may have been referring to is Whitefish philanthropist Michael Goguen, who pitched in the final $500,000 to complete the capital campaign for the new food bank.

Akey said it’s humbling to have worked with such a force of nature.

“She was the driving force, the engine, this tiny little lady who measured her work in tonnage,” he said. “Let it be said she gave her life for the community.”

Munski-Feenan’s involvement with feeding the hungry began in the late 1970s. With no storage space for contributions, she stacked more than 100 loaves of bread under her Christmas tree to feed the hungry over the holidays, and a snow bank in her backyard became a makeshift cooler for jugs of milk.

From those first loaves of bread she manifested an organization that has fed tens of thousands through the years.

A lifelong valley resident, Munski-Feenan grew up on a farm near Columbia Falls in a family with three sisters and five brothers. To keep food on their large table, her family farmed and her dad also worked at Stoltze Lumber.

She graduated from Columbia Falls High School and married her first husband, Walt Munski. While raising her daughters in Whitefish, she attended a business college in Kalispell, then took dental assistant courses in Great Falls.

For 17 years she assisted Dr. John Atchinson, a local dentist, until her mother got sick and moved into the Munskis’ home. Over the years, Munski-Feenan adopted Whitefish as her hometown.

She told the Daily Inter Lake in 2001 that she happened to have some time on her hands when she got the call to distribute those first loaves for the Flathead Food Bank.

Before long, her efforts evolved into the North Valley Food Bank.

Munski-Feenan said she weathered trying personal times while managing the growing food bank. She took care of four terminally ill relatives, including her first husband, Walt, who died from Lou Gehrig’s disease.

She said the tough times taught her a simple approach to obstacles.

“You have to just keep saying, ‘I can do it,’” she said.

A few years later she married Bob Feenan, a friend from childhood. Munski-Feenan laughed and said she took a real chance marrying a confirmed bachelor when both of them were more than 60 years old.

“I don’t know how I was so lucky to get two good husbands,” she said during the 2001 interview.

She was honored by the Whitefish Community Foundation in 2008 with the Great Fish Award for her significant contributions to bettering the Whitefish community.

During her acceptance speech, she told the audience: “Eighty-one years ago, God dropped off a little girl at a ranch near the State Mill north of the Blue Moon, and I’ve been giving them heck ever since.”

Whitefish Community Foundation Director Linda Engh-Grady said Munski-Feenan was an amazing woman “right to the very end.

“Her last wish was to see the food bank in a new home with a decent waiting area, safe parking, handicap access and a wonderful food prep area ... She lived to see her dream come true, from her vision and work to start a food bank by giving out bread in her own home to the well-built facility we have today,” Engh-Grady said. “June’s energy was behind it all. Her special drive inspired people around her to do the same.”

In 2010 The Whitefish Rotary Club gave its Spirit of Whitefish award to Munski-Feenan.

In 2013 the Whitefish Chamber of Commerce honored Munski-Feenan for her lifetime contribution to the community.

Her efforts, buoyed by a sea of faithful volunteers, created one of the most successful independent food banks in the state. It’s the only food bank in Montana that processes wild game.

More than 10 tons of food are distributed in any given month. In October the food bank took in 20,193 pounds of food and handed out 22,307 pounds.

Annually, the food bank distributes around 350,000 pounds of food, largely to the greater North Valley area.

“She was an inspiration for a lot of people and touched lot of people’s lives over the years,” Theissen said.

A funeral Mass for Munski-Feenan will be said at 11 a.m. Feb. 1 at St. Charles Borromeo in Whitefish.

A reception will follow at the Whitefish Moose Lodge.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.