Twelve years ago, Lori Botkin took a job as office manager of the Flathead Food Bank as a temporary position until she could figure out her next career move.

She never expected to stay.

“It started as a three-month gig,” Botkin recalled. “I thought it would be short-term because it only paid $7 an hour.”

What she didn’t realize is that helping the Flathead Valley’s neediest citizens quickly would become a calling.

“From the minute I walked into this place, I knew it would not be a job, but would be a passion,” she said.

It wasn’t long before the executive director position was open at the food bank. Botkin stepped up to the challenge.

“I would like to think I could work myself out of a job,” she said, “but the reality is that people will always need help.”

Botkin, 53, is quick to credit her “incredible” staff. “We’re all family,” she noted.

Matt Alexander, the Flathead Food Bank operations manager, was working there when Botkin started. It was a modest staff in 2004 when she began work there. Today the food bank employs eight people and the Second Helpings Thrift Store under the food bank’s umbrella employs 12 workers.

The equivalent of another 15 full-time jobs is filled by more than 500 volunteers. More volunteers are always needed, Botkin stressed.

“This is a great place but we don’t own it and the rent is killing us,” she said about the food bank’s space in the Gateway Community Center. “We need to get out of here. We’re working long-term for a new home without a bunch of overhead, but there are not many unused buildings or property. We’re taking steps to align ourselves for the future.”

The thrift store operation isn’t the gold mine Botkin had envisioned when it opened in 2011. In fact, some months the store just breaks even. Second Helpings was created to provide a stable source of include to operate the food bank.

“We had visions of it bringing in a ton of money,” she said. “It helps, but because of rent and labor it’s not as much as we hoped for.”

There have been many benefits, however, beyond extra income from Second Helpings, she said. Low-income residents can get outfitted with dress clothes for job interviews; coats flow into the food bank for distribution.

“We’re helping in so many ways, and it gives donors another way to donate to us,” she said.

Botkin said the hardest thing about her job is seeing senior citizens struggling to live on fixed incomes. Many of them have no support system and are too proud to ask for help. Delivering government surplus food commodities to the elderly is one way the food bank is able to check on people.

“We found a lady on the floor once who had been lying there for two days,” Botkin said. “I could tell you stories all day ... there’s an epidemic of poverty they can’t get out of. I’m a fixer and not being able to fix that is hard.”

Despite an improving local economy, the food bank has experienced a dramatic increase in use and that means a bigger food budget.

“My food budget will be double this year. Last year I spent $60,000 and this year we had spent that much by June,” Botkin said.

Food and cash donations are down, although the food bank is heading into one of its busiest seasons that includes the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

Directing a food bank enterprise that includes food pantries in Kalispell, Evergreen, Marion, Kila and a mobile pantry in the Canyon communities is a job that daily requires every one of Botkin’s people and communication skills.

“I realized early on I had the gift of helping people,” she said.

A native of Minnesota, Botkin moved with her family to Missoula when she was 13.

“I thought my life was over,” she recalled about relocating as a junior high school student.

She survived that eighth-grade year at Rattlesnake Elementary and graduated from Hellgate High School. Then she headed to the University of Montana, where she got a degree in music education and toured with UM’s jazz band, playing the baritone saxophone.

Botkin didn’t find a career as a music teacher, however. While she was student teaching in Helena she began delivering pizza for some extra cash and wound up managing a Pizza Hut restaurant. In 1989 she transferred to Pizza Hut’s delivery store near Woodland Park in Kalispell and ran that business for 10 years.

She married and had two daughters: Monica, 22, an industrial welder, and Allison, 19, who sings, plays piano and writes her own music.

These days Botkin is able to tap into her own diverse pastimes.

She and her significant other, Donny Stevens, just built a two-story barn by themselves on their hobby farm near Columbia Falls.

Botkin also rides motorcycles and rebuilds and races cars. She and Stevens have four souped-up 1968 Camaros.

“I’ve always been a car girl,” she said, telling about her passion for racing. “I’m pretty good at it.”

Family is important to Botkin. Her parents live in Polson, though they’re winter snowbirds. She’s close to her three other siblings.

“I’m the oldest, so I’m the boss of them,” the gregarious Botkin said with a laugh.

Her job at the food bank keeps her plenty busy, and helping people continues to be her forte. But these days, as an empty-nester, Botkin has found joy in pursuing her own interests.

“It’s a time of life where I’m enjoying being me,” she said.

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