The Gateway Community Center honored Bev Braig on Tuesday for donating the money to install a new digital sign at the Kalispell building’s entrance.  

Gone is the sign towering over U.S. 2 that once displayed the building’s former name: Gateway West Mall. Now passing motorists and pedestrians can see a blue-and-white sign emblazoned with “Gateway Community Center” with a digital screen below offering information about the facility.   

Braig, 85, received a round of applause on June 30 from the nonprofits located inside the building, thanking her for the roughly $192,000 donation from the Braig Family Foundation that covered the cost of the sign.  

Standing beneath it, Braig said she was sorry her husband, Bob Braig, who died last year, was not there to see it.  

“I’m sad that he wasn’t out there with me,” Braig said. “It’s our family’s money. He supported my dream.”  

Braig has long been involved with Northwest Montana United Way. The nonprofit acquired the mall property in 2015 and transformed it into a space where nonprofit organizations could secure inexpensive, fixed rent office space to provide services.   

Braig and her husband funded the creation of a children’s area in the community center named Lynlee’s Corner after United Way board member Alison Schmaltz’ granddaughter. 

Braig’s desire to give back is rooted in her Methodist Christian faith.  

“You do all you can for all the people you can and all the places you can for as long as you can,” Braig said.  

United Way has struggled in the past to garner funds to touch up areas outside of the building, Braig said.  

“While we’ve had a couple of capital campaigns, it never generated the amount of money that we needed that was borrowed from the bank,” Braig said. 

The old sign overlooking the highway had long irritated her, as the building hadn’t been a mall for years. It was overdue for an update.   

“These are the kinds of projects that people who love their community need to step up and do,” Braig said. 

Looking to the future, Braig envisions the building as a bustling community hub where residents both young and old come to receive services. But she said that financial hurdles have made that vision an uphill battle.  

“There’s a lot that the volunteer boards could do if they didn’t have to spend most of their time worried about finances,” Braig said. “The people who really need this space to be a good space, they’re the forgotten people.”  

Reporter Jack Underhill can be reached at 406-758-4407 or [email protected]. If you value local journalism, pledge your support at dailyinterlake.com/support. 

    Bev Braig (middle) receives flowers for donation to new sign for Gateway Community Center on June 30, 2026. (Jack Underhill/Daily Inter Lake)
  

    Bev Braig (right) honored for donation to new Gateway Community Center sign on June 30, 2026. (Jack Underhill/Daily Inter Lake)