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Community members, leaders call for changes at Billings Food Bank – Daily Montanan [1]

['Darrell Ehrlick', 'More From Author', '- December']

Date: 2023-12-14  

It started with a crisis, led to a shouting match, and 1,733 signatures later has grown into a months’-long movement that seeks the ouster of a longtime director of what was the largest food bank in Montana’s largest city.

Rebecka Perfitt says she didn’t realize that she’d be starting a community movement, but said the way clients in crisis are treated at the Billings Food Bank, plus a nearly complete lack of transparency, have motivated her to lead the charge.

An investigation by the Daily Montanan shows years of community frustration, organizations that have questioned how hundreds of thousands of dollars have been spent, tons of waste sent to a landfill, questions about how the organization is governed, and partner organizations that have dissolved their relationships.

The Daily Montanan reached out on at least three different occasions to speak with the longtime Billings Food Bank Director Sheryle Shandy. She declined, instead providing a letter (please see below) defending the food bank’s practice in the midst of the public controversy, which has been reported by local media.

The letter was unsigned but apparently written by the board of directors, but no names were listed.

‘Get out, get out!’

Perfitt’s first exposure to the Billings Food Bank came as an outsider. She is a family therapist focusing on foster children, and she wanted to help a client in need. Not knowing much about what resources were available, and needing food, she went to the place that seemed most apparent to her – the Billings Food Bank.

From nearly the moment she entered, Perfitt said she was shocked.

“We weren’t even two steps in the door and someone started screaming, ‘Get out! Get out!’ So we hustled back out. I didn’t know what was going on,” Perfitt said.

She soon learned that voice was Shandy’s and posted somewhere near the door was a notice that said only one person was allowed in the large building at a time.

With her client standing next to her, Perfitt waited until she was invited in. Perfitt said she saw Shandy tell people if they don’t have identification, they don’t get food. When her turn came, Perfitt was told she wasn’t allowed to stay with her client. Shandy told Perfitt: “She needs to talk for herself.”

Perfitt was shocked by the treatment. There weren’t instructions, the policies weren’t intuitive and Shandy was yelling. A lot.

Her client didn’t have all the proper forms and was in temporary housing.

“I kept thinking, ‘Get the box (of food) and get out. Get the box and get out,’” she said.

Shandy denied the client food.

Her client, who had suffered abuse herself, was shaking as was Perfitt as they hustled out the door.

“I started crying and saying, ‘I’m so sorry you were treated like this,’” Perfitt said.

While Perfitt told the Daily Montanan that she understands the need for verification and rules, what she couldn’t abide is the manner in which people, many of whom were in crisis or poverty, were treated.

“I’m outraged. I didn’t know who that was. At the time, I didn’t know it was Sheryle. And only later did I learn about a long history of complaints,” Perfitt said. “She was destroying what she and the community has built. But I never thought it’d get as big as a it did.”

In September, she started a petition on change.org to call attention to the leadership and hopefully resolve the situation. The petition has garnered 1,762 signatures as of Dec. 12. Perfitt also organized several food drives to help other organizations that help feed families and individuals struggling with food insecurity. And Perfitt has taken it on as her mission to organize protests in front of the expansive food bank, which have called for Shandy’s ouster. In addition to those, Perfitt has contacted businesses, like Costco, which have donated excess food and supplies to the Billings Food Bank, in hopes of getting them to shift their donations to other nonprofit organizations, a measure which Perfitt said has been largely successful.

One of her food drives in October, right in front of the Billings Food Bank, encouraged donations that went to other nonprofits with a similar mission to serve people in Yellowstone County.

Perfitt said so far the pressure has worked – to a certain degree. Several businesses have moved their donations to other area organizations like Family Services and Family Promise. But as the public pressure mounts, Shandy appears to be hunkered down, running newspaper advertisements that rebut criticism of the organization, and sending a letter of support by her board, while listing no board member by name.

“I am not doing this to shut down the food bank. There is no organization that is perfect,” Perfitt said. “This is about getting her out and getting the organization to change.”

Employee confirmation

Linda Gilcrist lasted for five weeks.

Originally hired as a cook at the food bank in the expansive Fortin Kitchen, which had originally been set up to train culinary students and those in need of job training, Gilcrist and another employee often prepared lunch for a group of volunteers and some community organizations like Habitat for Humanity.

Around a week after starting, Gilcrist went to the main floor from the second, where the kitchen is located, to get supplies for lunch. The employee who had been at the front desk was gone and it was approaching opening time. Gilcrist asked what happened, and Shandy told her the employee had walked out – furthermore, they would be closed to the public until a replacement could be found. Shandy said she didn’t know the computer system, so they’d be unable to process requests.

Almost reflexively, Gilcrist volunteered to help, worried that people who needed food would be left hungry.

“And that’s when I started to see how people were treated every day,” Gilcrist said.

Residents who came through the doors would be required to give a Social Security number, driver’s license and proof of address – something the Food Bank readily concedes.

Gilcrist went behind a desk and Shandy sat on a stool to interview every person who entered.

That’s when the questions began.

One customer provided an address, Gilcrist said.

“Isn’t that a hotel?” Shandy asked. “How are you going to cook if you live in a hotel?”

Shandy recognized another customer as residing at a sober-living house.

“What? Don’t they feed you there?” Shandy is reported to have asked.

When one person said they were homeless, Gilcrist said Shandy asked, “How are you going to cook if you’re homeless?

Gilcrist said she saw another person walk through the door who Shandy asked: “How’s Family Services? I imagine you just came from there,” referencing another agency in town that assists with food insecurity.

Gilcrist says she lasted at the front for several weeks, and said she couldn’t handle the situation and asked to go back to working only in the kitchen, away from the front desk. During that time, though, Gilcrist said there was little consistent application of the rules. Sometimes, if Shandy would get pulled away from the front, the staff would try to distribute food and other items quickly, at other times even leaving boxes of food at the back door. Yet some elderly residents who didn’t have the proper identification would get food while Shandy would make younger clients come back with paperwork, saying, “They should be working. They’re capable.”

“I kept coming back because if not, she’d close the doors,” Gilcrist said.

Eventually, she sent an email to Shandy, telling her she could no longer work the front desk, and Gilcrist returned to work the kitchen.

“I didn’t want to be the face people saw and remembered when they walked in,” Gilcrist said.

A food bank of one

The Montana Food Bank Network has a map of the state on its website with pins showing all the partner organizations located around the state. The MFBN is a statewide organization that helps coordinate national organizational support, like that of Feeding America, with local organizations that can distribute food and other items to residents in need and experiencing food insecurity.

Other organizations are on the list from the smaller, remote ones, like West Yellowstone Food Bank, to the larger ones like the Missoula Food Bank.

Its mission, since it was founded in 1983, was too coordinate and leverage the organization to help across the large Treasure State.

It states:

“Montana Food Bank Network is Montana’s only statewide food bank and member of Feeding America. MFBN distributes food to 360 partners that include community food banks, pantries, schools, senior centers, and shelters to end hunger in Montana. MFBN’s hunger relief programs include BackPack, Hunters Against Hunger, Mail-a-Meal, No Kid Hungry, Retail Food Rescue, and SNAP outreach. MFBN advocates for long-term policy solutions to strengthen public nutrition programs and address the root causes of hunger.”

Gayle Carlson, the executive officer of the Montana Food Bank Network, said it’s essential to have community partners because the network doesn’t do direct client distribution, meaning it relies on partner organizations to complete the work of getting food to those who need it.

Conspicuously absent on that list is the Billings Food Bank.

‘They’ve not been a part of us for 20 years,” Carlson said.

A dozen other partners who provide support are listed in Yellowstone County, the state’s largest.

“It takes a village, and we know it can be overwhelming. We want different partners because there is more comfort with more organizations,” Carlson said.

She said food insecurity in Montana is “drastically increasing.”

“It’s not an impact of the pandemic, but it’s inflation,” she said.

Among partner agencies she’s seen an increase in need for more partner organizations as well as more hours for residents because there is more demand. Families and residents who needed help a couple times a month now visit the sites weekly.

The MFBN also is able to leverage the network and its connections to buy some food in bulk and share transportation costs.

Meanwhile, the Billings Food Bank touts its isolation. In its advertising, the Billings Food Bank boasts that it is a private, non-governmental charity.

“We are one of the few regional agencies engaged in food distribution that does not receive government funding,” the Billings Food Bank said.

Leaders with the Montana Food Bank Network know about the challenges in Billings, and have reached out. For years there’s been confusion as many people in need thought that the Montana Food Bank Network was likely affiliated with the Billings Food Bank – a common mistaken assumption.

However, the state’s food bank network said that the Billings Food Bank isn’t interested in the kind of transparency it would require to become a member.

That go-it-alone kind of attitude is familiar on a local level, too.

For years, the Billings Food Bank has not been a part of the United Way. Kim Lewis, the executive director of the United Way of Yellowstone County, says the lack of cooperation has stretched back for several decades – longer than nearly anyone still in the business except Shandy.

The United Way conducts annual surveys and convenes meetings to better understand the services needed to help support Billings and Yellowstone County. Part of that is transparency in funding required of organizations and demanded by donors. Lewis said that means that before United Way gives out funding, it requires transparency on how the organizations operate, their other donor support and rules for reporting how the money is used. She said the Billings Food Bank has not been willing to provide the kind of transparency and documentation needed so that the United Way, in turn, can report accurately how the money and resources are spent.

Lewis said food insecurity and hunger are large needs for the biggest county in Montana to meet. She said many groups are coming together to focus on senior care, schools and crisis stabilization. That includes “the food group,” a collaborative that works on issues like food insecurity. Lewis said the group is made of different social service providers who don’t want to reduplicate services.

“For the most part the collaborative rises above its own mission,” she said.

The Billings Food Bank is not a part of that.

“They’ve been invited for the past 34 years, but they don’t participate,” Lewis said — and the door is still open.

She understands the concern of “answer shopping” where some may try to get services at multiple agencies, but the group has come together to track residents, to ensure there’s no overlap and decrease stress. That includes navigators who can help clients identify and get services without having to make multiple stops.

In the midst of the firestorm of controversy surrounding the Billings Food Bank, four leaders in the community wrote in an opinion piece published in The Billings Gazette that they’ve trying to work in a collaborative manner to help address hunger, especially among school-aged children and families. Kathy Aragon, Bernie Mason, Karen Sanford Gall and Virginia Mermel wrote:

“Over the past 35 years organizations we volunteer for have made numerous attempts to engage Billings Food Bank Director Sheryle Shandy and the Billings Food Bank Board in collaborative efforts to ensure that food donations in the Billings area are equitably distributed amongst organizations that provide food relief and that these organizations in turn provide the healthiest meals or food boxes possible in an equitable and dignified manner to those seeking aide. Ms. Shandy has rebuffed all such efforts. The Billings Food Bank Board has also refused to meet to discuss concerns.”

“These systems can be overwhelming and all needs don’t fit into a cookie cutter,” Lewis said. “But it is somewhat dependent on players and leaders. You’re not abandoning part of your mission when you come together, and sometimes it’s not a benefit to one agency, but it benefits the whole community. It is amazing and inspiring when we work together, and we move considerably farther ahead.”

Growing concerns

Concerns with how the Billings Food Bank runs span back beyond the unwillingness to partner with other area or statewide organizations.

Nearly a decade ago, the Fortin Foundation supported the food bank with varying amounts of $50,000 to $100,000 yearly, said Nick Cladis, an investment broker who represents the foundation. In fact, because of his connection to the foundation and its generosity, Cladis was asked to join the food bank’s board of directors – something he did, but quickly exited.

The Fortin Foundation was instrumental in getting the well-equipped building where the food bank is housed near the heart of downtown Billings. It also gave more than $1 million to help build the commercial-grade kitchen as the Billings Food Bank promised to open and operate a training program that would marry the need for food with job training culinary students, including those still in high school.

The Fortin Foundation asked for documentation and reports about how the money was being used. Cladis said the foundation asked for financial statements or other documentation that demonstrated it had achieved its purpose. It received little if any proof, other than the kitchen itself existed. He told the Daily Montanan that he doesn’t have documentation of programming, and believes that less than a half-dozen students were ever trained there. On its tax returns, which describe the mission of the organization, the food bank claims it has graduated 170 students with a 99% success rate.

Because the food bank refused any documentation, the Fortin Foundation discontinued any support for the organization, even though signage on the building still includes the Fortin Culinary Center. Cladis said the foundation has looked for other groups who are tackling hunger, but said the change has likely cost the Billings Food Bank thousands of dollars.

“We had to say, ‘We’re not giving our support because you’re not giving us information,’” Cladis said. “We’d like to come back, but not until what they’re doing changes,” he said.

When he asked Shandy why she was not more transparent, Cladis said she told him that she believed other organizations were trying to steal her list of donors.

It’s not the first time the Billings Food Bank has lost support, financial or otherwise.

For 17 years, the Billings Food Bank ran the federal and state support Community Supplemental Food Program, which was targeted towards seniors in need. The state’s Department of Public Health and Human Services supported local Councils on Aging and those councils distributed commodity foods.

In 2017, alarmed by reports of food not getting distributed and seeing the number of participants drop, the DPHHS pulled the program from the Billings Food Bank. Officials at the time said it was “a huge process” to switch, but the lack of documentation and client files being destroyed made the move necessary. Furthermore, paperwork obtained by The Billings Gazette showed that the Billings Food Bank did not send the proper information about distribution and was cited for holding food beyond the maximum two-month supply.

A board of many or few?

Shandy’s name has been inseparable from the Billings Food Bank for decades. However, as a nonprofit, she is also required to have bylaws and a governance board. How often that board meets, its internal operating rules, and financial condition are unclear.

For example, a listing on the Billings Food Bank’s website only lists three directors. However, a recent letter to the editor defending the organization in The Billings Gazette listed a different roster of six people.

The Daily Montanan requested interviews with any board members, and also requested a copy of the organization’s bylaws. None were provided. It also asked repeatedly to speak with Shandy, but was denied all of those requests, except for a copy of a letter purportedly written by the board sent by Shandy herself. The letter is signed by the board of directors, but lists no names and no signatures.

In several different local media reports, Shandy blamed the conflict and the petition drive calling for her resignation or ouster a product of her self-admitted “Irish temper.”

One of the growing concerns reported by the community centers on expired, rotten or wasted food.

Many grocery businesses and distributors donate food and produce to food banks and pantries as they near expiration, hoping that it can be used quickly without spoiling.

However, complaints on Facebook and Change.org detail multiple cases of food being beyond its expiration date, or food that is unusable.

In the letter submitted to the Daily Montanan and other media organizations, the Billings Food Bank defends its practices.

“In addition to the (food) box which is regularly available and contains shelf-stable food, we offer perishable goods which we have been given. These are often donated to us as they are reaching the end of their usefulness. We offer them to folks, as available. They may take them or leave them. Regrettably some of this food may spoil before it can be consumed,” the letter said.

But the waste appears to go beyond the occasional moldy loaf of bread or a can of outdated soup.

Gilcrist confirmed that she often helped fellow staff members — which number around a half-dozen — maneuver and move pallets of food items that were past the expiration date.

“I saw a whole bunch of pallets in the warehouse that were outdated by years,” Gilcrist said.

That mirrors many of the concerns online commenters voiced about assistance they had received from the Billings Food Bank.

That may not even be the majority of the problem, however, A public documents search shows that in the past five years, the Billings Regional Landfill has received more than 275 tons of waste from the Billings Food Bank, in addition to the untracked amount of waste that is picked up roughly five times per week by the City of Billings solid waste department and its 9-cubic yard garbage container. Gilcrist confirmed the Billings Food Bank often sent truckloads to the dump. Rough calculations indicate that means the food bank is sending nearly a ton of waste to the landfill each week in addition to the garbage service that is collected daily from its premises.

But equally as troubling as wasting food was the hoarding that went on, Gilcrist said.

She said she witnessed Shandy repeatedly denying items such as diapers and infant formula to young parents, often saying, “We don’t have that.”

But Gilcrist said that the building contains large stores of diapers and formula, being kept for some other unspecified time. When Gilcrist said she asked Shandy about it, the director replied, “We don’t give it out to them because most of the time they will just sell it.”

Diapers and infant formula aren’t the only areas of concern for some, though. Cladis said he was asked to join the board briefly because of his involvement with the Fortin Foundation – a powerful philanthropic organization, created by the Fortin family, which has deep, historic ties to the area. Cladis said he lasted for just a couple of meetings.

He said the trouble began when he noticed high-dollar items such as art and jewelry sitting around the office and throughout the building. He said he asked Shandy about those items, which she said had been donated by a variety of businesses and supporters for charity fundraisers and auctions. When he asked more questions, Cladis told the Daily Montanan, she said she was planning to keep some items and sell others. Pressed even more, he learned that many of the donated items went directly to Shandy. Cladis, a finance and investment expert, asked how the organization tracked such transactions. Shandy pointed to a card file, not unlike a recipe box, where Shandy told him she recorded such purchases. Cladis said he went to the bookkeeper to inquire about compliance, but was given uncertain answers.

Shortly after, Cladis said he resigned because of concerns about how property and money were being managed.

Gilcrist said that practice still continues, now several years later.

“There’s everything you can imagine there. There’s a closet where the security cameras are. There are new toys. There are even appliances. In some places, it’s wall-to-wall,” she said.

Gilcrist said when she left the basement had at least 30 new beds, donated from Costco.

“Anything a person could want or need or use is in there, but they’re not being given out,” Gilcrist said.

Instead, she said most people who come through the doors of the Billings Food Bank receive the same standard box that often contains milk, cottage cheese, eggs (if they’re available) and hamburger.

“They’ll also get some produce and pastries, depending on what came in,” she said. “But one person gets the same thing as 10.”

Hundreds of thousands daily

One of the few publicly available clues to how the Billings Food Bank is operating is found in its IRS form 990, which most charitable organizations are required to file and are available to public inspection.

The Billings Food Bank says that in 2021 it received more than $71 million in contributions and grants, nearly all of it in the form of donations. The forms also show that amount jumped considerably from the 2020 form, which totaled $49.9 million.

Those numbers, by comparison, are unusually high when compared to other area and statewide nonprofits’ 990s. For example, the donations and organizational support that the food bank reported receiving is nearly 10 times the amount of another Yellowstone County nonprofit that helps address food insecurity, Family Services of Yellowstone County, which reported $6.9 million the same year.

The Billings Food Bank’s numbers are nearly three times as much as the statewide Montana Food Bank Network, which reported $33.3 million. As a comparison, Montana’s two flagship university foundations in the same year reported $53.4 million for Montana State and $46.7 million for the University of Montana. And while the contributions to the Billings Food Bank were nearly exclusively in donated goods, likely food, using the organization’s own numbers, that translates to more than $190,000 of donated items every day of the calendar year, weekends included.

The 990 also details the number of staff (13) and volunteers (645) active in the organization. Shandy reported making $111,662 as executive director.

The organization, Charity Navigator, which rates and evaluates nonprofits gave the Billings Food Bank three-out-of-four stars using its metrics, with a 87% rating. The food bank was penalized by Charity Navigator in its assessment criteria for not having proper audit protocols, and not having adequate working capital.

Community response, organizational silence

For its part, Shandy and the organization have remained quiet after the initial launch of the petition calling for her resignation. In several stories in print, radio and television, Shandy defended the Billings Food Bank, saying that they serve 10,000 people per month, a number which other organizations and individuals have questioned. Using the Food Bank’s numbers, that means that every person it serves is getting roughly $590 of support and services.

Gilcrist explained that those numbers were likely inaccurate or inflated. Shandy would distribute the same “food box” to a person or family regardless of the size, but ask how many people were in the household and count all of them.

The food bank, in its letter, also defends its actions, including asking residents about other social services they may utilize.

“This is meant to be an emergency supplement, never meant to meet all of anyone’s needs on an ongoing basis,” the letter from the board of directors states. The letter seems to vacillate between using “we” and “I” and no signatures are included.

“Since other agencies are also providing food, we ask that folks pick one agency to use. We feel that this will help ensure that all those in need get, at least, some,” the letter said.

Meanwhile, change.org and the petition Perfitt started continue to collect stories, many of which told similar stories:

Cyndi Muus posted: “I took my Mom there when she was having problems making ends meet. She was at the front desks & I couldn’t believe how rude & nasty she was to an 80 year old lady. After jumping through hoops to get the help I was shocked!! She was given out dated food. I mean years past expiration not best by dates. I took some cans back & was told it happens. Wow! I wonder how many elderly people have gotten sick because they trust that organization to look out for them. She is well past her expiration date.”

Sam Law said:”A few weeks ago, I called to get information. I was inquiring about food for my father who is almost blind from his cataracts and is on disability. I was told that if my father wanted help “He would need to do it himself.” I explained my father is waiting cataract surgery and can’t see so I was trying to help him. She then responded with, ‘Well if you just want a box for yourself then you need to come down here.’ I was like I just want information on how you go about the process. Do you get food bi-weekly etc., she then said, ‘Go to Family Services” and hung up on me. I called back and left a voicemail for a manager. Then I messaged there fb page asking for manager. No one has responded back.”

Gilcrist said that the only person she knew that was active on the Board of Directors was Kathleen Whittenberger, who is listed on the website as a volunteer, but was a former employee of the Billings Food Bank.

“I would hear her talking to Kathleen, and Sheryle would tell her that all these people in the community were lying to her, but then turn around and insult people. I have seen her blatantly lie about herself and say things that just aren’t true,” Gilcrist said.

Even through those moments, Gilcrist was trying to hold on, thinking she’d be able to do more good to work around Shandy in order to help those in need.

Gilcrist worked, staying mostly up in the kitchen, except to get supplies to cook.

But that changed a few weeks ago. Gilcrist went to the main floor to get food for preparation. Shandy saw her and asked what she was doing. Gilcrist said she explained that she was getting food – she recalls it was either celery or strawberries.

“Well, I’m in charge of that,” Gilcrist recalls Shandy saying. “You are just the cook, now go upstairs.”

Gilcrist had reached her breaking point.

With her voice quivering, Gilcrist said she always taught her kids to fight against bullies, now it was her turn.

“You are never going to speak to me that way again,” Gilcrist said. “You are a vile, disgusting human being and I am not working for you anymore.”

Turning around, she saw people in the lobby and addressed them. She recalls saying, “’You guys deserve better. If you have a need, ask for it, because she has it.’

“And then I walked out.”

Looking back, she said she stills see the goodness in the hearts of the other employees and a few volunteers.

“It takes a lot for people to swallow their pride and ask for help. It’s not our job to decide if they’re worthy enough for it,” Gilcrist said. “I’m not trying to destroy her or her cause, but we want her to be accountable for how she’s treating people.

“It’s just not right.”

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