Community Impact through Cooking Classes

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We’re excited to share this blog with the backstory about the Conrad Community Film to help explain how the work and ideas for Community Cooking Classes became a reality for a small, rural town in Montana. 

Leadership through action. Hometown community building. Intentionally giving back. 

When Vanessa, owner of Pondera County Insurance (PCI), was growing up in her hometown of Conrad, Montana, her family was friends with the matriarch of their community, Elsie. Elsie was “the most wonderful lady in the world,” shared Vanessa. “She’d bake cinnamon rolls for the sheriff’s department and personally deliver them.” She was a strong community presence, always engaged and supporting others. When Elsie was 97 years old, living alone and not eating well, Vanessa brought her lunch every Tuesday. One restaurant in town had a special meal every Tuesday that resembled a Thanksgiving meal. Their lunch became a weekly ritual. Vanessa would pick up the turkey meal, deliver the food to Elsie, and they ate lunch together. They called it Turkey Tuesday. 

Conrad, Montana is an agriculture community filled with agriculture dealers, farmers and ranchers. It’s a tight knit community of 2,500 people with 1 stop light located in central Montana. Most businesses exist where there is a population of people, but PCI isn’t most businesses. With 7 other insurance agencies in town and with people able to access information and advisors online, Vanessa wanted her business to stand for something different, something where her business can make a positive impact in her community.

Vanessa wanted to build something meaningful where she grew up. With a background in banking and commercial lending, she was serious about building her business and making her core values of community the foundation. This meant making money and providing for her family, as well as giving back to the community that supported her from a young age. 

Thirteen years ago she started PCI from scratch. 

Giving back looked like being creative through starting and focusing on a local community event, a kids triathlon, with funds going to support the No Kid Hungry Montana Chapter. Vanessa was (and still is!) deeply passionate about kids and making sure they aren’t hungry by eating fresh foods. The event was fun for kids and adults to compete through swimming, running and biking, all to support other kids and make sure no kid experienced hunger in Montana. Vanessa had connected with Lisa Lee, the current Co-Executive Director of The Montana Partnership to End Childhood Hunger (MT-PECH), who formerly led No Kid Hungry Montana. The Montana chapter became what is now, MT-PECH, and the two women have stayed connected over the years. 

Registration for the triathlon included a small fee and a can of food for the local food bank. At its height, the event drew 40 participants. PCI was able to leverage the event to raise external funding through their insurance carriers and companies, independent agencies, so they could quantify the event and make it a true fundraising endeavor.

The triathlon ran its course, Covid left impacts, and Vanessa pivoted. Instead of a community event, the goal became to challenge families to get outside and adventure by taking photos and sharing them with PCI. This worked for a time and then it was time to once again go back to the drawing board of how best to support her community of Conrad. 

Vanessa’s husband is the Superintendent for Sunburst Schools, a town near Conrad. Through conversations with him and other people in the community, food was the most important part of the equation for needed community support. The idea of supporting ensuring kids have food and don’t experience hunger continued to resonate with Vanessa. The vision of families around a dinner table became the driving force for the next iteration of PCI’s community impact. 

“Obesity and poverty go hand-in-hand and access to good food can be challenging,” said Vanessa. “There is a backpack program where kids are sent home with food for the weekend and I saw what schools are doing to get kids fed.” “As a working mom of 3 kids, I would ask myself, what’s for dinner? And, that question got me thinking.”

From working with Lisa in the past and holding community conversations in Conrad around food, Vanessa reached out to start a conversation around focusing on the physical side of food. The new focus was figuring out what meals can be made in a pinch with good, wholesome ingredients and then families can sit around the table to eat dinner together. 

“Let's teach parents how to make a hearty, good meal instead of having prepared food, prioritizing nutrition, and let's make it fun for them to learn. Let's get someone else in their family to come with them, and then they can enjoy the food together!” 

She asked her staff at PCI if they could lead a cooking class and when herself and no one felt confident enough to do so, she reached out to MSU Extension for support and partnership. Wendy Wedum’s response to the request to lead cooking classes was an enthusiastic yes. Wendy works as a Family and Consumer Sciences Extension Agent and Associate Professor with Montana State University, so she was the perfect person for Vanessa to partner with to teach community cooking classes. 

“Class was outstanding!” raved Vanessa. PCI and MSU Extension partnered to offer a session of 6 cooking classes for under $400, proving a point that it doesn’t take a lot of money to create a positive impact in your community by choosing to do good. “It’s about the same cost as an ad on the radio and a better use of our money for advertising,” said Vanessa. 

One other key aspect that supported Vanessa’s success is being able to access grants to support local community work. The non-profit arm of New York Life, the New York Life Foundation, helps pay it forward by paying Vanessa for her volunteer hours through their Random Acts of Kindness Initiative. For each hour she volunteers, she’s reimbursed $17.50 to give back to a charity of her choice. It’s this funding that created the seed money to start the community cooking class program, which totaled about $500. From Vanessa’s initial idea, coupled with funding, and partnering with multiple entities, the cooking class program was launched and piloted. Community Cooking classes were so wildly loved and successful that they’re still being held and since the first session, the work has expanded. Now, every participant goes home with an Instant Pot, which is very exciting for class participants. 

“Such an idea takes a 3-legged stool to bring it to life,” said Vanessa. “MSU Extension or someone with the skills to teach culinary and someone to support the work with financial backing, plus the people participating. We want PCI to come to the top of the list when people are considering businesses to work with because we want to be good at giving back,” she said. “It feels so full-circle and fulfilling, especially knowing that Elsie is still giving back to their community.”