Larry and Julie Feist made spreading hope their mission

Jun. 17—How do you inspire hope among the Flathead Valley's most vulnerable? For Majs. Larry and Julie Feist of The Salvation Army, it requires lending an ear.

"Sometimes you just listen to them and make them feel like they're heard," said Larry Feist on one of his final days before departing The Salvation Army's Kalispell Corps last week. "We try and meet people where they are and try and get them to the next level."

The Feists have spent a little more than four years listening to people struggling with all sorts of obstacles in the valley, among them addiction, poverty, homelessness and loneliness. Now the couple, who met through a friend in The Salvation Army and married in 2003, are headed further west, to Eureka, California.

The Salvation Army reassigns its officers based on the organization's needs and its leaders' skills. When the couple arrived in Kalispell in April 2020 — following appointments in Arizona, Hawaii, California and Washington — the Covid-19 pandemic was just a few weeks old. While following quarantine directives after arriving in the state gave them time to unpack, the restrictions put a damper on the usual meet-and-greets with local leaders to find out how best the organization could help the community, Julie Feist recalled.

They also had to adjust services to the new reality, including The Salvation Army's meal program as well as its shower and laundry services.

"You had to adapt, just like everyone else," Julie Feist said.

Still, it was a relief when life began to get back to normal.

"When services resumed ... that was the best day," she recalled.

The couple also arrived during a period of mourning. Usually, incoming officers receive a briefing drafted by their predecessor. In the Feists' case, the officer previously overseeing the Flathead Valley had died unexpectedly.

"The people coming here didn't really have a chance to mourn him," Julie Feist said. "It was all very emotional. God carried us through."

IN THE years since, the couple estimates they've seen thousands of people fed and had the joy of overseeing four Christmas programs that saw hundreds of children receive toys. None of that would have been possible without the wider community, the pair emphasized.

"This is the most generous, giving community that I've ever been a part of and we are really going to miss it," Julie Feist said.

It's also a community that has seen a rapid increase in homelessness in recent years. As they prepare to depart, the Feists see a need for more resources and improved collaboration among service providers to better address the Flathead Valley's homeless population.

"We try and collectively come up with a solution," Larry Feist said. "But there is not an easy solution. There are not a lot of services here for people that need them."

"They're mostly from the community," Julie Feist said. "They've been priced out of housing, they've picked up addictions, but they're locals. Even for people who have a home to live in, they're living paycheck to paycheck."

For the Feists, that's where spreading hope plays a pivotal role. Looking at her husband, Julie recalled seeing him sit down with people at mealtime and asking them for their story, their plans for the future.

"Some of the stories are amazing," she said, noting that challenging people to think beyond the present can inspire positive change.

Larry Feist agreed.

"If you don't have a plan, I don't know how to help you," he said. "We want to try to engage people to come up with their own plan."

There is also the challenge of helping people with addiction, which Larry Feist described as "a whole different ball game." It's compounded by the distance to rehabilitation facilities run by The Salvation Army, said Julie Feist. In other places where they've served, like Arizona, they could drive people to a treatment facility operated by the organization. From Kalispell, she said, the closest locations would be in Denver or Seattle.

DESPITE THE challenge addiction can pose, people overcome it, Julie Feist said. And despite the lack of a facility run by The Salvation Army, there are other providers in the area. She recalled one gentleman who, while never disruptive or belligerent, was rarely sober. After his absence for several months Julie Feist bumped into him again — sober and happy.

"It can happen," she said. "I know it can happen."

The region's service providers — which she praised across the board for offering vital aid — and the community as a whole could improve how it met individual needs through better collaboration.

"If you have someone who has all these needs, we just have to get better in the community with what we have, what we can give and who we can give it to, and not just ping-ponging these people back and forth," she said.

Larry Feist has a catchphrase he readily admits adapting from a car dealership's advertising campaign, but believes encompasses his approach to helping others: "Remember, together we're better."

"It really is true," he said as he pondered departing Kalispell. "We can do a lot more together and we're better together."

Reflecting on her time in the Flathead Valley, Julie Feist also touched on community.

"The Salvation Army can do nothing in a community without the support of the community," she said. "Anything we do that the community is thankful for is because of the community."

News Editor Derrick Perkins can be reached at 758-4430 or [email protected].