How Did It All Begin? A History of Caring for Others
When a group of buddies at the local VFW Post 7242 (Veterans of Foreign Wars) and VNVA (Vietnam Veterans of America) began serving meals three days a week to those in need in La Pine in 1999, little did they know the huge impact their acts of kindness would have in the years to come.
“One of the veterans worked at the local market at the time, and members of the VFW and VNVA saw the need for people to get fed,” said Clyde Evans, a VFW member who has volunteered with Community Kitchen since 2002 and is vice president of the board of directors. “Our reputation grew and grew until where we are today.”
In 1999, the program was formally known as the Community Soup Kitchen. Twenty-six years later, La Pine Community Kitchen (LPCK) is serving free, hot meals five days a week, distributing groceries through its food pantry two days a week, and providing clothing and hygiene supplies twice a week. There are seven part-time employees, and a seven-member board of directors; the program officially became a 501(c)(3) charity in 2006. In 2024, LPCK served 18,529 hot meals and distributed 332,819 pounds of food to 8,227 pantry clients.
La Pine Community Kitchen is housed in a 1930s Shevlin-Hixon mobile logging home that was moved from the Chemult Logging Camp to its present site on Finley Butte Road in La Pine when Shevlin-Hixon sold to Brooks-Scanlon in the early 1950s.
At that time, the home was owned by Ira Skidgel, who lived there for several years. Skidgel donated the facility to the VFW by leaving it to the organization in his will, so when he died, the VFW took it over and turned it into their headquarters. The first meals were served out of that facility, and the same building continues to serve as Community Kitchen’s cozy dining room.
Over the years, Evans said it became apparent that the need for the meal program was growing, and that it required a permanent place to call home. As a result, La Pine Community Kitchen became an official charity in 2006, and in 2008, the VFW began leasing the building to the organization. That same year, Community Kitchen won a bid for the donation of a Knott’s Landfill building from Deschutes County, and was moved to the Finley Butte Road location. That building housed the Clothing Closet and Food Pantry. The property has continued to evolve over the years: In those early days, a donated chicken coop that had no insulation, packed gravel with horse stall mats as floors, extension cords hanging everywhere, and plastic windows was renovated to house the food pantry’s produce area. In 2010, a $25,000 grant was received in order to lift the current kitchen building up and install a foundation under it.
A decade later, Evans and another member of the LPCK Board of Directors at that time realized that purchasing the building would allow the organization to apply for grants that would not otherwise be available. Over the next several months, the two board members hammered out terms that were acceptable to both Community Kitchen and the VFW, and in 2019 the sale price was established at $145,000.
At the time of the sale, 38% of the people served by Community Kitchen were veterans. Since then, that number has dipped somewhat, but veterans still comprise a large percentage of the meal and pantry food clientele. “This was critical in obtaining permission from VFW’s state organization to move ahead with the sale,” Evans said. “We worked out a sale and lease-back arrangement with terms that are unique to this particular situation,” he added. “For example, after 40 years, when the principal is due, VFW will begin paying $1.00 per year in rent. And the interest payments during this time will be credited back to VFW against its annual rent amount.” A clause was included that if one of the organizations should dissolve first, the other one would acquire the property.
After the sale of the property to Community Kitchen, the program continued to grow, and Evans said there were many who worked hard to keep it going, including Chris Riggs, others from the local 7th Day Adventist church, and Kristi Ottni from the La Pine Community Action Team (LCAT).
“The amount of people coming in has increased a lot,” said Jim Fleming, president of the LPCK Board of Directors, who joined on as a volunteer in 2006. “We never thought we’d be serving this many people.” Fleming said that as the economy goes up and down, the number of low-income clients coming in for meals and food stays steady. “Financially, it was very hard to stay afloat. We rely on good grant writers and fundraising to keep money coming in.”
Ron Miller, a volunteer with LPCK since 2005 who is also on the Board of Directors, said that in those early years, perseverance paid off. “No matter how much work it was, we just did it. We pursued something until we got it done.” In those days, volunteers used their own vehicles to collect food, until eventually a van was donated. When it wore out, two trucks were purchased that the board members found at well below market value. “Community service workers were used to perform much of the work on the property,” Miller recalled, “and a lot of them came back later to help out as volunteers.”
Now, the LPCK is headed by a board of directors – composed of seven community members with varying backgrounds – and Jamie Bovik, who oversees day-to-day operations as general manager.
As of 2025, Community Kitchen’s three programs are housed in separate buildings that are all in need of replacement. Fundraising efforts are underway to build a new structure to encompass all programs under one roof. “People don’t realize how much area La Pine covers,” said Fleming. “It’s not just the city; La Pine goes all the way out to Christmas Valley and south to Crescent. It’s 10,000 square miles, and anyone in the region can come in for free food and clothing.”
While other food pantries exist in the area, Fleming said LPCK is the only one in the region that provides groceries, hot meals and clothing. Evans said these services help patrons living on Social Security extend their budgets so they can afford to live on fixed incomes, but that many younger clients come in for food too. “It’s sad to see young mothers coming in with kids,” added Fleming. “For me, it’s about the kids.”