Missoula Villages
Neighbors Helping Neighbors
Missoula Villages is a citizen-driven, grassroots network built to help neighbors care for neighbors. The Village network connects Missoulians to each other through a volunteer exchange, with additional services available through partnerships with the city and local organizations. "The Village" also promotes active, social living by coordinating recreational, educational, and cultural events. We hope Missoulians in every neighborhood will join the network to give back and get help, neighbor to neighbor.
Missoula Villages uses a separate website to manage membership, communicate about operations, and to schedule requests and volunteer availability. Please click the link below to learn more and sign up. You can also learn more at upcoming events. Scroll down to see what's coming up and join us!
Questions? Call MAS Community Impact Supervisor Corey Bressler at (406) 728-7682 or email cbressler@missoulaagingservices.org.
Upcoming Events
Throughout the winter and spring, Missoula Villages invites to the public to learn more at a series of fun, free events. Meet founding volunteers, MAS staff, and community partners to ask, come together with neighbors, and get a feel for Village activities!
Missoula Villages MEMBERS Meet-And-Greet
Our first members-only event! This is a chance for new members to meet each other over coffee (or tea) and treats in a casual, comfortable space.
We're meeting at Leaf & Quiet/Floreo Coffee on the Northside to chat and get to know each other a bit.
Missoula Villages founders and MAS staff will be there too, to socialize, answer questions, and hear any ideas you'd like to share.
Please sign up in advance so that we know how much food to bring!
Missoula Villages Cooking Class: Simple, Tasty Plates to Share
Come cook and connect, and leave with something delicious! Join Missoula Villages for a relaxed, hands-on cooking class with Kelly Moore, MSU Extension educator, at the community kitchen in the Butterfly House. Missoula Villages is offering a series of three classes where you'll prepare recipes for simple, delicious dishes you can enjoy at home and that are great for sharing with others. Learn easy recipes, helpful tips, and ways to prepare foods that reheat well. Perfect for everyday life!
Free. Registration required; space limited. Sign up for one class or all three. Each class session features different healthy recipes:
May 18 | 1–3 pm
June 24 | 1–3 pm
July 13 | 1–3 pm
These classes are offered as a part of our Missoula Villages launch. Participants will have a chance to chat about the new neighbor network with Village leaders, members, and MAS staff.
Call MAS Public Relations & Marketing Manager Anna Wilson with questions at 406.728.7682.
Missoula Villages Downtown Walking History Tour: Bricks & Brothels
This 90-minute, ADA-accessible tour leaves from the front of The Wilma and covers about 5 city blocks. Registration required; space is limited. If you're worried about parking, the Missoula Villages network can help coordinate ride shares.
We've partnered with the Downtown Missoula Partnership to offer one of their special Unseen Missoula walking tours at no cost for Village members and (space allowing) folks who are still checking out the Village network. Thank you to the DMP for generously supporting this event!
While many in Missoula may be familiar with the name Mary Gleim or the brief history of Front Street, many of the district’s stories remain untold, including Gleim’s and her businesses. Since its existence along the historic Mullan Road, Front Street has been known as Missoula’s ‘red light district,’ a place of vice, sin, and corruption, due to the influence of the radical reformist religious movements of the late 19th century. However, violence and addiction that were pervasive throughout the entirety of the American West comprise only a sliver of the true story.
From 1889 to 1917, West Front and Main Streets became home to a vibrant ‘restricted’ community of working women, Chinese laborers, African American soldiers, and immigrants who built the environment we as Missoulians have come to love today. This tour discusses the district through the historical lenses of sex, race, class, and occupation in order to create a broader social understanding against the backdrop of the remaining built environment.
