Proceeds from Shepherd Bar will be used to pay off overdue school meal amounts

Shepherd, Montana – Beginning this week, Shepherd’s Red Rooster Bar will donate a part of its weekly special revenues to Shepherd Schools in order to support underprivileged children and families.

After five years of ownership, Angel Viren and her spouse bought the pub at 5429 Carey Ave. They wanted to give back to the neighborhood.

“We’ve just been kind of building our kitchen, because we didn’t have very many food resources out here when we first bought the bar,” Viren said.

The bar has been providing free delivery to Shepherd Schools teachers for the past few years, and it has given 10% of the proceeds from the teachers’ lunch orders back to the school. However, Viren intended to make it public this year.

“Times are a little tough right now, but no kid should ever go hungry,” Viren said.

Every week, the bar will serve a unique “Mustang Special” that isn’t typically available on the menu. A portion of the sales from each special will be donated to the schools in order to pay off overdue lunch amounts. Lunch and dinner will both be served with the special.

“We really love our community. We want to give back to it. I have a son who goes to the school, so I’m always trying to figure out ways that we can help the school and give back to the school. But the other thing too is I was a hungry child,” Viren said. “I know what it’s like to sit in class and just think about being hungry. And not knowing if you’re going to be able to eat that day.”

Caleb Janich, a sixth-grader at Shepherd, said he was relieved to learn that someone is supporting the students and their families because he went without money in his lunch account a few times last year.

“It will just help with the rest of their day because for me it was pretty rough not eating,” Janich said.

As of Saturday, according to Viren, they had already raised $70. That money will be added to the total raised this week and given back to the schools.

“In the long run, what I would hope to do is to not only pay off the negative balances but to create maybe a scholarship fund so that kids can get positive balances,” Viren said.