Price • When Mike Milovich belonged to the Junior Chamber of Commerce in Wyoming, he first heard and was struck by a line from the service organization's creed: "Service to humanity is the best work of life."

He took that message to heart — and to the job 16 years ago when he became chief executive officer of the Eastern Utah Community Credit Union in Price.

"Where we can make a difference we try to step up to the plate to do it," said Milovich, who also is one of the county's three part-time commissioners.

Giving back is a yearlong focus for Milovich and his 31 employees, who have come up with dozens of ways to raise money to support charitable endeavors: monthly bake sales, a summer yard sale, raffles, a Navajo taco booth at a community festival. Last year, the employees even published a cookbook and sold 2,500 copies. Its projects range from giving gas cards to families traveling to Primary Children's Medical Center in Salt Lake City to providing winter wear — coats, hats, gloves and boots — to all 50 special-needs students at Castle Valley Center.

"What was cool was they brought all the kids down and sang Christmas carols to us," Milovich said. "There weren't too many dry eyes among the staff at that point."

The credit union is the largest contributor to the Carbon County Food Bank and spends, largely through donations and fundraisers, as much as $50,000 each year on an annual Angel Tree project that in the past has typically benefited 250 children, 20 families and senior citizens and disabled residents. But it is not alone in reaching out to residents who are down on their luck.

From schools to service organizations, grocery stores and radio stations, myriad efforts are under way in southeastern Utah to make sure no one goes without food during the coming holiday season, and this year, that collective action is needed more than ever.

Poverty is increasing, driven by an economy that is still hobbled. Among recent hits: Nearly half the workforce at the Dugout Canyon coal mine outside of Wellington — 114 people — lost their jobs Nov. 3 when Canyon Fuel Co. announced it is scaling back production. In three of the region's four counties — Carbon, Grand and San Juan — the percentage of residents who relied on food stamps last year was the highest in the state.

Kathy Thomas, who oversees the Emery County Food Bank, said requests for help have doubled in the past two years, with 150 families now picking up a monthly food box. At the same time, contributions of food and money — both from people and the federal government — have declined.

Emery's food bank, for instance, lost a $5,600 federal grant used to purchase high-protein food when the Federal Emergency Management Agency's budget was cut and it revised its funding formula, based on unemployment and poverty rates, to focus on the nation's neediest areas. The Carbon County Food Bank lost $9,000.

"That's a lot of food we can purchase," said Debbie Hatt, director of the Southeastern Utah Association of Local Governments.

The two food banks also have watched U.S. Department of Agriculture provisions disappear.

"We used to get pallets of food, then we were down to cases and now we are down to zero," said Collette Freestone, community services program manager, who oversees the Carbon County Food Bank. Freestone said deliveries from the Utah Food Bank are down by about one-third, too, and it has informed its partners it won't be able to provide turkeys or hams this Christmas.

"I've been here in this position for 10 years, and that's never happened before," said Thomas, who figures she needs 100 turkeys or hams to meet requests for help.

Ginette Bott, spokeswoman for the Utah Food Bank, said turkeys and hams supplied in the past were "above and beyond" its primary focus.

"In a year when we are trying to be more efficient with our inventory and our spending, we deem it more important to provide ongoing inventory to the pantry versus doing a one-day holiday special meal," she said. "We are an emergency food pantry first."

Freestone said that come Christmas, if the Carbon County Food Bank is running short on items for a holiday meal it will likely give priority to "big families, families with kids." But, she said, the food bank typically gets enough help from the community in November to get through December. It is January that she's worried about, "the month when everything drops off."

Thomas echoes that: "I have faith that things are going to start picking up. People only need a reason to be generous. They have to know about it first."

In this rural part of Utah, that hope is not misplaced.

In Emery County, the Lions Club is already working to provide "all the ingredients for a holiday meal minus the meat. If we can come up with the meat, we should be able to help quite a few people," said Thomas.

Collections also are under way at area high schools. Rather than compete against each other as they have in the past, Emery and Carbon high schools are doing their own food drives this year. Emery High students, divided by grade and class periods, kicked off a one-week canned food drive on Nov. 15. In Price, students and staff at Carbon High School have divided into four color-coded teams to see who can collect the most food, which will be delivered to the county pantry just before Thanksgiving. And students at Utah State University's Eastern SUN Center in Price collected cans instead of candy at Halloween, hauling in just over 1,325 pounds of food.

Milovich said staff in his Price, East Carbon and Moab branches began collecting food in mid-October, and he expects to have about 8,500 pounds to deliver to the food bank by Thanksgiving. The credit union also has ordered 10 cases of turkeys. Already, local residents are bringing donations to help — including a $1,000 check one local business recently dropped on Milovich's desk.

On Tuesday , it will begin a two-day bake sale that includes "serious, serious" bread made by Annette Gibson and banana cream and pumpkin pies made by Cyndi Dayley, who used to run a pie shop in Helper with her mother. Last year's sale brought in $1,115 to help provide Thanksgiving and Christmas for needy families.

Dayley first got involved in the Angel Tree program after seeing how the project helped some of her extended family members. Now, she helps oversee the credit union's Angel Tree project.

"You feel like such a part of the community," said Dayley, a member services representative. "You feel like you're making a difference and giving back, especially when you have family members who've been on the receiving end of that."

Adds Milovich: "All together, we make a pretty good difference in the community. It makes for a better work atmosphere when you're concentrating on something rather than our everyday work duties."

brooke@sltrib.comTwitter: Brooke4Trib —

Season of giving

Each Sunday through Christmas, The Salt Lake Tribune will profile giving efforts in communities across the state. To view stories in the series, a running list of opportunities to give, and tips on making wise donations, visit www.sltrib.com/giving. —

How to help

P Here's where to drop off food or mail contributions to help in southeastern Utah:

Carbon County Food Bank • 75 E. 4th South, Price, Utah 84501

Emery County Food Bank • 40 S. Center St., Castle Dale, Utah 84513

Eastern Utah Community Credit Union • 675 E. 100 North, Price, 84501; 860 S. Main St., Moab, Utah 84532; 105 W. Geneva, East Carbon, Utah 84520