OUR IMPACT

STORIES OF HOPE

STORIES OF HOPE

At the Great Plains Food Bank, we believe that no one should go hungry. 

Each dollar or food item donated or volunteer hours generously given has an incredible impact on the more than 102,000 we serve each year. Here are just a few of their stories. 

Kitchen Coalition

Launched in 2023, the Great Plains Food Bank Kitchen Coalition program provided nearly 14,000 meals in its first yearDanielle Gerving from Gladys Ray Shelter and Amber Orvik from Brew Kitchen

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Brenda

Every time Brenda shops for groceries in Dickinson, North Dakota, she is careful about what she buys. The price of food has gone up in recent months and her budget

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Brooks Sethman

Brooks Sethman is a professional volunteer. At age 63, he lives in Dickinson and volunteers at Amen Food Pantry and House of Manna. He also volunteers with Bimbo Bakeries, delivering

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Steve and Leona

When he was younger, Steve had a good job as a cook. He enjoyed the work and expected it would be his lifetime career. But a car accident changed everything.

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Heather

Heather admits she’s not the most likely person to wait in line to pick up food items at a local mobile food pantry event. She and her husband have good,

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A Father’s Love

Edward drove in from Edgeley, North Dakota, and waited in line for a half hour so he could pick up food for his sons. In particular, his youngest son who

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Jodi Schad

Jodi Schad has always wanted to help people. For a while, she thought about studying criminal justice. But once she started classes at Sitting Bull College in Fort Yates, North

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Stories of Hope - Anita Dunn

Anita Dunn

Anita Dunn lost her job over a month ago. She had been working as a housekeeper at the Fort Yates Indian Health Service Hospital, but her contract ended. “I was

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Stories of Hope - Amber

Feeding a Family

When Amber heard that the Great Plains Food Bank mobile unit was stopping in Fort Yates, she jumped at the opportunity to receive some fresh produce and other staples. She

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Cassie Scheiman

Shortly after World War I, North Dakota became the summer home for many migrant families. The sugar beet industry in ND in part, became successful because of the efforts of

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Allan Wolf

One in six North Dakotans wake up each morning facing hunger, just like 68-year-old Marine Corp Veteran and grandfather of three, Allan Wolf. Allan is currently an over-the-road truck driver

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Preparing for the future

Carlos Sanchez and his two-year-old daughter Amara patiently waited their turn to go through the line and get the food they needed at Ministry on the Margins in Bismarck. It

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Teresa Van Deusen

As part of Hunger in North Dakota 2018, a comprehensive study of Great Plains Food Bank clients and partners, more than 500 clients in need of food assistance were asked

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Catherine Thomas

Catherine Thomas lives in a small community near Center, N.D., where she has limited access to food assistance. The 75-year-old has been doing the best she can on her own

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Drew

Volatility in the markets and making ends meet at times can be difficult in the agricultural industry. Drew and his wife experienced this firsthand a few years ago. When the

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Ella Schrock

With five kids all under the age of 18 living at home, Ella Schrock and her husband Melvin have no issues remaining busy. And unfortunately, much of Ella’s time is

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Yvonne Schmidt

Stops at the Spirit of Life Food Pantry in Mandan, a partner agency of the Great Plains Food Bank, is a weekly occurrence for Yvonne Schmidt. The stops are out

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Sherri Farrington

Sherri Farrington visited a recent stop of the Great Plains Food Bank Mobile Food Pantry in Hazen with a lot on her mind. Her first priority was doing what she

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Adam Rodriguez

Winter took a toll on Adam Rodriguez when he slipped and fell on an icy patch. The fall tore up his shoulder forcing him onto disability as he recovered from

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Barilynn Everett

Barilynn recently visited a mobile food pantry stop in Twin Buttes to get food for her and her family, which also consists of her mother Heidi and her brother Byron.

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Raven Heart

One thing Raven Heart hopes she never has to encounter is to be paid a visit from her 15 grandchildren and she has no food for them. When things get

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Tobi Morgenstern

Tobi Morgenstern stopped by the Great Plains Food Bank Mobile Food Pantry at a recent stop in Beulah with her two youngest children. They were there to get food for

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Jenae Bowen

Jenae Bowen patiently waited in line outside the Epworth United Methodist Church in Valley City while holding her 11-month-old son, Erick. The line of cars filled the majority of the

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Norma Voltz

It was the first time 86-year-old Norma Voltz needed food assistance when she visited the Great Plains Food Bank Mobile Food Pantry when it stopped in Dodge. A close-knit family that includes her brothers, children, grand children and great grand children, they all experienced difficult times when Norma’s daughter suffered a serious accident. Assistance from the Mobile Food Pantry helped to provide food for two weeks at a much needed time.

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Kasandra Brody

Kasandra’s heart was heavy on her first visit to Ministry on the Margins in Bismarck, a partner agency of the Great Plains Food Bank, as she mourned the recent passing of the father of her seven-year-old daughter, Justice. Now maneuvering through life’s challenges as a single mother, she has relied on food assistance to help the young family get by. It’s difficult for her to imagine the situation they would be in without the help.

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Dustin Erhart

Dustin Erhart makes his $700 Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payment last as long as he is able, but typically comes up short most months attempting the feed himself and his 17-year-old son, Gage. The single father has found a needed resource at Ministry on the Margins in Bismarck, a partner agency of the Great Plains Food Bank.

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Joddie Samelson

Joddie Samelson (shown left) appreciates the assistance of her son Matt (shown right) when she visits the Kidder County Food Pantry in Steele each month. Following a stroke, Joddie no longer has use of her right arm so the extra help is needed. Living on a fixed income, the food she receives through this Great Plains Food Bank partner agency can last her three weeks and she doesn’t know what she would do if it wasn’t an option.

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Phyllis Bauer and Dennis Hickman

Through a number of different circumstances, neighbors Phyllis Bauer and Dennis Hickman have formed a bond. A part of that friendship includes traveling together to the Great Plains Food Bank Mobile Food Pantry when it stops in Milnor. The food they are able to receive there lasts each of them a month and has helped Phyllis fill a void after her husband passed away last year.

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PRIVACY POLICY

This privacy notice discloses the privacy practices for Great Plains Food Bank regarding websites located at www.greatplainsfoodbank.org and give.greatplainsfoodbank.org. Great Plains Food Bank reserves the right, at any time and without notice, to change this Privacy Policy simply by posting such changes on our site. Any such change will be effective immediately upon posting. Great Plains Food Bank (“us”, “we”, “our”). Website visitor, guest, and/or donor (“you”, “user”).

Information Collection

  • Personal Information You Choose to Provide In the process of general correspondence, making a gift, or participating in online surveys you may be asked to supply us with personal information, including your email address, postal address, home or work telephone number and other information. If you correspond with us through email, we may retain the content of your email messages, your email address, and our responses. 
  • Website Use Information Similar to most websites, our site may utilize “cookies” and web server logs to collect information about how our website is used. Information gathered may include the date and time of visits, pages viewed, time spent on our website, and the sites visited just before and just after ours. This information is collected on an aggregate basis; none of this information is associated with you as an individual.

How Do We Use Information 

  • That You Provide to Us? We use personal information for purposes of administering our not-for-profit business activities, providing service and support, and making available other information and services to our website visitors, guests, agency partners, advocates, contracted consultants, and approved vendors. We may use the information provided to notify you about important changes to our website, new services, or new information that supports your interest in hunger-relief. 
  • Collected From Cookies? We use cookies and web server logs to gather information about our website users’ browsing activities. This information assists us in designing and continually improving our web pages in the most user-friendly manner. We do not use these technologies to capture any personally identifying information.

Security

  • How Do We Protect Your Information?
    • We utilize encryption/security software to safeguard the confidentiality of personal information we collect from unauthorized access or disclosure and accidental loss, alteration or destruction. 
    • Our operations and business practices are periodically reviewed for compliance with organization policies and procedures governing the security, confidentiality and quality of our information. 
    • Our organization values ethical standards, policies and practices and is committed to the protection of user information. Our not-for-profit business practices limit employee access to confidential information, and limits the use and disclosure of such information to authorized persons, processes and transactions.
  • How Do We Secure Information Transmissions? All information transmitted through our website, giving pages, and forms are sent via secure, encrypted server. Other emails you send to us may not be secure; for that reason, we ask that you do not send confidential information such as Social Security, credit card, or account numbers to us through an unsecured email.
  • Do We Disclose Information to Outside Parties? We do not sell, trade, or rent your personal information. We may provide aggregate information about our website visitors or website traffic patterns to our contracted affiliates or third parties; this information will not include personally identifying data, except as otherwise provided in this privacy policy. Personal information such as email and address may be shared with a contracted third party for the use of email dissemination and direct mail marketing; all third party vendors are required to sign a non-disclosure agreement.
  • Legally Compelled Disclosure of Information? We may disclose information when legally compelled to do so, in other words, when we, in good faith, believe that the law requires it or for the protection of our legal rights.

Permission to Use of Materials 

  • The right to download and store or output the materials on our website is granted for personal use only, and materials may not be reproduced in any edited form. Any other reproduction, transmission, performance, display or editing of these materials by any means mechanical or electronic without our express written permission is strictly prohibited. Users wishing to obtain permission to reprint or reproduce any materials appearing on this site may contact us directly.

Your Access to and Control of Information 

  • You may request access to all of your personally identifiable information that we collect online and maintain in our donor constituent database, DonorPerfect. 
  • You may request removal from any communication including but not limited to emails, direct mail pieces, text and phone calls.
  • Because we do not sell, trade, or rent your personal information; opting out of such practices is optional and not required.

Contact Great Plains Food Bank/Opt-out

If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy, need to opt-out of future communications, or wish to exercise any other privacy right you may have by law, please contact us in any of the ways shown below.

Great Plains Food Bank
attn. Development Associate
1720 3rd Ave N
Fargo, ND 58102

Phone: 701-476-9120

Email: info@greatplainsfoodbank.org

All opt-out requests will be honored, but please be patient with us as it may take up to twelve (12) weeks for opt-out changes to be fully implemented. We may also occasionally initiate contact with opt-out supporters in order to update their contact preferences, and we will promptly accommodate their updated preferences, if any.

TERMS & CONDITIONS

DONATION REFUND POLICY

We are grateful for your donation and support of our organization. If you have made an error in making your donation or change your mind about contributing to our organization please contact us. Refunds are returned using the original method of payment. If you made your donation by credit card, your refund will be credited to that same credit card.

AUTOMATED RECURRING DONATION CANCELLATION

Ongoing support is important to enabling projects to continue their work, so we encourage donors to continue to contribute to projects over time. But if you must cancel your recurring donation, please notify us.