OUR WORK

COVID Response

GREAT PLAINS FOOD BANK RESPONSE:
COVID-19 

The Great Plains Food Bank is in daily contact with our partner food pantries, shelters and soup kitchens, health organizations, legislators and the Feeding America network of 200 food banks nationwide to determine how to best fill the critical needs of hungry children, seniors and families during this difficult time, while maintaining the health of our its staff and volunteers and clients. 

The Great Plains Food Bank’s current operations including our Mobile Food Pantry distributions and regular food recovery and distribution efforts will continue as planned. We have also partnered with the USDA distributing food boxes throughout North Dakota and western Minnesota through the Farmers to Families Food Box Program. We remain committed to providing the food assistance necessary to feed those in need in our region. 

You can make the difference to ensure we can help those in need during these trying times by making a gift below. 

HOW CAN THE PUBLIC HELP? 

Our mission is to end hunger through community partnerships and there is not greater time for members of the community to lend a hand then now. 

There are multiple ways that you can help: 

  • Monetary donations to the Great Plains Food Bank are always needed and is a resource that we are able to stretch very far. For each dollar donated, we can provide three meals for someone in need. Consider a gift to the Great Plains Food Bank HERE.  
  • You can also host your own COVID-19 virtual food drive to benefit those in need during this difficult time to benefit the Great Plains Food Bank. Find a link to register your own virtual food drive HERE. 
  • Individuals can also host their own food drives and donate those items. Find more information on hosting a food and funds drive HERE.  

HOW ARE WE RESPONDING? 

CLIENTS: We are working diligently with our network of more than 200 partner food pantries, shelters and soup kitchensin our region to be certain we are doing all that we can to be sure they have resources they need to meet the increased demand. We are also continuing full operation of our Mobile Food Pantry to be able to offer this service to those in need during this difficult time.  

EMERGENCY FOOD ASSISTANCE: We continue to monitor the needs of our clients and are taking steps toward providing emergency food assistance when and if it will be needed. 

VOLUNTEERS: We continue to welcome volunteers and ask that they follow strict sanitary precautions. If any volunteer is not feeling well or has traveled to a highly impacted area, they are being asked to cancel their volunteer shift and reschedule for a later time. All our volunteers are required to wear gloves while volunteering and are required to wash their hands before handling any food product. This will be monitored especially closely. 

We are limiting the size of volunteer groups to 10 individuals or less. Volunteer groups of up to 20 people are able to volunteer, but will be broken into groups of 10 or fewer and placed in separate room during their time with us. Places for volunteers inside the repack center are marked off to ensure a safe distance is being placed between each individual. 

SNAP: During difficult times, we have experienced an increased number of applications through our Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) outreach work. We are committed to assisting those that qualify for the SNAP program are able to receive it. If you are in need of SNAP assistance or would like to determine if you qualify, call the SNAP hotline at 855-405-0000. Find more information HERE.  

QUARANTINE: From the North Dakota Emergency Operations Center, if someone needs quarantine with no other options call the North Dakota Department of Corrections at 701-328-0707 and they can assist in finding an alternative short-term quarantine location. 

IS COVID-19 TRANSFERABLE THROUGH FOOD PRODUCTS? 

According to Feeding America, the virus is not transmitted through food or water. It is transmitted primarily through close personal contact. 

From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC):  Coronaviruses are generally thought to be spread from person-to-person through respiratory droplets. Currently there is no evidence to support transmission of COVID-19 associated with food. Before preparing or eating food, it is important to always wash your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds for general food safety.

Throughout the day, wash your hands after blowing your nose, coughing or sneezing, or going to the bathroom. It may be possible that a person can get COVID-19 by touching a surface or object that has the virus on it and then touching their own mouth, nose, or possibly their eyes, but this is not thought to be the main way the virus spreads. In general, because of poor survivability of these coronaviruses on surfaces, there is likely very low risk of spread from food products or packaging that are shipped over a period of days or weeks at ambient, refrigerated, or frozen temperatures. 

Stay up to date on COVID-19 updates by following the Great Plains Food Bank on Facebookand Twitter and provide us your email to receive updates and periodic opportunities to give HERE. 

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.