Great Plains Food Bank

STATEWIDE FOOD RECOVERY AND DISTRIBUTION: The Great Plains Food Bank (GPFB) is the only food bank serving the state of North Dakota and Clay County, Minn. Our mission is to End Hunger Together. During FY23, the Great Plains Food Bank provided food for 9.6 million meals to 144,370 people struggling with hunger; 36% were children and 14% were seniors. The GPFB partners with hundreds of FOOD DONORS (grocers, manufacturers, growers, retailers, and community food drive partners) who donate food for a variety of reasons (overproduction, packaging mistakes, nearing a freshness date, or grown to donate). This food makes its way to neighbors living with hunger either through GPFB's DIRECT SERVICE PROGRAMS or diverse network of PARTNER AGENCIES. The GPFB serves 194 partner agencies (food pantries, shelters, soup kitchens, and other charitable feeding programs) operating in 118 communities who are on the front lines providing food to our neighbors in need. Our direct service programs allow the GPFB to fill gaps in service and bring food to people in need through a variety of targeted programs. VOLUNTEERS are the backbone of our operation. Their service enables us to distribute food efficiently. Last year 3,905 VOLUNTEERS shared 12,269 hours' worth of time with the GPFB, repackaging bulk items, packing food packages, handing out food, sorting food drive items, and performing administrative tasks. The GPFB is supported by thousands of FINANCIAL DONORS who keep our organization operational. For every $1 donated, the GPFB can distribute food for 2 meals. We rely on COMMUNITY CHAMPIONS in every corner of the state to help us design and implement community-based services that tackle both the immediate hunger needs of our neighbors, and long-term root causes of hunger. And finally, we collaborate with our NEIGHBORS experiencing hunger by regularly seeking their guidance and feedback to improve services, reduce barriers, and adapt programs to better meet their needs.

CHILD HUNGER PROGRAMS: The GPFB operates a trio of programs aimed at eradicating childhood hunger. These programs include the backpack, youth summer meals and school pantry programs.The Great Plains Food Bank BackPack Program is the cornerstone of the GPFB's suite of programs directly targeting childhood hunger. Each year, more than 33,000 kids qualify for and greatly rely on the free and reduced cost school lunch program. But on the weekends when the school lunch program is not available, many of those children struggle with inadequate food supplies. The backpack program provides a bag full of kid-friendly food to children for the weekend, ensuring children return to school Monday morning healthy and ready to learn. During FY23, the GPFB partnered with 145 schools to provide a total of 141,839 backpacks to 4,132 children. The Great Plains Food Bank School Pantry Program is simply a food pantry located in a school, ensuring families and youth in need of assistance have easy access to food and other necessities. In FY23, the GPFB partnered with 91 schools in 22 communities to provide food for 138,759 meals to students and their families. The Great Plains Food Bank Youth Summer Meals program is designed to feed low-income children over the summer when they don't have access to school meals. The GPFB operates meals sites in low-income neighborhoods to provide well-balanced, nutritious meals to any child under age 18, free of charge. During the 2023 summer, GPFB's youth summer meal program provided 10,640 meals to 2,319 children at 15 meal sites across North Dakota.

USDA COMMODITY DISTRIBUTION PROGRAMS: The GPFB operates two USDA Commodity Programs for the state of North Dakota. These programs include The Emergency Food Assistance Program (TEFAP), and the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP - Senior Food Pack Program). TEFAP provides commodity products (fresh fruits and vegetables, canned fruit, vegetables and juices, dry and shelf-stable milk, cheese, canned meats, peanut butter or dried beans, cereal, rice, or pasta) to qualified emergency feeding programs such as soup kitchens, emergency shelters, and food pantries across the state. In FY23, the Great Plains Food Bank distributed nearly 3.0 million meals of TEFAP product to low-income individuals through our partner network of feeding programs.The Great Plains Food Bank Senior Food Pack Program is a commodity-based program that provides nutritionally balanced, shelf-stable food packages to low-income seniors, which is also supplemented with perishable products provided by the GPFB. Seniors aged 60+ with incomes of less than 130 percent of the federal poverty line are eligible for enrollment in the program. The senior food pack program served 36 communities throughout the state of North Dakota. During FY23, the GPFB distributed food for 240,198 meals to 869 eligible seniors.

MOBILE FOOD PANTRY: The GPFB semi-trucks also serve as a food-pantry-on-wheels reaching food insecure individuals living in or near underserved communities. Truckloads of highly nutritious fresh produce along with boxes of shelf-stable food products are brought into communities and are met by volunteers who unload the food directly into client's cars. In FY23, the Great Plains Food Bank Mobile Food Pantry distributed food for 349,126 meals to families across North Dakota and Clay County, Minnesota.ENDING HUNGER 2.0: In 2016 GPFB took the next bold step in ending hunger with a new initiative called Ending Hunger 2.0 (EH2.0). Focused on addressing the root causes of hunger through new solutions, EH2.0 goes beyond food to look holistically at the issue of hunger. It allows GPFB to continue our core work of feeding people today through GPFB's partner network and direct service programs, while simultaneously working upstream to decrease the need and improve food security. EH2.0 works to bring sustainable, long-term solutions to hunger through advocacy, research, and community-based solutions. In 2017, we launched the Great Plains Food Bank Wellness Pantry Program, putting healthy food pantries into clinics. There is a growing trend within the healthcare realm to see food/nutrition as medicine and as treatment for many chronic diseases. In FY23, we worked with 7 healthcare partners at 18 sites and distributed food for 59,098 meals.SNAP Outreach: In partnership with the state of North Dakota, the GPFB offers outreach to individuals who may be eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), formerly known as food stamps. The GPFB employs 1 full-time SNAP Manager and 2 full-time SNAP Outreach Coordinators who screen individuals for benefits and offer application assistance.