"To recover surplus food and distribute it to charitable feeding programs serving the hungry and homeless."

Description:
The food bank is a program of Lutheran Social Services of North Dakota and a member of the Second Harvest National Food Bank Network. Most of the donated food is donated from the local, regional and/or the national food industry. Hundreds of companies like General Mills, Pillsbury, Nabisco, Super Valu and Nash Finch donate product that is overproduced or nearing its code date. Another valuable source is food donated by groups, churches or businesses that conduct annual food drives. The food bank presently has 236 agencies that provide approximately 5.5 million pounds of food and grocery products to 34,000 hungry and poverty stricken people each month.

History:
The Great Plains Food Bank began in March of 1983 to help alleviate hunger and need throughout the state of North Dakota and Western Minnesota by operating as a nonprofit clearinghouse for donated food and grocery products. We distribute approximately 6,000,000 pounds of donated food and grocery products each year to different non-profits for distribution to the homeless and hungry of our community. About 1,000,000 pounds of that product has to be reworked in some way to get it ready for distribution, volunteers of the community help us in accomplishing this goal.

Contact people:

JoAnn Matthews, Volunteer Coordinator/Operations Manager, (701) 232-6219, (email) Steve Sellent, Program Director, (701) 232-6219, (email)

Office fax number: 701-232-3871

Address:

1720 3rd Avenue North Fargo, ND 58102 (See a map)

Web Site: http://www.lssnd.org

Directions:

Nearest Bus Stop: 4th Avenue and 18th Street, 1 minute walk