Feeding South Dakota celebrates 50 years of fighting hunger: A look at their footprint
One of every three children in Buffalo County, South Dakota, is hungry.
In one of the poorest counties in the country — made up mostly of sparsely populated plains, tribal land and the persistent rumbling of the Missouri River snaking through it — there’s a family-owned grocery store off Highway 47 in Fort Thompson, but the cost of milk is $5 and the cost of cereal or eggs is approaching $10, and prices don’t fare much better at the next nearest grocery store 30 minutes south in Chamberlain.
Fifteen percent of households in the area are without a car to seek out better prices anyway.
The poverty rate in Buffalo County creeps ever closer to a haunting 50%, where families endure insufficient housing, bleak employment opportunities or any adequate access to accommodations that make up normal living situations, like dinnertime.
But they are not invisible.
The Tokata Youth Center in Fort Thompson serves around 1,000 meals a month to the people of the Hunkpati Oyate — the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe — providing a free, well-balanced plate of meat, carbs, fruits and veggies mostly provided by Feeding South Dakota, a statewide endeavor to end hunger.
Feeding South Dakota is celebrating a half-century of service this month.
“Having a safe place to eat a hot meal is important,” said Tokata Youth Center director Aaron Vaughn. “If you think past today and tomorrow, next week, next month, next year, you’ve got to have a full belly.”
So, what does the empty belly of one in every three children look like?
A timeline of merciless need
In 1975, when South Dakota was still considered a rural state and the nation was recovering from the most severe recession since World War II, a generous clergy formed a humble community pantry for food insecure families in Sioux Falls.
Their initial effort distributed over 80,000 pounds of food in Minnehaha County alone and grew toward West River by the ’80s, often doubling its distribution numbers year over year and merging with one county after another to keep up with need.
Today, that booming business fulfilling a relentless demand is known as Feeding South Dakota, the state’s largest hunger-relief organization that has now distributed over 14 million pounds of food over the past 50 years and served over 11 million free meals across all 66 counties in the state.
“And right now, we have the highest need we’ve ever had,” said Lori Dykstra, CEO of Feeding South Dakota since 2021.
The staggering numbers in Buffalo County only contribute to an even larger plight: One in nine adults and one in six children experience food insecurity in the state. What does that mean?
Over 10% of South Dakotans are consistently unsure of how they will afford to eat.
“It’s such an important, complicated, often misunderstood issue,” said Feeding South Dakota board member Mike Gould. He often hears the “general ignorance of food insecurity” when people give the advice to “just pull yourself up by the bootstraps.”
“But the face of hunger is a child who doesn’t even have bootstraps,” he said. “We need to teach people what hunger really looks like.”
Dykstra, who previously served as COO for Girl Scouts Dakota Horizons in Sioux Falls, said they are seeing more working families in their food lines than ever before. Similarly, self-deprecating college students flock to campus food pantries without outwardly acknowledging that they prioritize tuition over lunch. Seniors who are homebound, single working mothers who need to keep their homes warm and their cars running or unhoused veterans on the streets: They are cutting food from their budgets because economy hits hard, they are in poor health, they are facing discrimination, or their “bootstraps” are worn enough.
“My goal is to disarm judgment,” Dykstra said.
Programs extend support for families
Collaborations to achieve that goal are what has made Feeding South Dakota so prolific over the years.
Feeding South Dakota might be most well-known for its Backpack Program, an initiative that sends food insecure students home with 5 to 8 pounds of food for the weekend.
In 2024, the nonprofit filled 165,000 backpacks.
“But the struggle is these backpacks don’t meet the needs of that family,” Dykstra said. “It is meant to feed the need of that kid, but they are going home to a hungry family, they are sharing that backpack with their family, and it’s not enough food.”
Fulfilling a need in one place only unveils need in another, so now Feeding South Dakota has opened school pantries across the state, where families can shop for food when they pick up their children. In 2024, over 3,000 pounds of food fed over 600 students monthly.
After the COVID-19 pandemic, Feeding South Dakota became more reactionary, desperately trying to reach thousands of food insecure families now even more isolated. This brought to fruition mobile food distributions, a volunteer effort to set up monthly drive-thrus to hand out boxes without much questioning.
In the program’s first year, over 4.2 million meals were served. Last year, 1,500 people waited in line at the fairgrounds for a Thanksgiving meal in Sioux Falls.
Other programs through Feeding South Dakota include the Senior Box Program, delivering free boxes to nearly 28,000 senior residents last year; and the Wellness Pantry, immediately serving over 18,700 patients in 2024 who were screening positive for food insecurity at their doctor appointments.
Lastly, partnerships like the one with Tokata Youth Center in Fort Thompson help to make room at the dinner table.
Dave Lone Elk on the Pine Ridge Reservation, who runs a food pantry in Porcupine, used to open his doors only monthly. Now that he’s partnering with Feeding South Dakota, he’s open at least eight times a month and serving around 40 families weekly.
“People can come at their own convenience now,” Lone Elk said.
On the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation, Mary Olive helped to found The Mustard Seed, a community that offers food from Feeding South Dakota and 8x12 cottages for 40 unhoused or home-bound families. During the summer, 300 people are served weekly picnic-style meals in Eagle Butte, where there are otherwise only two small grocery stores covering two entire counties.
Feeding South Dakota is rain for the food deserts.
“We strengthen bodies, raise spirits, respect people and encourage hope,” said Olive, who along with two other women serves as a volunteer to operate The Mustard Seed. “We don’t want children going without. I want to know people are getting fed.”
How you can be a partner to Feeding South Dakota
For 25 years, a philanthropist known as R.F. Buche has been president of G.F. Buche Co., a fourth-generation organization that owns grocery stores and fast-food restaurants in 23 rural locations across the state, including all nine reservations. Ten years ago, Buche founded Team Buche Cares, a deeper initiative to address hunger and which Dykstra touts.
“Our initial effort in the next five years is to push resources into rural communities, and we need partners like R.F. Buche to do that,” she said.
Buche said last summer, he worked with the Pass Creek Tribal Council to serve 28,000 meals twice a week to children across all nine districts of the Pine Ridge Reservation.
Next week, he will host the inaugural Steelers in the Field fundraiser in Dallas, South Dakota, a charitable pheasant hunt for Team Buche Cares that will welcome NFL players Mason McCormick, Zachary Frazier and Ryan McCollum.
“Hunting has long been a tradition in South Dakota,” Buche said. “Through Steelers in the Field, we’re bringing awareness to food disparity in rural and tribal communities and helping to improve access to nutritious food for those who need it most.”
How else can you help?
Dykstra said as part of its 50th anniversary, Feeding South Dakota has introduced 605 Meal Makers, a monthly giving program asking community members to donate $50 a month for a year.
“That’s 150 meals to families and 1,800 meals in one year,” Dykstra said. “And our food sourcing team is very creative with menu planning.”
Donate peanut butter if you can, Dykstra said, but if you donate $1, that makes three meals.
“People who are fortunate enough to take care of people who are not fortunate enough, that’s an amazing story,” she said. “That’s neighbors helping neighbors achieve more equitable access.”
Dykstra said she is “hopeful,” and board member Gould believes persistence will prevail.
“We are not in good shape, and change is slow,” Gould said. “But we are problem solvers, and everybody is part of the solution here.”
