North Dakota
Coalition hopes to secure free school meals for North Dakota children this legislative session
FARGO — A new community coalition is on a mission to guarantee every North Dakota child has access to healthy meals at school, regardless of family income.
The Together for School Meals coalition launched this week with more than 30
local organizations
backing the cause.
Made up of professionals in fields ranging from food security organizations and family advocacy groups to teachers and administrators, the coalition seeks additional support ahead of the upcoming legislative session, which convenes Tuesday, Jan. 7.
The coalition will recommend to North Dakota legislators that they provide $140 million in state funding over the next two years to reimburse school districts for the cost of providing free meals to all students.
Formed by Prairie Action ND, the coalition aims to have breakfast and lunch included in the School Meals for All program.
Melissa Sobolik, CEO of the Great Plains Food Bank, said more than 156,000 North Dakotans relied on the food bank in 2023. They included more than one in every three children, making a permanent solution to food insecurity urgent.
“It’s the highest ever for those numbers in our 41-year history,” she said.
Robin Nelson, CEO of the Boys and Girls Club and Fargo school board member who is a spokesperson on legislative issues, said there are many benefits to every child getting healthy meals at school.
School attendance and academic success typically increase when children receive proper nutrition, she said, and anger issues decline when they’re not hungry and undernourished.
Nelson said it’s important to include all children in meal programs, not just those whose families are in lower income brackets.
“Some families hide that they are having issues with their bills. We just want to make sure that no child is left out, and provide every student with the optimal tools to help them succeed,” she said.
Coalition member Tony Burke, government relations director for the American Heart Association, said the U.S. is looking at a cost of $1.8 trillion for health care around chronic diseases, including cardiovascular disease, by 2050.
He said much of that is fueled by the increasing prevalence of obesity — a trajectory that could change if all children receive proper nutrition.
“We know everything we go after is research and evidence based. We know that investing now will save us in the long run,” Burke said.
During the last legislative session, a bill to provide free lunches at a cost of $6 million over two years for children in families at 200% of the federal poverty level,
fell one vote short of approval in the state Senate after passing in the House.
Lawmakers did end up allocating $6 million to school meals for qualifying families, but the funding was temporary.
A companion piece of legislation known as the anti-lunch shaming bill did receive approval,
ensuring that children who had unpaid school lunch bills weren’t shamed by being fed an alternate, cheaper lunch.
However, an unintended consequence of that bill, Nelson said, was that school districts were to forgive unpaid meal debt using dollars from the pot of funding that pays teachers.
“We do not want this (free meals) included in the per pupil payment. It needs to be separate,” Nelson said.
Fargo Public Schools currently has unpaid school meal debt of $72,000, which could reach $125,000 by the end of the school year, she said.
A new poll shows North Dakotans largely support state involvement in providing free school meals.
Results from the North Dakota News Cooperative poll released last month
showed 82% of respondents in favor and only 14% opposed. A total of 65% “strongly favor” providing free meals at schools.
Support was generally high among all age groups, while most opposition came from men over 55 years of age, the poll indicated.
Nelson said she and others in the coalition will track and advocate for all free school meals legislation during the session.
“That is the goal of this coalition, to make this a higher priority for our state legislators,” she said.
EDITOR’S NOTE: For help with substance abuse or addiction, North Dakota residents can contact the All of Us In Recovery program at
allofusinrecovery.com
or the North Dakota Department of Human Services at
hhs.nd.gov/behavioral-health
. National help is also available at 1-800-662-4357.
FARGO — A special program for those battling addiction in North Dakota is finding huge successes with a state program called “All of Us In Recovery,” or AIR.
The proof can be found in the lives now changed because of the team approach.
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BISMARCK — Despite stubborn inflation, higher daily costs and
a dip in holiday spending,
most North Dakotans are as committed to charitable giving, according to the latest North Dakota Poll, commissioned by the North Dakota News Cooperative.
A total of 78% of
North Dakota
residents say charitable giving is important to them personally, with 31% indicating it is very important and 47% somewhat important.
Damon Gleave, interim executive director of the Dakota Medical Foundation, which spearheads the 24-hour charity event
Giving Hearts Day
each year, said the results of the poll were consistent with what the foundation has seen with the success of the event.
“Regardless of age or gender or what part of the state people are from, North Dakotans are givers,” he said.
Looking further at the data, however, shows a split in how much people feel they can afford to give.
Asked to describe how much they give each year, 58% gave between $100-$999 annually, while 32% gave between $1,000-$5,000 or more per year. Another 10% declined to answer.
“The fact that folks are still interested in supporting
charitable organizations
during these interesting financial times is certainly encouraging,” said Shawn McKenna, executive director of the North Dakota Association of Nonprofit Organizations.
McKenna said some of the rhetoric coming out of President Donald Trump’s administration has impacted nonprofits and NGOs, though that includes increased giving to some and less to others.
Some smaller nonprofits that saw grant funding dry up because of government efficiency efforts are having a harder time since they lack the staff to solicit contributions, McKenna said.
In another data point from the poll, nearly half of respondents said generosity should be “homegrown,” with 46% saying support for local organizations is their top reason to give.
“It does look like folks are really interested in helping out in their own backyard versus sending it off to whatever the big national type organization is,” McKenna said.
Among the other factors considered most important, 16% said support for faith-based groups was highest on their list of reasons, while another 16% more said giving to causes they have a personal connection to was most important.
A total of 60% of respondents said they give throughout the year, while 23% said they usually give at the end of the year.
“There’s a preference to support local organizations — whose work tends to more directly impact people in a given community — as well as a shift toward donors making larger gifts to a smaller number of charities,” Gleave said. “We think this is a direct result of charities cultivating better relationships with their donors over time, which ultimately leads to more impactful, sustained giving.”
Kim Hocking, board president of the Bismarck Mandan Unitarian Universalist congregation, said the poll data was in line with what he sees in giving habits.
Hocking said one thing that comes out in the poll, and something he sees on a daily basis, is that people are looking for a sense of community. That desire often matches giving habits.
“As a group, we want to be a part of something, and if we know about it, and we see, oh, we could help with that, then we want to be a part of that,” Hocking said. “That goes along with supporting local organizations, supporting causes you have a personal connection to.”
Most respondents do not give a certain percentage of their annual income to charitable causes, according to the poll.
Only 22% say they practice a form of tithing, long a traditional practice in Christian, Islamic and Judaic faiths.
The low number of people who budget a certain percentage of income, as well as the high number of people that only give up to $1,000 annually, is concerning to some.
Bishop Craig Schweitzer of the Western North Dakota Synod-ELCA, said giving has been “pretty flat” over the past decade, but he was surprised that over half of people gave so little each year.
“That’s shocking to me a little bit because that’s obviously less than 1% of average income in North Dakota,” Schweitzer said.
“I mean, I look at it as a person of faith, the entry level to be a follower of Jesus is 10%, and then my offering is above and beyond that 10%,” he said. “If we’re spending money on things that aren’t a reflection of our faith, how does that reflect who we are as people of faith?”
Schweitzer brought up how important local organizations like churches are in times of need and stress, giving the example of the wildfires in northwest North Dakota in the fall of 2024.
“The church was huge,” he said. “It stepped up and made sure people were cared for and probably gave beyond anything they imagined they would give to something like that before, financially and physically.”
The North Dakota Poll was conducted by Mason-Dixon Polling & Strategy Inc. of Jacksonville, Florida, from Dec. 10-13 2025. A total of 625 North Dakota adult residents were interviewed statewide by telephone. The poll has an error margin of + or – 4%.
The North Dakota Poll is the only regular, nonpartisan statewide survey of eligible North Dakota voters and consumers.
The North Dakota News Cooperative is a nonprofit news organization providing reliable and independent reporting on issues and events that impact the lives of North Dakotans. The organization increases the public’s access to quality journalism and advances news literacy across the state. For more information about NDNC or to make a charitable contribution, please visit newscoopnd.org.
This story was originally published on NewsCoopND.org.
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This story was written by one of our partner news agencies. Forum Communications Company uses content from agencies such as Reuters, Kaiser Health News, Tribune News Service and others to provide a wider range of news to our readers. Learn more about the news services FCC uses here.
North Dakota
Today in History, 1962: Minot man charged under North Dakota law banning the sale of candy cigarettes
On this day in 1962, a Minot store manager was charged under North Dakota’s 1953 ban on candy cigarettes, setting up the law’s first court test over whether bubble gum cigarettes counted as illegal “confectionery.”
Here is the complete story as it appeared in the paper that day:
Minot Man Charged in Candy Cigarette Case Challenges 1953 Law
“I’d heard something about such a law but I thought they were kidding me,” the manager of the S. S. Kresge store in Minot said Friday after he was arrested and charged with displaying and possessing packaged candy cigarettes.
“I was the stock man in the Kresge store in Fargo when the law was passed in 1953, prohibiting the sale of candy cigarettes,” John H. Larson said.
“But I never paid any attention to it; I never knew it existed,” he added.
Larson, who lived in Moorhead and worked in the Fargo Kresge store from 1952 to 1959, said he had heard mention of the law but he didn’t think talk about it was serious.
Minot police Capt. Floyd Rouse had noticed a small girl in the business area of Minot with bubble gum cigarettes and a police investigation led to Larson’s arrest Friday.
It was, to any state official’s recollection, the first such charge made under the 10-year-old law, which attracted nationwide attention to North Dakota when it was passed.
Larson intends to plead innocent to the charge, because the article in question is a roll of white paper-covered bubble gum. He claims, therefore, that it is not a candy or a confectionery, which the law specifically states it is illegal to sell if designed to imitate cigarettes.
“Bubble gum is not candy or a confectionery,” Larson said.
The dictionary actually doesn’t help, because it says a confectionary is a sweetmeat, or something prepared and sold by a confectioner, or a candy.
And a confection, the dictionary says, is “a preparation of roots or fruits, etc., with sugar; a sweetmeat; preserve; confit.”
And a confit is a dry sweetmeat.
So it looks as if the law is headed for its first court test.
Larson was released on his own recognizance and is expected to appear on the charge next week.
The 1953 Legislature passed the law to do its part in keeping youngsters from smoking.
The bill stated the intent:
“…such candy or confectionery products and the purchase and use thereof by minors readily create a desire on the part of such minors to purchase and use genuine cigarettes or other tobacco products.”
The law provides a penalty on conviction of not more than a $1,000 fine, 90 days in jail, or both.
The bill was initiated in the state Senate under the sponsorship of state Sen. Agnes Geelan of Ransom, now a member of the Workmen’s Compensation Commission, and the late Sen. E. C. Stucke of McLean.
Larson said his store and all the other Kresge stores in the nation had received a carton of the imitation cigarettes through its nationwide chain store outlets. Minot police confiscated and held 19 packages of the gum.
Larson said he offered to throw out the merchandise, which was being offered as part of a store closing-out sale, but police refused to permit that.
“Those guys over there (the police) don’t know what they got into,” Larson laughingly told The Forum.
He said the gum was a popular item.
“They went like hot cakes,” he said.
The candy cigarette law wasn’t the only one of its kind the 1953 Legislature wrestled with by a long shot.
The session got more nationwide publicity than any other in many a year because of it and these other bills which were introduced, but which did not pass:
★ An anti-treat bill, designed to prevent the buying of a drink by a friend.
★ A bill which would have forbidden dancing in the dark.
★ A bill which would have made it obligatory that a beauty parlor close at 5:30 p.m. on the dot — whether or not a customer’s hair was ready. The reason for that bill apparently stemmed from an angry legislator whose dinner had been kept waiting because his wife was in a beauty parlor.
The Senate passed the candy cigarette law 41 to 7.
Among the few not voting for it was former Sen. Kenneth Pyle of Cass, who explained his vote by reading a telegram he said he had received that day and which was signed by all his grandchildren. It read:
“Dear Grandpa. Please don’t let them take our candy from us.”
The bill passed the House by a vote of 68 to 39 after long debate, some serious and some tongue-in-cheek.
Former Rep. A. C. Langseth of Eddy-Foster, among many others, spoke for the bill. He said:
“If the health and morals of our young people are not worth legislating for, I don’t know what is.”
Former Rep. Guy Larson of Burleigh observed:
“There is one ingredient lacking in the bill — common sense.”
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