This year marks 50 years of Feeding South Dakota and the organization’s work in the state.

While the organization is celebrating the past, leaders say they’re focusing on helping South Dakota in the present and future.

After half-a-century, CEO Lori Dykstra said Feeding South Dakota’s goal remains the same: fight hunger every day.

“We can’t only just continue to feed the line; we need to get people out of that food line. And so, what does that look like?” Dykstra asked. “That means educating people, advocating for the people who can’t advocate for themselves and really making sure that we’re creating programs that are that hand up, that step out of poverty to hopefully to shorten the [food] line.”

She said though they can’t control every variable that puts people in food lines, they can do everything in their power to help.

Dykstra said, more importantly, the goal isn’t to be complacent at 50 years running. The goal is to continue to achieve more over the next 50.

Feeding South Dakota Board Chair Kim Tyler agreed. She said there’s a blueprint on how to do just that: working with the 250 partner agencies to improve rural outreach.

“I think in the next five years we want to make them more effective. Because we cannot just do it in Sioux Falls, and Rapid [City] and maybe Pierre or Aberdeen. We need every county to have folks that are helping their neighbors,” Tyler said. “And so I think we really have a lot of optimism about the partnerships that we have both from, frankly, the people who support us: donors and people who are very altruistic and want to help our cause, and then we have tremendous agencies that work with us to provide solutions in those rural areas, as well as our South Dakota cities.”

She said they aren’t acknowledging 50 years to pat themselves on the back, it’s to shed light on the food insecurity South Dakotans face every day.

“Not because we’re celebrating, Yeah, okay. We made it 50 years. It’s that we want to make sure folks know how much impact we make every month in our state. How many people we’re impacting and helping,” Tyler said. “It’s more that we’re trying to shout about the need and the really really important mission that we’re doing.”

Dykstra said it’s also an open invitation to everyone.

“We’re also hoping it invites people in to be a part of this mission, because we can’t do it without the volunteers who help us support it,” Dykstra said.

Volunteers like Whitney Heubrock and Rebecca Thompson. They are special education teachers with T-12 Thrive. They have brought students to volunteer at Feeding SD since 2017.

Heubrock said helping around the holidays especially resonates with students.

“The Thanksgiving box, or the project we do around Thanksgiving, is always fun because that always clicks with the students: that they’re helping a family have a good, big Thanksgiving meal,” Heubrock said.

Thompson said volunteering helps eliminate some of the stigma surrounding food insecurity.

“And I think being here and being physically present every week maybe takes away any shame or embarrassment if you ever do need the support,” Thompson said. “It’s like, ‘Yeah. It’s here. You know where it is. It’s not a bad thing. [Food insecurity] just happens.”

CEO Lori Dykstra said she’s seen firsthand how it can be hard to ask for help.

“It actually was in a farm community. And people roll down their window, we’re putting food in the back of the car,” Dykstra said. “And the gentleman immediately the first thing he says to me is, ‘You know, I don’t normally need the food line. I’m here because this happened with my job, and I’m switching jobs, and I’m in-between and as soon as I get my paycheck I won’t need to be here. I know this is bad, other people need this more than me.’ And I said, ‘No. We’re here for you.’”

She said they want to help people, no shame or judgement attached.

On the flip side, Dykstra said Feeding South Dakota also has plenty of happy stories to pass along. She told one of a single mother who brought her 4-year-old child.

“And she was asking her mom, ‘What are these? What are these?’ She had never seen them. And her mom was like, ‘I don’t know what they are either.’ And I said, ‘It’s a plum.’ And the woman running the pantry said, ‘Well you can try it.’ And so we washed it up and we gave it to her,” Dykstra said. “And the sheer joy on this little girl’s face. She had never tried it. And she was like, ‘That’s the best thing ever.’ And she just took a pile of them and put them in her bag. And she was so excited to try this fresh plum. Something the sheer joy that a plum can give to a 4-year-old, I mean, it was pretty amazing.”

Dykstra said in her time as CEO, she’s learned that people who aren’t food insecure may take things like a fresh plum for granted.

She added, while the organization is happy to celebrate 50 years, she hopes they can continue to fight food insecurity even further in the future.