(upbeat music) - Hello, and welcome to "Prairie Pulse."

Coming up a little bit later in the show, we'll learn about the Nome Schoolhouse in Nome, North Dakota.

But first, our guest joining us now is the CEO of the Great Plains Food Bank, Ann Prifrel.

Ann, thanks for joining us today.

- Well, thank you for having me.

- As we get started, tell the folks about yourself.

Introduce yourself and tell us about your background.

- Well, I am originally from Minnesota, and I'm feeling so fortunate to be in North Dakota because I have family who are from the Dakotas.

I have been in the hunger relief world for just over 15 years, and I have served in leadership roles from a food pantry level to a food bank level, and could not be more happy to be here at Great Plains Food Bank and serving the whole state of North Dakota and Clay County, Minnesota.

- Well, there you go.

You became the CEO of the Great Plains Food Bank in January of 2026.

So how's it been going so far?

- Well, I got through the winter.

The winter was a little tough, but overall, it's been wonderful.

I was previously at a food bank in southwest Florida, and when I told my friends in southwest Florida that I had been recruited to come up to North Dakota, they all said, and the people who have lived here or have been here have said, "It's cold," and I knew that already, but the people in North Dakota are good people.

And so I can echo that firsthand.

People are good people here in North Dakota.

- Well, southwest Florida, you say.

- [Ann] Yes.

- So what drew you to this position?

You said you were already kind of doing similar work, or maybe it was exec work.

But, you know, what really drew you to North Dakota?

- Well, I was doing exec work.

So this is my fourth capital project.

I was working on a capital project for a food bank in southwest Florida.

I launched a capital project for a new food bank in western Wisconsin in the St.

Croix Valley.

And then when I was a pantry leader in the White Bear Lake, Minnesota area, I worked on a capital project.

So I have been known and have a proven track record of building capacity.

And now more than ever, we need to build capacity because, John, the need for food is growing across the country as well as here in North Dakota.

- Well, let's take a step back.

For those who may not know, what is the Great Plains Food Bank?

- The Great Plains Food Bank serves the whole state of North Dakota.

It is what it is.

It's a food bank.

We provide food to over 200 partners across the state, and our partners are the ones who turn around and distribute the food to our neighbors in the local communities that they serve.

Our partners have evolved over time, and it's been really meeting people where they are at.

So when I say a partner, it could be a clinic.

It could be a school.

It could be a food pantry in a church.

It is many different partners and groups that help us distribute food to our neighbors.

We ultimately are responsible for sourcing the food, as well as filling in the gaps.

We have some communities that do not have a food pantry, and so we will bring in a mobile food distribution to ensure that no one goes hungry.

- So what is the mission of the food bank?

- It's simple.

It's to end hunger.

And the way that we're gonna do that is to really come together as communities across the state to really address the growing need.

But we rely on our volunteers, we rely on our partners, and we rely on our donors to make sure that this work has an impact.

- So as a nonprofit organization, how are you funded?

How do you operate?

- Well, our main funding comes from the great people of North Dakota and Clay County, Minnesota.

We have such a generous community.

We could not do this important work without the individuals who support us, the businesses who support us, and the community groups that are out there bringing awareness to the work that we're doing.

We also receive funding from the federal, state government.

That has been key, especially in times when we have faced challenges.

Most recently, we had the SNAP shutdown this past fall, and our Governor Armstrong, who's a wonderful advocate for us and supporter, saw that there was going to be a demand for food, and there was a demand for food, and we were able to receive state funding to fill in that gap.

So there's many, many donors and supporters that invest in the great work that we're doing.

And I'd be remiss not to highlight our wonderful church communities who all support us.

So we're very fortunate here with good people to support this important work.

- Are you primarily volunteer-driven, or do you have paid staff?

- We do have paid staff.

So we do have 50 employees, but we have a robust group of volunteers in order to do this work.

We couldn't pay the number of people that help us.

We couldn't do it without our volunteers.

We're so grateful.

- What's the difference in a food bank and a food shelf?

- That is a great question.

I get that question all the time.

A food bank essentially has the food.

You know, you go to your bank to get money.

Well, our 200 partners, they come to us, they order food online.

We pick the food off our racking, put in our pallets, load up our trucks, and we send our trucks across the state of North Dakota to our partners.

And the partner is the food shelf or the food pantry.

It's called different names in different regions, and they are the ones who turn around and help us meet the need.

They're our true partners.

- I think you might have said 200 partners.

- Yes.

- But do you know how many people you actually serve on average?

- Yes, so this year, we just finished up our fiscal year.

We served a record number of individuals in the 44-year history of Great Plains Food Bank.

Over 185,000 individuals were served.

And what is pivotal about that number, John, is that the previous year we served one in five individuals.

Now it's one in four.

And what is so startling, the greatest growth of need, we saw a 23% increase in need from our children.

One in three children in our service region struggles with hunger.

So now more than ever, we need to all come together and solve this issue because our children are our future.

- You know, the U.S.

Department of Agriculture reports that food insecurity has risen significantly over the past few years.

Can you define for us what is food insecurity?

- Food insecurity is, it looks different for every individual.

It may be someone who recently is struggling with a health condition.

They're out of work and they need a little help.

So they'll come to the Great Plains Food Bank mobile pantries, or they'll go to one of our 200 pantry partners.

It could be an elderly person.

I have seen this over and over again.

People who have worked their whole life, they have a pension, they have a Social Security, but they simply cannot keep up with the rising costs.

We're hearing from our young families, cost of food, cost of fuel, just cost of services, utilities, it's all increasing.

And we're just seeing many of our families struggle.

And then our children who are in situations where they have parents who are working and they're just simply not able to make ends meet.

So we are here to fill the gap.

The Great Plains Food Bank provides that food to help people stay in their homes, to help people be able to put food on the table so that they have the nutrition.

And I have found in our time that people will come to the food bank or a food pantry for a short period of time.

It's not like they're coming all the time.

So we're that safety net.

- Okay.

So do people need to meet thresholds in order to participate or use the food bank?

- Yes.

So the food pantries and partners that distribute the federal food, which is the Emergency Food Assistance Program, we receive food, and we have partners who distribute that food.

And they have a requirement to ask for information when they distribute the food so that they can go ahead and report back.

There are some partners who choose not to receive any federal food, but to receive donations, food from us, food from their neighbors, and distribute it with no questions asked.

So it varies.

- So does the Great Plains Food Bank offer any kind of assistance with anything for people?

- Yeah, so what we do is we're in the food business, and we are sourcing food.

We want to source more food from our local farmers.

We're sending trucks across the state.

We want our trucks to come back with food from our farmers.

We do provide some support with the SNAP outreach program.

Where we are at mobile distributions, we'll hand out a flyer to people or our pantry partners about SNAP and give them the information to reach out and to get set up on SNAP if they qualify.

So we do support that work in a certain capacity, and then those applications are given to the state of North Dakota where they process those.

- I'm gonna come back to SNAP in just a minute here, but what does it mean to have reliable access to food?

- It means that individuals have dignity.

It means that they have hope.

It means that they can get up the next day and go to work.

It really is a solution, an easy solution, food that really gives hope to the neighbor to keep moving forward and to keep going.

I can tell you when you distribute food, and I've done that, people we serve are so grateful.

And like I said, the many of the people we serve are just in a tough time, and they need a little extra help.

So it really is a safety net that just really lifts up that stress, that pressure, especially for that young family who's just trying to make, you know, a strong family and do what we've always been taught to do is to go to work and to provide for your family.

So we're here to fill in that gap and to help our families and all individuals across the state.

- Okay, you've mentioned SNAP two or three times here.

SNAP is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.

- [Ann] Yes.

- What does that mean?

Where does it come from?

- Yeah, so, you know, it's been around for years, and people often refer to it as food stamps.

It's a card with money that's on it.

With SNAP, the amount of money that is on it really does not cover costs.

For example, if you have an elderly person, they may receive $15, $20, depending on what their resources are.

And I don't know about you, but going to a grocery store, $10, $15, that doesn't get you very far.

So it's truly what you said it is, a supplemental nutrition assistance program.

And SNAP benefit people often will reserve those dollars to buy their protein or to buy their fruit or to fill in the gap of food that they may receive from a pantry partner.

So again, it's a little bit of a safety net that has dollars for people to purchase food, but it really could not cover the whole grocery bill.

- Okay.

So, you know, so what are some of the misconceptions about SNAP or the use of food banks that you might want to clarify?

- I touched on many of them, but again, it's really filling in and helping your neighbor.

And at the end of the day, it does bring human dignity.

It brings hope.

It keeps people in their homes.

It keeps food on the table.

It ultimately builds stronger communities.

And we find people that are one check away from disaster.

A car breaks down.

They don't have that safety net.

And if Great Plains Food Bank, in partnership with our 200 partners and the SNAP program, can provide support to keep people in their homes and healthy, we're having an impact.

- Yeah.

You've talked some about this too.

North Dakota has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country.

But what does that say about people working but still looking to receive assistance?

- Well, what we're seeing is people are working.

Their wage is not keeping up with the rising costs.

And so imagine putting yourself in that position.

And I talked about this where you're doing what you're supposed to do.

You're doing what your ancestors have done before you.

But you're falling short because it's tough to keep up with the rising costs, and the wages are having an impact, and that's what we hear from our neighbors.

We'll find people working two jobs.

It may be at a convenience store.

It may be someone who is working at the hotels, cleaning rooms.

It's tough.

- Yeah, what's the average household size that you serve?

- We serve them all.

We serve them all.

So we serve children, we serve seniors, we serve adults.

We serve them all.

And we're seeing more and more multifamilies living together to make ends meet.

We serve them all.

- My numbers here say one in three children are reported to receive assistance.

What does that tell us about childhood hunger in our region?

- It's startling.

It truly is startling.

And this is a new statistic.

The previous year it was one in four children.

Now it's one in three children.

And what's startling about that, it's our children who are in schools, who are our future, and really ensuring that they are getting access to food.

We're very grateful.

We do have some school partners across the state where we have food pantries set up, and that has had such a great impact for children and their families to be able to come in on perhaps a Friday or an evening and to grab food so that children have access to a nice warm dinner in the evening.

That's what it's all about.

It's startling.

We need to take care of our children and ensure that they are getting access to food.

We are being focused on that in this next year and are at the table championing for our children, our future.

- Okay.

Well, we are about out of time, but I understand you're working on a current construction project, I guess a new statewide food distribution center.

Can you tell us a little bit about that?

- Yes, we're super excited about this new project, this new food bank, with the growing need, with our current facility, which was a pipe-fitting manufacturing facility, not designed for food banking.

It was decided it's time for a new statewide food bank, more efficient, more effective, larger capacity, so that we can source more nutritious food.

And we plan to do that from our local small-scale farmers that are producing food so that we can turn around and redistribute it.

The project has started.

I'm happy to share with you that it is a $30 million project.

The state of North Dakota kicked off the project with $5 million.

And I'm happy to share we have about $4 million to go.

So we are so close to have this project fully funded, and we're just so hopeful that the community will respond and get this project across the finish line.

- We are out of time, but if people want to help, want to donate, want to get involved, find out more information, where can they go?

- Of course, our website, greatplains.org, greatplainsfoodbank.org, or they can contact me and give me a call.

I'd be happy to talk with you.

- Ann thanks for joining us today.

- Oh, thank you.

I'm grateful for this opportunity.

- Stay tuned for more.

(upbeat music) Discover the Nome Schoolhouse, a maker's mecca nestled in the rural North Dakota town of Nome.

The schoolhouse is a one-stop destination for those wanting to get away and discover the joy of fiber arts, with a barn-to-yarn experience that teaches the process of making yarn from raw fleece through an on-site mill.

(upbeat music) - We are in the Nome Schoolhouse.

It is a renovated 37,000-square-foot maker's mecca in the great state of North Dakota in the tiny little city of Nome, N-O-M-E.

My name is Christi Armbrust.

In 2018, I partnered with a good friend, and we decided to renovate an old schoolhouse.

So we went school shopping and chose the Nome Schoolhouse.

It had good bones.

It was structurally sound, but it did need new electrical, new plumbing, new HVAC, you know, repairs of all sorts.

And we also added 17,000 square feet onto the schoolhouse as well.

And it took three years to do the renovations.

In July 1st of 2021, we had our grand opening and haven't looked back.

It's been just growing and growing.

The Nome Schoolhouse is so, so much and so much more.

We offer retreats, we offer weddings, we offer space just for folks to come out and book a room.

We have 11 beautifully appointed hotel rooms.

We don't have TVs in our rooms by design.

We want you to come here and just unplug.

We have a retail store.

We have classroom space.

We have an event center.

We have two bars.

We have a restaurant.

(upbeat music) Every month I do a retreat.

It's a three-day retreat called the "Barn to Yarn Experience."

On one piece of property, we actually have the fiber animals.

We actually have the full processing mill.

It's a very unique situation because usually when you go to a retreat, especially fiber arts retreat, you're missing one of those components.

But we have everything here on one piece of property.

So when you come here, it's all here at your fingertips, and you can be immersed in the entire experience of barn to yarn.

And we start in the barn, of course.

We have a growing herd of fiber animals.

So currently we have Walter.

He is our mini Highland cow.

And we comb him, and we use, his fiber is a little coarse, but we blend it with wool, and we have it crocheted into soap pockets that you can put a bar of soap in, and it's like an exfoliating cloth right at your fingertips, which is kind of cool.

We have two Valais Blacknose sheep, we have a Rambouillet sheep, we have an Icelandic sheep, we have two alpacas, and we have two Angora goats currently.

The process of getting barn to yarn first, of course, starts with your animal.

So you shear the sheep and you rough-skirt it.

So then that comes in down to the mill, and we do a further skirting process where we literally go through and we monkey-pick everything that we don't want in our yarns and rovings.

And then we wash the wool, we scour it, and then it starts the process.

This is our first step, and this is the picking stage.

So what this is doing is I'm sending in this obviously dyed fiber into the picker, and the picker, it has a drum with about three-inch-long teeth that spin around and open up the fiber and spit it out, and then it's all ready for carding.

And what carding is, is it's aligning the fibers.

It's combing the fibers so that they're all going in the same direction.

And from there, we go to the drafter.

And what the drafter does is it takes those aligned fibers and drafts them thinner, pulls them thinner, and then we jump over to the spinner.

It actually takes that roving and turns that into a single.

And then we take those singles and we go to the plyer, and the plyer takes however plies we are making and plies them together and puts it on a big bobbin.

And then we go to the skeiner, and the skeiner skeins it into a finished hank of yarn, and that is what we sell.

Ta-dah!

(upbeat music) It is such an honor to bring what we have in one piece of property here in North Dakota because it doesn't exist anywhere in the world.

To see people create and learn and enjoy the space of the Nome Schoolhouse and all the different corners and areas that they can hang out in and learn, it just warms my heart because I know just walking in, it's just feeds creativity.

Whether you're a pastor trying to write sermons or you're a watercolorist and you want to sit out back and sketch Walter out or a fiber artist, it just takes you back and just opens your mind and lets your creativity just flow.

(bright music) - Well, that's all we have on "Prairie Pulse" this week, and as always, thanks for watching.

(upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funded by the members of Prairie Public.