In a culture battling obesity and excess, it’s difficult to comprehend how many people struggle to get enough to eat. The number of South Dakotans seeking help to ease their hunger is growing, so advocates are finding ways to remind people of those in need. Those events happen in some unlikely places.
People on an outdoor patio in downtown Rapid City are gathered around tables and grouped at a cocktail bar. A grand piano sits near the fence at Murphy’s Pub and Grill. On the other side, another piano at another bar is poised for a duel, and the two instruments battle.
Music snakes through the crowd and interlaces with the sound of dinner and drinks. But between the food and the piano, patrons have to pay their tabs. And this night, as they put down cash or cards to cover their hand-patted burgers and gourmets mac and cheese, they get receipts and realizations.
"So we’ve got everybody wearing orange and handing out card to make sure that they get aware of the same problems that everybody else is facing," Murphy's owner Tony Demaro says.
The problem Demaro references is hunger. One in five South Dakota children is at risk. Demaro's staff members are sporting orange t-shirts, and they include facts about hunger with meal tickets. It seems counterintuitive: a campaign against hunger at bar and grill, but Demaro says that’s kind of the point.
"It’s surprising, actually, when you look at the statistics, and it’s very sobering, so I think it’s very important that those that are so blessed get the chance to make sure that we’re aware of this so we can do something to help fix the problem, because knowledge is half the battle," Demaro says.
"I don't know that we're always aware that we have kids who are three, four, and five years old who don't know where their next meal is going to come from," Struck says.
While Murphy’s serves hunger statistics with the hot meals, people across the state are fighting hunger through canned vegetables and pre-packaged snacks.
"Putting the cookies in the bag, and then just as the next person grabs the bag, putting in another food item, whether that be peas, soup. I see some juice boxes here, and just going right down the assembly line," volunteer Denise Gross says.
Gross is one of a few dozen volunteers frantically filling plastic bags with 13 ingredients like fresh apples, cereal and chocolate milk. Feeding South Dakota’s Backpack program provides kids with food so they don’t starve from Friday night through school on Monday. Coordinator Allison Struck says South Dakotans don’t realize that thousands of children who live here don’t get enough to eat.
"I don’t know that we’re always aware that we have kids who are three, four, and five years old who don’t know where their next meal is going to come from," Struck says.
Struck says hunger is an incredible burden for children to bear.
"They’re learning some very tough lessons early in life," Struck says. "You know, we had two students last year who, when they got their bag before Thanksgiving, they sat down and took out what they could use for their Thanksgiving meal."
Struck says people can’t see hunger like other physical needs, so they can’t tell that the boy who sits next to their daughter in class doesn’t have any food at home. Feeding South Dakota’s Kerri DeGraff says the problem of hunger is immense but it’s solvable.
"And sometimes we lose sight of that. We know there is enough food in this country to feed every hungry individual in need," DeGraff says.
DeGraff says one in eight people in South Dakota suffers from food insecurity, meaning they lack food on a regular basis.
"It might be at the end of the month you have a family that’s literally going one or two days without anything to eat, and we hear that," DeGraff says. "We hear stories of families who are waiting for paychecks to come, and they will go get groceries the minute that hits their account so they have something to eat. And you think that doesn’t happen, but it’s real and I’ve heard those stories."
DeGraff says more than half of the people Feeding South Dakota serves are children. That brings the story back to the backpack program. In this one session, volunteers pack 3388 bags of food for area students. Most people work on filling the sacks. Some people are tasked with tying the bags shut and dropping them into big grey containers.
"Ladies and gentlemen. We have filled 12 pallets. 12 more to go!" volunteer Clair Halverson says.
Halverson pushes pallets stacked with plastic totes full of food. He picks up a giant roll of plastic wrap and stretches it all the way around until the containers are secure. Halverson and his wife volunteer at the backpack packing every week – and have for six or seven years.
"I see my forte as working in the background," Halverson says. "I have heard lots and lots of stories about people who have received the food and what it means to them."
Halverson knows his work makes a difference, but Keri DeGraff with Feeding South Dakota says she wants more people to recognize that hunger permeates throughout communities.
"The elderly man who is trying to help provide for his 16-year-old granddaughter while also meet his nutritional needs, and so he goes without food for her to eat," DeGraff says. "And I see the young mom with four children trying to, as they navigate through the pantry, I see them picking out the canned food, hoping that they can just have enough food to supplement their diet for that month because she makes minimum wage, and she cannot make it on minimum wage. It’s absolutely unaffordable to pay for your rent, pay for childcare, pay for all your other necessities and still afford food, and that’s why these programs exist."
DeGraff says, once people acknowledge the pangs of going without enough to eat, they can work to obliterate hunger. That is her mission.
Visit Feeding South Dakota's website for information on volunteer opportunities and events during Hunger Action Month.