Giving Back for December

Dec. 31, 2020

Giving Back recognizes businesses and organizations that are helping our communities. Here’s a look at who gave back for December.

Great Western Bank, Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation, Dusty and Kathy Miller

A major gift from Great Western Bank to a fund at the Sioux Falls Area Community Foundation will ensure that more than $50,000 is available to help 10 Title 1 elementary schools in the city provide healthy snacks to their students each school day. Program changes earlier this year had reduced the daily snacks to three times a week. The bank awarded a $28,000 grant to the School Snack Project Fund through its Making Life Great program. Local donors Dusty and Kathy Miller also directed a gift to the effort from their donor-advised fund held at the Community Foundation. This initial support from donors will provide money for school snacks through the winter. Additional donations are needed to help cover the costs of snacks through the end of the school year.

Pizza Ranch

Pizza Ranch on West 41st Street chose Feeding South Dakota to receive a $1,000 donation after winning the Community Impact Award from Pizza Ranch Inc. for its service to the community following a tornado that closed the restaurant for 15 months while it was being rebuilt.

As part of its soft reopening for the restaurant earlier this month, Pizza Ranch collected a freewill offering from guests and donated $500 to St. Baldrick’s Foundation.

Chipotle

Chipotle hosted its first fundraiser at the new Sioux Falls restaurant to support the Roosevelt High School Cancer Club and raised almost $5,700. Thirty-three percent of sales from part of one day in December went to the club, which gave the proceeds to teacher and choir director Randi Van Der Sloot to help in her battle against cancer

Fareway Stores Inc.

Fareway Stores Inc. organized a second round of donations this year to support small businesses in partnership with chamber of commerce organizations in the communities it serves. Fareway grocery stores gave $1,000 in gift cards to each chamber to be distributed to small businesses and their employees facing challenges because of the pandemic. The Greater Sioux Falls Chamber of Commerce, Harrisburg Chamber of Commerce and Tea Chamber of Development received gift cards from local stores. The total donations for the year reached almost $500,000 across the company’s five-state footprint.

Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo has donated $25,000 to Feeding South Dakota, which will help put 75,000 meals on the tables of families in need this holiday season. The donation brings the total amount Wells Fargo has contributed to the organization this year to $156,530. Wells Fargo and Feeding South Dakota also held seven drive-up food distribution events this summer at a Wells Fargo operations center in northern Sioux Falls, where more than 386,000 pounds of food was distributed, enough to provide about 366,000 meals to 7,700 households.

Verizon

Verizon enlisted the help of Firehouse Subs Sioux Falls and Boss’ Pizza & Chicken to deliver 4,495 meals to frontline heroes at the Sanford USD Medical Center during the holiday season. The effort was part of Verizon’s Food for Frontline Workers program, which kicked off in April and delivered more than 150,000 meals to frontline workers in cities across the U.S.

LifeLight Communications Inc., Tre Ministries, Sioux Falls First, Union Gospel Mission, Thomas Club

LifeLight Communications Inc., Tre Ministries, Sioux Falls First, Union Gospel Mission and the Thomas Club distributed more than 200 meals and Christmas gifts to families in need this holiday season. Many of these families include students who attend the LifeLight Youth Center in the Pettigrew Heights neighborhood on the west side of downtown Sioux Falls. Other organizations involved in the effort were Collision, Sanford Pentagon and the Pettigrew Heights Neighborhood Association.

Walmart Foundation

To help organizations meet the increased demand during the holidays and beyond, the Walmart Foundation is granting Feeding America $12 million over two years and is encouraging its stores, clubs and distribution centers in the U.S. to commit funds and product donations to hunger-relief organizations through the end of the year. Last year in South Dakota, Walmart donated more than 931,000 pounds of food to local food banks.

Has your organization given back to the community? Or do you know an individual who proves one person can make a difference? Email us at [email protected].

See other good deeds happening in the Sioux Falls area in our Giving Back section. 

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Giving Back for December

Giving Back recognizes businesses and organizations that are helping our communities.

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