Minot Rotary Club Donates Enough North Dakota Durum to Provide Enough Pasta for Every North Dakota: 650,000 Servings

Durum wheat production in North Dakota accounts for nearly 80 percent of total US production. Durum, the "hardest" of all wheats, is the preferred wheat for pasta.

To showcase the importance of the agricultural industry in North Dakota and the good work of a statewide food bank, the Sunrise Rotary Club of Minot, North Dakota, donated 84,000 pounds of pasta to the Great Plains Food Bank.

The mission statement of the food bank:

The Great Plains Food Bank strives for a hunger-free North Dakota and western Minnesota by recovering surplus food and grocery product, distributing it to hungry individuals through a statewide network of charitable feeding programs, engaging community partners in the fight to end hunger, and advocating for social change.

The Minot Rotary Club kicked off its Sunrise on Hunger project in May, 2010, with the goal to collect enough durum to donate 650,000 servings of pasta, one for every North Dakotan. 

Numerous agencies and organizations supported the project with perhaps the most important contribution being the donation of the durum itself by individual farmers. Minot Milling milled the durum and produced the pasta.

Completion of the project was celebrated on the opening day of the 40th Annual KMOT Ag Expo.

It never ceases to amaze me how much a relatively small number of folks in North Dakota can do to make such a huge difference.