Black Hills communities make a difference on Martin Luther King Jr. Day

RAPID CITY, S.D. (KOTA) - Feeding South Dakota held a “bring your child to work” day in honor of Martin Luther King Jr’s Legacy. Kimberly Wallace, the western volunteer coordinator for Feeding South Dakota says they chose to mark the day this way as “there is no definite timeline for helping.”

“Really, we wanted to celebrate Martin Luther King Day with children helping children,” Wallace said. “We have kids from 5 and up, coming with their parents and they are packing backpacks. Backpacks is our program where we pack little items of food for kids to take home over the weekend.

Feeding South Dakota on average gives away 16 to 18 hundred meals a week.

To help and celebrate in their own way, South Dakota Mines students were set up at local grocery stores for the 13th year, collecting food and cash donations to help both Feeding South Dakota and their student food pantry.

“We usually get a couple bins full at each place, so there’s definitely a lot of food that gets donated from this,” said Mines student Eliza McCallum.

The 2022 Mines food drive brought in more than 2,000 pounds of food and over $1,000 to help the community.

“It’s a good way for us to get to connect with the community,” said McCallum. “I love doing this every year, it’s one of my favorite things we do.”

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