Mobile food pantry brings free groceries to Jamestown, Valley City May 5

Free groceries will be handed out by drive-through in Valley City and Jamestown on May 5, giving households a same-day chance to pick up food without paying a dime. Great Plains Food Bank’s Mobile Food Pantry will be at Epworth United Methodist Church, 680 8th Ave. SW, in Valley City from 1:30 to 3 p.m., then at Temple Baptist Church, 1200 12th Ave. NE, in Jamestown from 5:15 to 6:30 p.m.

The pantry is set up to bring food directly to vehicles, a format meant to reach rural communities where grocery access can be a long drive and a weekly food budget can disappear fast. Great Plains Food Bank says the load may include shelf-stable items, produce, dairy, meat and bakery goods, and that all in need of food assistance are welcome at no cost.

The visit lands in a county where demand for help is already visible in the numbers. Great Plains Food Bank’s latest Stutsman County impact snapshot reported 323,744 pounds of food distributed from July 1, 2024, through June 30, 2025, equal to 269,787 meals. During that same period, the organization served 7,296 households across 13 agency and program sites and assisted with 14 SNAP applications.

Stutsman County’s estimated population was 21,414 on July 1, 2025, a reminder that even a modest share of households facing higher grocery bills can put real pressure on local charities, churches and food programs. Great Plains Food Bank said it served 167,163 individuals in 2025, about one in five people across its North Dakota and Clay County, Minnesota service area, and its mobile pantry now reaches nearly 70 communities each quarter.

Great Plains Food Bank created the mobile pantry program in 2008 to bring food trucks directly into underserved rural areas. North Dakota State University’s Sheila and Robert Challey Institute for Global Innovation and Growth has found that rural residents can face long distances to grocery stores and rising food prices, with food insecurity tied to transportation, housing, health care and other basic needs. In Jamestown and Valley City, those pressures are turning free food distributions into a crucial part of the local safety net.