Submitted Photo Tom Probst with the Minot Area Community Foundation holds a symbolic check representing donations into the region from the Arnold Besserud Fund. Gathered around are representatives of MACF and the many organizations that have benefited.

Representatives of organizations that have been beneficiaries of the Arnold I. Besserud Fund gathered Thursday to celebrate 10 years, $1.45 million in gifts and the Minot man who made it possible.

A $5 million endowment from Arnold Besserud in 2011 was the largest gift in the history of the Minot Area Community Foundation, said Jason Zimmerman, foundation executive director. The endowment fund actually started with $3 million after taxes, legal costs and a settlement with the Besserud family, but it since has regrown to nearly $5 million.

Besserud, born in 1919, graduated from Minot High School in 1937. After two years of college, he joined the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and traveled the world as a civil engineer at various military installations.

“Mr. Besserud lived humbly and invested diligently,” Zimmerman said. “Like many who grew up in the Depression era, he was very conservative. He frequented the soup kitchens and pantries and established his network of friends through those experiences. While he still frequented those places to share a meal, he could often be seen stacking shelves or pouring coffee and visiting with his friends.”

Besserud wanted to continue to help even after his death, asking that his endowment benefit food pantries and soup kitchens first and, secondly, other priority needs in the community identified by the foundation.

In addition to $200,100 contributed to food pantries around the region, $163,750 has gone to soup kitchens. Grants for

equipment, including walk-in fridges and freezers, total an additional $161,270. Other beneficiaries of the fund have included Minot Commission on Aging’s Meals on Wheels, the Men’s Winter Refuge, Souris Valley United Way Backpack Buddies, Domestic Violence Crisis Center, Project BEE, Sanctuary Sober Living Home and Donation Station.

Tom Probst, foundation board member, recalled the foundation’s receipt of the endowment 10 years ago.

“The first couple of years we couldn’t give any money away. Nobody wanted any,” Probst said. Asked what the foundation might do for them, soup kitchens operators who had their church congregations backing them said, “Nothing. We don’t need anything.”

“So we went back to the office and said, ‘Well, you know, part of our mission is ‘do no harm,'” Probst said. “Two or three months later we went back to the churches and said, ‘How can we help you with your mission?'”

Then the foundation heard about needs for kitchen appliances and started supplying those needs.

“As a food pantry, it’s invaluable for us to be able to receive the equipment and food as needed, as it is for the soup kitchens,” said Gerald Roise with the Lord’s Cupboard. “Maybe the thing that the community doesn’t understand is that the food pantries and the soup kitchens give so much out beyond the food.”

Roise said hospitality is what makes the real difference.

“I think the majority come to have a relationship. That is what Arnold experienced, I believe, that changed him,” he said. “He received care, appreciation and acceptance at these places. And I think that makes a difference in all of us, whether we’re a volunteer or someone that comes to receive our services. How we’re treated makes all the difference in the world.”

Michele Schrader, a former neighbor of Besserud after he returned to his boyhood residence in Minot, recalled her neighbor had an independent streak and enjoyed his privacy. But his work with the soup kitchen seemed to give him new energy, she said, recalling how he would ride his bike to a kitchen, even in the snow, once he no longer could drive.

“He was proud to do what he was doing,” she said.

Anna Hunsaid, representing Luther’s Kitchen at First Lutheran Church in Minot, told of meeting Besserud, who would come to the soup kitchen with his earphones on. Thinking he was listening to music, she was surprised one day when she came to pour his coffee and could hear the sound coming through the earphones. It was the stock market report. Although she never learned his name or knew if he had a family, she enjoyed the humble man’s stories of his life in Europe, she said.

The fund currently supports seven soup kitchens serving five weekly lunch meals, two evening meals and one breakfast. All meals are served by area churches and a host of volunteers.

The Besserud Fund has been able to help in even more ways. Items like socks, toiletry items, and gifts at Christmas have been provided to patrons of area soup kitchens.

Minot Area Community Foundation, along with the Besserud Fund, sponsors a Challenge Grant that encourages area organizations to utilize its Donation Station for food collection drives. If an organization hosts a food drive between Sept. 1 and Dec. 31 this year and utilizes the Donation Station, that organization can earn a $500 grant for the food pantry of its choice if the drive successfully collects 1,000 pounds of food. This is the fourth year of the Challenge Grant.