Submitted Photo Employees of Town & Country Credit Union help set up toy displays at Horn of Plenty on Dec. 1. From left to right: Denielle Ronglien, Mallory Lochthowe, Ashley Sundsbak, Katrina Berg, Shawna Schroeder and Sandy Rice.

Horn of Plenty is back this year to help spread Christmas cheer to Minot.

The program is designed to be an outreach for families in need of help during the holiday season.

“It’s a community effort in which we ask the community if they know someone in need this Christmas season. Whether it’s through hospital bills or someone in the family lost their job, we’re here to help,” said Roy Leavitt, manager of Horn of Plenty.

Leavitt’s father, Dick Leavitt, started the program in 1984 with hope they could find at least 25 people in Minot in need of help. They thought 25 would be a reach but were quickly overwhelmed with all the families who were submitted.

“There turned out to be around 80 families that year,” Leavitt said. “One of the things my dad noticed way back then is that when people donate to other programs out there, about 50% of the donations go to administrative costs. Only about half of what was given ends up actually getting to the people. So we created this with the purpose that it would become a volunteer program where the majority of dollars given are actually going to the people who are in need.”

Leavitt did not want it to turn into a welfare program. Therefore, it is designed so that people cannot submit their own names.

Horn of Plenty aims to provide about a week or two worth of food to each family, depending on the size of each family.

“A family two will get enough to feed a family of two. A family of 12 will get enough to feed 12,” said Leavitt.

The program has been going strong for nearly 40 years; however, once COVID hit, everything changed. It was no longer possible to collect food items.

“There used to be around 150 people who would come out to package food for around 350 families. But during COVID, we could not operate like that anymore. We had to come up with a new idea to keep this thing going, because there are still families in need,” Leavitt said.

Horn of Plenty came up with a solution that, instead of collecting the food items, set up a fundraiser to raise money at places such as Marketplace Foods and Trinity Hospital and collect dollars at the tills.

“We try to make it as simple as possible. Once the funds are collected, we purchase food vouchers for the Marketplace Foods stores,” Leavitt said.

Last year 354 families were helped in the area. Food was delivered to families around a 75-mile radius of Minot. Of the families, about two-thirds were local but the other third were in Bottineau, Stanley, Rugby, Garrison and other outlying areas.

“Last year we ended up giving over $60,000 in food vouchers, about $25,000 in toys and about $5,000 in ministry gifts for a total of $90,000,” Leavitt said. “This year, I don’t think we’ve ever had this many names come in so fast. As of December 4, we have already had 369 names come in.”

Toy donations also are collected for children in the families.

“We try to give each child in the family that is 16 and under two to three brand new toys,” Leavitt said.

Since 1984, there hasn’t been a year in which Horn of Plenty has not been able to help all the people whose names were submitted. Leavitt suspects this year won’t be any different.