FOOD SHELF

Bemidji Senior Hockey Association donates $2,000 to Bemidji Community Food Shelf

Pioneer Staff Report — Sun, 11 May 2025 16:30:00 GMT

The Bemidji Senior Hockey Association recently donated $2,500 to the Bemidji Community Food Shelf.

Proceeds were generated from participants in the annual Steve McLean Tournament.

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Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive to take place May 10

Pioneer Staff Report — Tue, 06 May 2025 17:55:14 GMT

BEMIDJI — All community members and area businesses are invited to participate in the annual Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive on Saturday, May 10.

Sponsored by the National Association of Letter Carriers and United Way of Bemidji Area, the Stamp Out Hunger Food Drive will benefit the Bemidji Community Food Shelf.

Community members are asked to simply leave a sturdy bag containing non-perishable, non-expired canned or boxed items, such as baby food, peanut butter, soups, cereals, laundry soap, dish soap, deodorant, personal care items and such, next to their mailbox prior to the time of regular mail delivery on Saturday, May 10.

Donated items should be packaged in non-breakable containers. Letter carriers will collect the donations and deliver them to the Bemidji Community Food Shelf.

In addition to the one-day food collection by the Post Office, collection boxes are available to accept your donations at the downtown Post Office lobby and Raphael's Bakery all week for early drop-offs.

For more information, contact the Bemidji Post Office at (218) 751-1059 or the United Way of Bemidji Area at (218) 444-8929.

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Bemidji Lions Club donates to Bemidji Area Food Shelf

Pioneer Staff Report — Sat, 12 Apr 2025 18:07:00 GMT

The Bemidji Lions Club recently made a $2,000 donation to the Bemidji Area Food Shelf.

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Bemidji Lions Club donates to North Country Food Bank

Pioneer Staff Report — Sat, 01 Mar 2025 16:00:00 GMT

North Country Food Bank Executive Director Susie Novak Boelter was the guest speaker at a noon Bemidji Lions Club meeting.

During her presentation, she explained how the food bank covers 21 counties and distributes 7 million pounds of food annually. Following the program, Lions President Ethan Larson presented the food bank with a $400 donation from the Club.

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Food Share campaign to benefit Bemidji Community Food Shelf throughout March

Pioneer Staff Report — Fri, 28 Feb 2025 15:00:00 GMT

BEMIDJI — Donations will be accepted throughout the month for the annual March Food Share fundraising event, which benefits the Bemidji Community Food Shelf.

This annual event, sponsored by the Greater Minneapolis Council of Churches, helps to raise funds for nearly 300 food shelves across the state during the month of March by offering a partial match for all funds donated during the campaign.

The drive, which wraps up on April 6, is an important one for the Bemidji Community Food Shelf according to Executive Director Michael Olson.

"Donations received in March are crucial for helping us get through the summer months and into the fall, which have traditionally been low donation periods," Olson said in a release. "With a significant increase in people seeking food support, this campaign is more important than ever."

Throughout the month of March, the Bemidji Community Food Shelf will be accepting donations of non-perishable food items and monetary contributions. Every donation made during this period will be partially matched, amplifying the impact of each contribution.

According to the release, last year the Bemidji Community Food Shelf served 42,000 individuals from 13,576 families, and the need continues to grow.

Community members can support the March Food Share Month campaign by:

Donating non-perishable food items - drop off donations at the Bemidji Community Food Shelf, 1260 Exchange Ave SE. Making a monetary donation - visit bcfsmn.org to make a secure online donation or send a check to the address above. Volunteering - help sort and distribute food to those in need.

GMCC’s Minnesota FoodShare began its work in 1982 as a campaign advanced by congregations to restock food shelves in the seven-county Twin Cities Metro area. The effort was so successful, and the need so evident, the March Campaign became a statewide initiative just one year later and is now in its 44th year.

"The Bemidji Community Food Shelf is committed to providing fresh, nourishing foods to those living in Beltrami County and the Bemidji �� District," the release said. "We are grateful for the continued support of our community and partners in making this possible."

The food shelf is open 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

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Record number of families use Bemidji Community Food Shelf during 2024

Pioneer Staff Report — Sat, 18 Jan 2025 18:00:00 GMT

BEMIDJI — The Bemidji Community Food Shelf recently released its usage rundown for 2024, ending with a 12% increase in the number of people seeking food support.

"It was a challenging year for a good many reasons," Executive Director Michael Olson said in a release. "We helped more people than ever before, gave out more food than ever before, all the while facing increased costs for food and everything else.

But what gave us hope and encouragement was the support from our community. More people stepped up to volunteer their time and treasure to help those in need."

A total of 37,519 individuals visited the food shelf in 2024, serving 13,576 households. The food shelf provided 961,995 pounds of food to community members, totaling $1,731,591.

This year marks the 43rd year of the Bemidji Community Food Shelf's service to the community.

The food shelf is located at 1260 Exchange Ave. SE. Its hours are 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday, Wednesday and Friday. To learn more about the food shelf or become a volunteer, visit BCFSMN.org.

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As it enters the new year, Ruby's Pantry seeks volunteers for monthly program

Madelyn Haasken — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 17:36:48 GMT

BEMIDJI — Though a bit shorthanded, volunteers with Bemidji's Ruby's Pantry were in high spirits as they doled out grocery bundles during the program's first food distribution event of the year on Wednesday at the Sanford Center.

The monthly nonprofit program, available to anyone regardless of income, allows participants to drive up and receive grocery bundles in exchange for a $25 cash donation.

Keith Willard, Ruby Pantry's Bemidji facilitator, noted that the groceries are donated by corporate food donors who have overages or surpluses of certain items. In turn, the cash donation mainly covers operational costs.

"(The donation) covers shipping as well as refrigeration and anything that needs to happen to maintain the food quality," Willard explained. "There is a small portion of every share that is sold that also takes care of our overhead, such as renting the Sanford Center."

According to the Ruby's Pantry website, the program operates in more than 80 locations throughout Minnesota, North Dakota, Wisconsin and Iowa, with more than 240,000 shares distributed in the last year.

Grocery bundles are made up of various drinks, snacks, canned goods, produce and more. Before the distribution events, a partial list of the foods included in each bundle is posted on the Ruby's Pantry - Bemidji, MN Facebook page.

Willard noted that while the program is a great resource for the community, it couldn't happen without the work of its dedicated volunteers.

The amount of volunteers who come to help with the distribution program, Willard expressed, often depends on the weather and the time of year. During Wednesday's event, a crew of less than 15 worked to ensure the event went smoothly despite the lack of volunteers.

"We've had as many as 50 out on a day," he said. "Today it's probably going to be one of our more skeleton crews. We're struggling right now. There's illness going around and so that affects availability."

A typical day for volunteers includes helping unload food from the truck around 1 p.m., sorting through the items and then breaking them up into bundles ahead of the distribution. Once 4 p.m. rolls around, volunteers help load bundles into vehicles as they pass through.

To learn more about volunteering with Ruby's Pantry, visit rubyspantry.org/become-volunteer.

Distribution events are typically held from 4 to 6 p.m. on the third Wednesday of each month at the Sanford Center. For more information, visit rubyspantry.org or check out the Ruby's Pantry - Bemidji, MN Facebook page.

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Walz announces $5.5 million for Minnesota food shelves

Mary Murphy — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 15:40:00 GMT

ST. PAUL — Gov. Tim Walz announced $5.5 million in new funding for Minnesota food shelves on Wednesday, Jan. 8, following the end of a historic year for food insecurity in the state.

Funds will go toward food from Minnesota producers and processors, Second Harvest Heartland, the Food Group Minnesota, and partnered hunger-relief organizations across the state, according to a release from Walz’s office.

“No family should be faced with a decision to either put food on the table or pay the bills. That’s why Minnesota has taken major strides to eliminate hunger, from investments in universal school meals to millions in funding for food shelves and agriculture support,” Walz said in the release. “With this funding, we’re relieving a strain on family pocketbooks and ensuring a stable supply of healthy food to meet Minnesotans’ needs.”

Minnesota food shelves reached an all-time high of 9 million visits in 2024, according to reports from the Minnesota Food Group in early December.

Sophia Lenarz-Coy, executive director of the Minnesota Food Group, said part of this increase in food shelf visits in Minnesota can be attributed to federal grants allocated during COVID-19 decreasing, especially for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

Benefits decreased by an average of $82 per month in 2023 for 235,000 Minnesotans enrolled in SNAP, according to the Food Research and Action Center. National food prices increased by 5.8% in 2023 and are now 25% higher than they were pre-pandemic, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“We are so grateful for this investment from Governor Walz and the Minnesota Department of Agriculture to provide quality and local foods to the emergency food system in Minnesota,” Lenarz-Coy said in the release. “We will be prioritizing more than half of the funds to source from local producers to build up our local food system, and all the food will go to our network of over 200 food shelf partners. With food shelf visits in our state at record levels, this makes a significant impact.”

The new funding from Walz is authorized by the American Rescue Plan Act and distributed through the Minnesota Department of Agriculture.

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Free, fresh food market opens its second location in Maplewood

Noah Fish — Tue, 31 Dec 2024 14:00:00 GMT

MAPLEWOOD, Minn. — A second-of-its-kind free grocery store accessible to anyone as often as they need, and only requires providing a zip code, is now open in the Twin Cities.

The Today's Harvest markets in Oakdale and Maplewood are operated by Open Cupboard, which also has drive-up, delivery and mobile food shelf services. Jessica Francis, executive director of the organization, said the two locations combine to serve over 1,000 families a day.

Dec. 17 was the grand opening of Today's Harvest in Maplewood, which is conveniently located along a city bus line.

"It's very much serving the Eastside of St. Paul and Maplewood, where we were getting a lot of people who were coming to our Oakdale market," Francis said. "We knew that they were making it over there, but their neighbors and their family members weren't always able to. They were saying, can't you build one here?"

A model of growth

Open Cupboard was serving about 420 households before the pandemic hit and required the organization to change the way it provided services. When a drive-up option for food became available, Francis said the number of visitors skyrocketed, showing that many people were reticent to walk into a food shelf.

"Somehow the anonymity of driving up and staying in their vehicle and just having food loaded, that really reduced the stigma, and so a lot of people found us that way," Francis said.

Open Cupboard increased visits by 177% over the pandemic, according to the organization, and a more efficient service model was needed to keep up with the surge in food insecurity. A volunteer of the organization suggested following the food rescue model used by an Australian company called OzHarvest.

"What if we made food that we rescue from grocery stores or agricultural surplus just really accessible, and we're not asking names, and not asking addresses or any personal information," Francis said. "We quickly got a lease on a little strip mall location in 2021, and we opened it up there."

Today's Harvest in Oakdale offered milk, meat and fresh produce every day because those were the items people looked for the most, according to a survey of food bank visitors in Minnesota. The other focus was removing all gates to entry and requirements for personal information. Instead, when people walked through the front door of Today's Harvest, they were given a shopping cart.

"When we started doing that, we discovered how much need there really was," Francis said.

The Oakdale market which opened in 2021 was expected to serve between 80 to 100 families a day, but was serving 250 a day almost immediately after opening, Francis said, with people coming from 140 different zip codes. In 2022, Open Cupboard expanded the location at the site to help meet the community’s needs. The continued growth in Oakdale led to pursuing its second location last year.

Over a dozen types of fresh produce were offered at Today's Harvest in Maplewood on Dec. 20, along with brand-named meat, dairy and other products including things like hot sauce and pancake mix. Each section of the market has a fruit or vegetable cutout with a number on it, clarifying how many products a person can take from the section. On that Friday, a surplus of sweet potatoes meant visitors could take as many as they wanted. Products are stocked and displayed as they would be in a grocery store.

No questions

Today's Harvest removes the hardest part for many people who seek a food shelf for the first time, which is having to provide personal information in order to take food home.

"I've been doing this for 20-some years, and I've seen so many people fall apart in that little room, because it was so difficult for them to walk through the door to begin with, and when they're answering those questions it's just such an emotional experience," Francis said. "It was important to me that we designed something that just removed that entirely."

The collection of personal information by food shelves across the country is required by ones receiving food from the federal commodity program, which Today's Harvest does not.

"For Today's Harvest, all we have to collect is the person's zip code and how many adults, children and seniors are in their household," she said. "We don't need their name. We don't need their address."

Today's Harvest market director is Kayla Glaraton, who started working for Open Cupboard in 2020. She said that seeing the reaction from the people utilizing Today's Harvest feels like a turning point for the hunger relief industry.

"The only experience I had with food shelves prior to this was the few times I used it because I was a broke college kid," she said. "I never knew all the requirements and appointments, and I was like, why can't people just come get this food?"

Store and farm surplus

Instead of relying on federal commodity items, Today's Harvest relies entirely on rescued retail food and agricultural surplus. A mix of professional staff and volunteers for Open Cupboard pick up food on the verge of expiring from a long list of retail, farm and food bank partners daily.

"The retailers are happy because we can go and get those items out of their warehouse or off their dock area and because we're open six days a week, and we're serving so many people, it lands on the plate of somebody that needs it, usually the same day," Francis said. "If it's a manufacturer or a dairy, where they say I have a big surplus of sour cream, or a big surplus of this one item but it's only got two or three days left of life left in it, very few organizations can say yes to that because it'll spoil."

Today's Harvest works with farms and at farmers markets to be able to offer locally grown items. Thanks to a program with Second Harvest Heartland and the St. Paul Farmers Market, produce that doesn't sell at the market is donated to Today's Harvest and the growers get paid for it.

Farmers near the Twin Cities can donate surplus product in any amount to Today's Harvest, said Glaraton. She added they've yet to turn one away.

"I think that's one of the benefits of this model, is if a farmer does show up with their pickup truck full of potatoes — which happens about twice a year — we're able to say, OK, we have a lot of potatoes, so it's unlimited potatoes for the rest of the day," Glaraton said.

Open Cupboard signed the lease for Today's Harvest in Maplewood in November 2023 and began a long year of construction and renovation. Francis said they were "thrilled" to finally open and show the community and partners what had been built.

"We built this market so that we can serve the 700-some families that we expect to shop here every day, but we also built it with enough space so that we can demonstrate and we can show other food shelves how this model works, so that they can go and do this in their own community."

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Minnesota projects record high of 9 million food shelf visits in 2024

Mary Murphy — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 12:09:00 GMT

ST. PAUL — On Friday, Dec. 13, about 50 people bundled in thick winter jackets waited in the warm lobby of Keystone, a new food shelf in St. Paul. Outside, others stood in line, braving subzero temperatures.

To the right of the lobby, a “market” displays a variety of groceries — grapefruits have remained mostly untouched. On the left, a wall is adorned with colorful drawings — playful doodles from young children who have spent time waiting in the lobby.

Georgi Nguyen, director of basic needs at Keystone Community Services, a nonprofit primarily specializing in food shelf services since 1939, said this “market” model is intentional.

“We call our food shelf here the food market, with the goal of restoring dignity and respect to folks that come in,” she said. “I mean, all the shelves that we installed into the food market when we moved to this building were intentional to create an environment that looks like a grocery store and feels like a grocery store.”

In October, around 11,000 people used Keystone’s services. While the organization’s food shelf numbers remained consistent in 2024, at about 2,500 households per month, Nguyen said those numbers do not reflect the needs of people they turn away.

Nguyen said some days they reach the food shelf's maximum capacity and cannot help everyone who comes to their door. On Thanksgiving this year, they turned away about 60 people, she said.

Minnesota food shelf visits in 2024 are expected to reach 9 million, 1.5 million more than the state’s record high in 2023, according to early December reports from Food Group Minnesota, a nonprofit and research organization.

Nguyen said 90% of the people they serve are at or below twice the federal poverty threshold. The federal poverty line is $15,060 for a single person and $31,200 for a family of four, according to U.S. Health and Human Services.

Nguyen said it’s not often their patrons are unemployed, but they frequently cite housing costs as spurring their need for Keystone’s services.

“A lot of our shoppers are working folks, and on average, people visit the food shelf three times a year,” she said. “There’s this misconception that people try to game the system or abuse access, but a lot of the times when we see folks that ... just lost their job, they haven’t seen us for a long time and needed to come back.”

Minnesotans made 7.5 million visits to food shelves in 2023, a 36.4% increase from 5.5 million visits in 2022 and a 102% increase from 3.7 million visits in 2021, according to Food Group Minnesota.

As Food Group Minnesota tracks the numbers from 2024, Executive Director Sophia Lenarz-Coy said, they expect a new high of 9 million food shelf visits. She said that while this is not as dramatic of an increase as from 2022 to 2023, a steady uptick in need persists.

“Had we talked to anybody in this sector a few years ago, I don’t even think many people would have thought it was possible for the food shelf system in the state to have almost 9 million visits,” Lenarz-Coy said.

She said it’s hard to say what drove this increase but speculated it’s most likely inflation of grocery prices and post-pandemic cuts to federal programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

She noted the numbers are rarely driven by unemployment, with Minnesota’s unemployment rate at 3.4% in 2023, ranking 21st in the nation, according to the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development.

Nguyen said that since federal and state-funded COVID-19 benefits ended in February of 2022, Keystone saw a steady increase in new patrons every month.

Food stamp benefits decreased by an average of $82 per month in 2023 for 235,000 Minnesotans enrolled in SNAP, according to the Food Research and Action Center. National food prices increased by 5.8% in 2023 and are now 25% higher than they were pre-pandemic, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“The positive part that (9 million visits) says is that it is an incredibly adaptable system,” Lenarz-Coy said. “We have well over 300 nonprofits, and all 87 counties in the state, they have really risen to the occasion.”

Six Minnesota counties saw their food shelf visits decrease in 2023 — Nobles, Itasca, Lincoln, Faribault, Cook and Dakota — and 10 counties — Kittson, Benton, Grant, Pipestone, Crow Wing, Carver, Washington, Nicollet, Watonwan and Steele — saw increases, according to Food Group Minnesota.

The state recently made efforts to combat some of these food insecurity numbers. On Nov. 25, Gov. Tim Walz announced $5 million in new funding for food shelves ahead of the holidays. COVID-19 relief funds provided by the American Rescue Plan Act are being repurposed for the food shelf funding, he said.

Lenarz-Coy also noted the help of Minnesota’s free meals for students. The program marked one year this fall, with an estimate of over 150 million meals served in the first fiscal year between July 1, 2023, and June 30, 2024.

“All Minnesotans deserve to sit around a full table and spend time with loved ones during the holidays,” Walz said in a release announcing the funding. “Minnesotans are generous people who do their part to ensure their neighbors have what they need — and this funding will go a long way to supporting those efforts. I’m grateful for our partnership with organizations working to tackle food insecurity and distribute these funds quickly.”

Lenarz-Coy said, going forward, eyes are on the Farm Bill that expires in 2025 and encapsulates SNAP funding, tariffs under a new administration, improved benefits for seniors, and continued state funding like the allocations made by Walz earlier this month.

“There are real threats right now that there could be cuts to SNAP at the federal level, and again, we just really raise the political awareness that the emergency food system is not in a place to absorb any potential cuts to snap,” Lenarz-Coy said. “It’s really important that we just continue to invest because I think everybody who’s ever had the stress of not knowing how they’re going to feed their family wouldn’t wish that on anybody.”

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