As winter nears, food shelves aim to make harvest last

Posted at 10:54 AM on October 5, 2012 by Julie Siple
Filed under: Hunger

Vegetables at the St. Paul Farmers Market (MPR Photo/Julie Siple)

Many Minnesota food shelves are stocked this fall with foods they rarely offered two decades ago: squash, peas, watermelon, strawberries. Hunger relief groups have ramped up efforts to put surplus produce on the plates of hungry Minnesotans, and the result is an ever-growing supply of fruits and vegetables from local gardens, farms and food processors.

That has some food shelf directors wishing they could make it last into the winter.

"Is there a way to preserve it, where we could can it, dry it, freeze it? I don't know," said Cathy Maes, executive director of ICA Food Shelf in Minnetonka. "But I feel like there's an opportunity missed."

Like many food shelves in the state, ICA offers an increasing amount of fresh produce but doesn't have a safe and cost-effective way to preserve it for the winter months. At ICA, that's primarily because the food shelf doesn't have a certified commercial kitchen, Maes said.

"If we could find a partner to do that, I'm sure that we could be making a lot of apple sauce. We could be freezing beautiful sweet corn," she said. "And we could have stewed tomatoes to give out to our clients in the winter."

Maes' food shelf gets produce from multiple sources, including local farmers who drop off truckloads of vegetables. If ICA could preserve some of that bounty, Maes said she could take in yet larger quantities and spread it across the cold months.

"For the lean times in the winter when all we hand out are potatoes and onions," she said. "I'd love to be able to hand out squash that's been pureed and frozen."

Across the Twin Cities metro area, Lisa Horn is thinking much the same thing. Horn runs the Eagan & Lakeville Resource Center, which prioritizes nutrition and now offers 70 to 80 percent perishable food, a growing amount of it produce.

But Horn doesn't just want to preserve that produce for the winter -- she wants to engage families who use the food shelf in the process. The organization has a responsibility to help families build skills of their own, she said.

"We might get in many bushels of tomatoes," Horn said. "Well, it would be great if we could then pull those out of our inventory, bring them into a kitchen with a group of our client families and say, 'Here's how you can these tomatoes. Feel free to take them home when you're done.'"

That would require qualified instructors and a kitchen, she said.

The Eagan and Lakeville Resource Center is lucky to be able to even think about produce preservation, added Horn, who noted that many Minnesota food shelves aren't in the same spot.

"I think there are food shelves in the state that are positioned to take that next step," she said. "I also think there are food shelves that are still in a position of, 'We don't even have enough refrigerator space to take produce. Period.'"

Tough apple harvest could mean less for the hungry

Posted at 4:43 PM on September 26, 2012 by Julie Siple
Filed under: Hunger

Apples are seen before sorting (Alex Kolyer for MPR)

When Mother Nature cooperates, apples are a windfall for hunger relief groups in southeastern Minnesota. Last year, Channel One Regional Food Bank delivered 150,000 pounds of apples to local food shelves.

"This year is different," said Vince McCoy, food resource coordinator at Channel One.

As Elizabeth Baier reported on MPR's Morning Edition, unusually warm weather in March followed by a hard frost in April killed off a lot of apple blossoms. Then summertime hail storms and drought damaged apples left on the trees. Minnesota apple production could drop by as much as 40 percent this year, University of Minnesota Apple Breeder David Bedford estimates in Baier's story.

That would be a blow to hunger relief organizations that rely on orchards for donations.

"If we're down 10 to 15 percent, it's not that huge of a deal," McCoy said. "But if it gets to be half of what we usually get, that's going to affect what we're seeing in the food shelves."

Volunteers have already been out in the orchards picking surplus apples, McCoy said. So far, those donations are keeping pace with last year. But McCoy worries about December and January, when orchards ordinarily donate large amounts of apples that they didn't sell.

"We're hearing that some of the big orchards, for instance Pepin Heights, they aren't going to have apples into December at all," McCoy said. "Whereas last year they did have some to donate, this year I seriously doubt that they'll have extra."

Apples are particularly welcome at food shelves.

"It's healthy, nutritious produce, and we love to see that available to our food shelves," said McCoy, who is working with other hunger relief groups in the state to capture more agricultural surplus.

McCoy is nervous about the apple situation, but he doesn't yet know how much donations will be down from last year.

"It's kind of wait and see how the season goes," he said.

Potato farmers do their part to fight hunger

Posted at 11:14 AM on September 7, 2012 by Julie Siple
Filed under: Hunger

MPR Photo/Julie Siple

In a small warehouse outside Clear Lake, Paul Gray peered deep into a bin of red potatoes.

"Some are missing a little bit of skin, some are a little misshapen," Gray pointed out. "Some look like Mickey Mouse."

A fourth-generation potato farmer, Paul Gray is part of the future of hunger relief. As we reported this week, hunger relief groups are stepping up efforts to capture the millions of pounds of produce from Minnesota fields that would otherwise go to waste.

Much of the potential lies in potatoes. A recent study by the Boston Consulting Group based on data from the US Department of Agriculture estimates 92 million pounds of potatoes went unharvested in Minnesota in 2009. Another 120 million pounds came out of the fields, but were never sold to retailers or consumers.

"No one wants to see their hard work go to waste, whether you're making widgets or growing potatoes," said Gray, who farms 120 acres of potatoes with his brother.

The Grays are among many potato farmers in the Clear Lake area who donate to hunger relief groups. This year, the Gray Potato Farm gave 120,000 pounds; last year, 80,000. Donating makes sense, said Gray, because he doesn't have room in his small warehouse to store a surplus at harvest time.

"We have to continue to move, because we grow red potatoes," he said. "Our red potatoes are grown on irritated, sandy soil. If the sandy soil dries out, it tends to want to suck the color away from the potatoes. So we need to continue harvesting once we start. It's a timing factor."

Donating surplus frees up space to bring in another semi load for cleaning. Gray primarily donates number two potatoes, those missing a little skin or sporting a strange shape.

"From a nutritional standpoint, they're just as good as a number one," he said. "But in our society, they want things that look like the magazine pictures or the TV commercial."

For Gray, giving to hunger relief groups makes more than just business sense. It's about helping your neighbor. "Even if your neighbor is 500 miles away," said Gray.

What should the garden grow?

Posted at 9:59 AM on August 1, 2012 by Julie Siple
Filed under: Hunger

Inmates garden at the Red Wing correctional facility (MPR Photo/Julie Siple)

Prisoners at the Red Wing minimum-security prison plant vegetables often left to the serious gardener: kale, Swiss chard, purple carrots, chocolate-colored peppers. They spend hours poring over seed catalogs, steamy afternoons weeding. They donate the surplus to the local food shelf.

The problem is, not everyone at the food shelf knows what to do with chard.

More state prisons are likely to start gardens next spring under a new law that takes effect today. On Morning Edition, we reported on the program at the Red Wing facility, which may serve as a model for new gardens. According to warden Kathy Halvorson, the program reduces idle time and builds the inmates' skills and confidence.

Red Wing Area Food Shelf director Dee Bender appreciates every bit of produce, as fresh food is hard for the food shelf to come by. But while Bender has to ration the cucumbers and carrots, the less common items aren't as popular.

"We had some heirloom tomatoes, which I thought were beautiful, but they looked different and so those kind of sat to the side," she said. "Where the rosy red tomatoes that you're used to seeing were chosen."

The food shelf provides recipes for the unusual items and encourages clients to try new produce, but Bender said some aren't accustomed to it.

"Unless you grew up either growing your own produce, or you had a family that cooked a variety of foods, you're used to some pretty basic foods," Bender said. "Vegetables consist of fresh tomatoes, maybe carrots and lettuce. I think you go with what you know."

Her advice to the gardeners: Keep it basic.

Red Wing inmate and gardener Cory Schilling hears what Bender is saying. Schilling, who is serving a sentence for a felony DWI, is no stranger to food shelves. He used them as a child.

"Almost my whole childhood, I remember not only being poor but knowing we were poor," he said. He spends hours in the garden partly to help "children who are experiencing the same thing I did."

The inmates plant basic vegetables because they know the food shelf needs them, he said, but they mix in variety because they want to expose people to something new.

"Hey, this tomato might look purple and striped," Schilling said. "But it tastes like a tomato, cooks like a tomato, eats like a tomato. It adds a little color to their life, too. And maybe they try something new, maybe they grow something new. You never know. The one person that comes across that might be planting tomatoes next year. Purple ones."

New report ranks MN counties on healthy food access

Posted at 3:48 PM on April 3, 2012 by Julie Siple
Filed under: Hunger

Bonnie's Hometown Grocery fills the grocery gap in Clinton, Minn. (Ann Arbor Miller for MPR)

How is your county doing when it comes to access to healthy food?

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute today released their third annual health rankings. The report tracks the overall health of nearly every county in the United States by measuring factors such as unemployment, child poverty, and disease rates.

It also identifies what percent of low-income residents live far from a grocery store. That matters because, while food environment research is still in its early stages, there's some evidence that living in communities without grocery stores affects what people eat - and correlates with obesity. It can create a real challenge for low-income residents, who wind up spending more in time and money for their food.

In Minnesota, Red Lake County is at the bottom of the heap, with 33 percent of low-income residents without a store close by. It's followed by Grant, Lincoln, Norman and Marshall counties.

Most residents in Goodhue, Le Sueur, Rice, and Winona counties live near a store.

We've reported recently on what it's like to live in low-access areas, called "food deserts" by the United States Department of Agriculture. Yesterday on All Things Considered, we looked at how one small grocer is filling the gap in Big Stone County.

We've also heard what it's like to live in Duluth's urban food desert.

People on the ground -- both those living in poverty and those advocating for them -- told us it can be quite a burden.

Legislator under fire for food stamp comments

Posted at 4:33 PM on March 7, 2012 by Julie Siple (3 Comments)
Filed under: Hunger

Leaders of Minnesota's Republican Party are denouncing harassing phone calls and emails received by Rep. Mary Franson , R-Alexandria, in the wake of a video Franson released last week in which she seemed to compare food stamp recipients to animals. Franson later apologized and the video was removed, but the controversy continues.

"Today is a sad day in Minnesota, with malicious, hate-filled attacks threatening physical violence against Rep. Franson and her three children," said Republican Party Chairman Pat Shortridge and Deputy Chairwoman Kelly Fenton in a written statement Tuesday night. "This might be the kind of Chicago-style politics that has, unfortunately, infected too many corners of public life, but it sure isn't the Minnesota way."

The statement provided excerpts from from what GOP officials said were graphic calls and emails, which included insults and physical threats.

The controversy began last Friday when Franson posted a video updating her constituents on work at the Legislature. Here's what Franson said in the video:

"Last week we worked on some welfare reform bills. And here, it's kind of ironic, I'll read you this little funny clip we got from a friend.

Our reform bills are meant to bring people up out of the clutches of poverty. We want to provide a safety net, no longer a safety hammock.'

In the video Franson mentions a bill sponsored by Rep. Kurt Daudt , R-Crown, that would reduce the amount of time a person can receive welfare benefits.

Franson's statements in the video continue to draw criticism from liberals. The Alliance for a Better Minnesota is asking people to demand an apology on YouTube. The Welfare Rights Committee plans to rally at the State Capitol on Thursday demanding Franson's resignation.

The Huffington Post wrote about the story, and the conversation continues on Franson's Twitter page.

Meanwhile, anti-hunger groups and Gov. Dayton's administration are working to get more eligible Minnesotans to sign up for food stamps. Right now, only about 65 percent of those eligible are on the program.

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30th annual March food drive aims to restock shelves

Posted at 1:50 PM on March 2, 2012 by Julie Siple
Filed under: Hunger

March isn't a time of year when Minnesotans tend to think about hunger.

But anti-hunger groups say it's the perfect time to do something about it.

"Everyone thinks about donating to food shelves during the holiday season and at year-end for the tax benefits," said Christine Pulver, director of basic needs at Keystone Community Services, which runs three metro-area food shelves. "So we come to March, and some food shelves are looking a little empty."

Thirty years ago, a group of Minnesota churches set out to change that. They chose March to hold a food drive because it was Lent, a time of sacrifice and thinking about others. Three decades later, Minnesota FoodShare has become a lifeline for many of the state's 300 food shelves looking ahead to months of high need.

"It's getting the food shelves stocked, ready for the summer," said Sara Nelson-Pallmeyer, Minnesota FoodShare director. "And summer is a time when students are home, they're not getting that free or reduced-price lunch, and many really struggle."

Organizers of the month-long drive hope to bring in enough resources to cover half of the food distributed by food shelves over the coming year.

The drive relies on schools, churches, and corporations all over the state. Groups hold silent auctions, bake sales, and creative projects of all sorts.

This year, the ICA Food Shelf in Minnetonka aims to break the world record for the largest amount of food collected in a 24-hour period. In previous years, churches held lutefisk dinners, communities packed icehouses with donated food, and ministers promised to get mohawks if their congregations met goals.

Last year, Minnesota FoodShare brought in $7.8 million and 5 million pounds of food. Organizers are sticking with a similar goal this year.

"We realize people are strapped," said Nelson-Pallmeyer. "We're trying to fill the need, but we want to be realistic. With the economy just trying to turn around, hopefully, we don't want to predict that we're just going to blow it out of the water."

However, this year she hopes even more people decide to donate cash. Keystone's Pulver agrees.

"For our program, money is better than food," Pulver said. "Money stores easiest and goes a little bit farther than food does." Food shelves are able to buy at discounted rates from food banks and other sources.

That's not to say Pulver doesn't welcome food.

"Simple is best, and also high-protein items," she said. "Think about pantry basics - sugar, flour, cooking oil, pasta, rice. And for high-protein items, think about canned meat, chili, tuna, stew."

Urban farming program tackles Duluth "food desert"

Posted at 10:56 AM on February 16, 2012 by Julie Siple
Filed under: Hunger

Michael Latsch, program director for Seeds of Success, tends a garden plot in Duluth's Lincoln Park neighborhood. MPR Photo/Julie Siple

Community leaders have many ideas about how to address food access in Lincoln Park, a neighborhood west of downtown Duluth that lacks a grocery store. We reported this week on the challenge the absence of a grocery store poses for low-income residents.

Some people want to lure a small grocer to the area, others suggest cab vouchers or a free bus to help residents get to existing supermarkets.

But one program is already doing something about it.

As MPR's Stephanie Hemphill reported in 2010, Seeds of Success hires low-income Duluth residents to transform vacant urban lots into vegetable gardens. Last summer, the program produced 4,800 pounds of produce and employed 17 people, sending them home with gardening skills and vegetables.

Organizers have been selling the rest of the produce to grocery stores and high-end restaurants. For the most part, that's going to change.

"This year we're moving to a model of selling it directly to low-income people," said Angie Miller, executive director of Community Action Duluth, which runs the program through a partnership with the A.H. Zeppa Foundation and the City of Duluth.

Miller has noticed more people struggling to get enough healthy food as poverty rates have risen.

"We've listened to low-income people. We've had focus groups, and they indicated a clear desire for more produce at affordable prices," Miller said.

This summer, Seeds of Success will pack their produce into boxes and sell it in Lincoln Park, where residents don't have much opportunity to buy fresh food. If the program secures funding, it will also sell in several other neighborhoods where residents can't find plentiful supplies of fresh produce. The sales will be weekly and year-round, supplemented in the winter by other sources.

They'll set up in churches and community centers, places people can reach on foot.

"It's not the best way to buy produce, to have to show up in a particular spot on a particular day," admits Michael Latsch, program manager for Seeds of Success. "But we feel like we can meet the need immediately, so we're looking to do that until someone can find a way to work out the financing, and to work out a business plan, for a grocery store in this neighborhood."

The program has drawn praise for its comprehensive approach, proving jobs, skills, food, and neighborhood revitalization.

But it might take more than access to change diets, Latsch said. That's why there will be cooking education at the distribution sites.

"There is a lot of research coming out now that suggests that physical and economic access to produce is a start, but it needs to be matched with education and with promotion," he said. "In my view, access is the start, but then people need to have the knowledge to cook the produce, and the desire to consume it as well."

Food banks seek new food sources as deliveries rise

Posted at 5:45 PM on January 12, 2012 by Julie Siple
Filed under: Hunger

Leftover spaghetti from Grandma's Marathon carbo-loading. Extra lasagna at Duluth hospitals. Milk that public schools can't use over winter break.

All that food is making its way to needy Minnesotans, thanks to a Duluth food bank.

As the number of people seeking help has jumped in recent years, food banks have expanded their capacity and sought new sources of food.

"Certainly it has lit the fire under us that we need to look at new and innovative ways to feed people in need," said Shaye Moris, executive director of Duluth-based Second Harvest Northern Lakes Food Bank.

According to numbers released recently by Hunger-Free Minnesota, the six Feeding America food banks that serve Minnesota delivered 61.3 million pounds of food in 2010. That's 42 percent more than in 2008. They took it to hundreds of food shelves, as well as to summer food and school pantry programs, which then served struggling Minnesotans.

In search of new food sources, many food banks have increased their "rescue" programs, picking up food that would otherwise be thrown in the trash at retailers like Cub Foods and Target. But the Duluth food bank, which saw distribution rise 33 percent from 2008, has a wider rescue operation than most. It also collects from schools, caterers, even hospitals.

"Hospitals might plan for 300 people during one evening, and low and behold, there are only 250 checked in who need meals," explains Moris. "So they might have 50 meals of lasagna that they'll put in their flash freezer. Our staff will go the next day, pick up that product, and put it right on our delivery truck."

Runners of Grandma's Marathon always provide a big source of food, leaving pounds of spaghetti uneaten at the annual carbo-loading dinner.

"Monday morning, we're down at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center, picking up the extra spaghetti and sauce," said Moris. "People eat spaghetti for the entire week."

The food bank follows strict food safety rules, said Moris. She has pushed to get "rescue" food from many sources because, she said, there aren't many other new places to get donated food.

"Down in the Twin Cities, there's General Mills and these major manufactures or processors," Moris said. "We have none of that up here in the Northland. Nor do we have a lot of agricultural surplus. So the only way in our region to grow our sources of food is to go after the prepared and the perishable products that are prepared locally."

The food rescue program has helped the food bank keep up with increasing demand, Moris said. She expects it will grow in years to come.

"We see that we're on the tip of the iceberg," she said.

Julie Siple reports on hunger and related issues for Minnesota Public Radio News. MPR is a partner in the Hunger-Free Minnesota project, which helps fund her reporting.

Food stamps get a new name in Minnesota

Posted at 11:10 AM on January 11, 2012 by Julie Siple (1 Comments)
Filed under: Hunger

Remember food stamps? They're not called that anymore.

What they are called is something of a problem.

When the program got started in April 1939, the name made sense. Food stamps were actually orange and blue stamps people could use to buy food.

After the federal government moved from paper coupons to electronic cards, it changed the name of the program to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. That 2008 change was intended to reduce the stigma that food stamps carried. The idea was to identify food stamps as a nutritional program, not welfare.

Meanwhile, most people kept calling them food stamps.

And for some reason, Minnesota officials who administer the program went with "Food Support."

When I write about this program, I generally go with something like this:

"More than 500,000 Minnesotans are now on Food Support, known nationally as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and formerly as food stamps."

No editor likes that.

On Tuesday, state Department of Human Services Commissioner Lucinda Jesson announced that Minnesota will change to align with the federal name: SNAP. She said the name reflects the program's focus on healthy food for low-income Minnesotans, and will allow the state to take advantage of national promotional materials. Minnesota joins 29 other states that have done the same thing.

Jesson also acknowledged the current name has caused much confusion.

It's pretty hard to argue with that.

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Try eating on a food stamp budget

Posted at 2:15 PM on October 21, 2011 by Julie Siple (6 Comments)
Filed under: Hunger

Thirty dollars and twenty five cents.

That's the budget Open Arms is challenging Minnesotans to eat on for one week in November -- the average weekly food stamp benefit for one person in Minnesota.

"Our goal is solely to bring awareness to hunger in Minnesota," said Susan Pagani, communications director for Open Arms, which provides free meals for people with diseases including HIV/AIDS, Multiple Sclerosis, and cancer.

More than 500,000 Minnesotans receive food stamps, now called the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. That number jumped 19 percent between February 2010 and February 2011, due to increased need and changes in eligibility.

This is the nonprofit's second annual food stamp challenge, which helps participants understand what putting together meals is like for that growing number of Minnesotans, Pagani said. She watched last year as participants blogged about their experience.

"It was really interesting to see people go into the SNAP Challenge with the idea that they could manage this," she said. "And a lot of people, their first blog posts were about how it took them three hours to plan where they would shop, so they could get the most out of the money they had to spend for the entire week. So that was one epiphany -- how much time you would have to invest if you wanted to eat well."

Pagani also saw participants experience what she calls "shelf shock."

Many began to understand that some Minnesotans make those kinds of decisions regularly.

"It started to really bring home for them the correlation between health and poverty and food," Pagani said.

Such challenges are common and have drawn media attention across the country. In the past, a few members of Congress have participated in them.

But the challenges also have been criticized. Some critics say food stamps, funded by the United States Department of Agriculture, are not intended to cover all the groceries a person buys. The program is designed to merely supplement a food budget.

But that's not always the way the benefit is used, argues Pagani.

"I think it's supplemental in a best-case scenario," she said. "But if you really look at it, [for] a lot of the people who are using it, it's their entire food budget."

Open Arm's one-week challenge will begin on Thursday, Nov. 17 and end on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 24.

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Food bank looks to Minnesota growers, food producers

Posted at 4:40 PM on October 14, 2011 by Julie Siple
Filed under: Hunger

Second Harvest Heartland warehouse (Courtesy of Second Harvest)

The Minnesota Pork Board today donated 1,860 pounds of ground pork to Second Harvest Heartland, a Maplewood-based food bank. The pork is worth about $5,000, a tiny piece of Minnesota's yearly yield from some 14 million hogs.

But for a food bank seeking new ways to find food, the donation is good news. Second Harvest distributes to hundreds of food shelves and meal programs in a 59-county area of southern Minnesota and western Wisconsin. Those organizations have seen a big jump in need since the start of the economic downturn.

"Certainly 1,800 pounds isn't going to fill that need, but it's a start," said David Frederickson, Commissioner of the Minnesota Department of Agriculture, who was on hand for today's donation. "And I think that Minnesota pork producers are on to something here."

Second Harvest Heartland is exploring ways to find more -- and different -- food.

"While we love the traditional can drive food of peanut butter and beans, having some additional foods like pork is really important," said Rob Zeaske, executive director of Second Harvest Heartland. "We're always looking for not only more nutritious food, but we're also looking for more variety in those kinds of foods, and something that people can build a meal around."

While today's donation is relatively small, Zeaske said it's important for what it represents: a growing relationship between farmers and organizations that distribute food to people who need help.

"As we continue to try to find more food beyond our traditional manufactured style food, we need to work more with our growers," he said.

Zeaske and others are also interested in tapping into Minnesota crops that go to waste each year, whether left in fields or discarded from grocery stores or farmers markets.

Dave Preisler, Executive Director of the Minnesota Pork Board, said farmers are interested in helping fight hunger.

"Living in rural communities, you care about your neighbor," he said. "Hunger isn't unique to urban areas, to downtown Twin Cities or somewhere else."

Such donations can also help promote the product, Preisler said.

The Minnesota Pork Board engaged Minnesotans in conversations about pork -- including where it comes from and how to cook it -- over the summer. The board donated one pound of pork for each question asked by a member of the public.

"Just because you've gone to a food shelf once, because things may have changed with circumstances in your life, doesn't mean you won't be a purchasing consumer a month from now, or a year from now," said Preisler. "So certainly there is promotion piece to this to, to let people know that we do raise a good, healthy product."

He hopes the Minnesota Pork Board will be back again next year with a bigger donation.

White Earth food shelf serves high-poverty area

Posted at 1:12 PM on October 5, 2011 by Julie Siple
Filed under: Hunger

Yvonne Estey, manager of the Helping Hands Food Shelf in Mahnomen, Minn. (MPR photo/Caroline Yang)

Yvonne Estey, manager of the tiny food shelf on the White Earth Reservation, tries not to worry about how little the food shelf has.

"The shelves are pretty bare," she said recently, glancing at the sparse selection. There are beans, some canned fruit and vegetables, some dry milk and cereal. There are crackers and juice.

Fresh fruits and vegetables?
"No, we don't get too many of those."

Ever run out?
"Well, pretty close."

The Helping Hands Food Shelf in Mahnomen serves about 80 families a month on the reservation, where tribal officials estimate up to 50 percent of people live below the poverty line. This is a place where even the food shelf manager struggles to get by.

Last month, while encouraging clients to sign up for food stamps, Estey realized she might qualify, too.

"So I thought, well, I'll fill out the application and take it up to the courthouse," she recalled.

Estey grew up near Hibbing, Minnesota and worked much of her adult life in the mines. She drove a fork lift, ran a cherry picker. She belongs to the White Earth Nation and spent childhood summers visiting her grandparents in Naytahwaush. After many years, she returned to the reservation and worked in the Shooting Star Casino in Mahnomen. She now lives on her Social Security check and wages from part-time work at the food shelf. It's not much.

Estey lives with her adult son, and eats enough healthy food. But making ends meet is tough, and she expects she'll qualify for food stamps.

That first-hand knowledge of what it's like to struggle with food gives her a deep empathy for people walking through the door, Estey said.

"I understand why they struggle," she said. "I understand why they're coming in."

Food shelves seek younger volunteers

Posted at 3:25 PM on September 13, 2011 by Julie Siple
Filed under: Hunger

Food shelves aim to recruit more young people to volunteer alongside seniors

Dennis Weeks couldn't be happier with the volunteers at the Manna Food Pantry in Worthington, Minn. There's just one problem: They're getting old.

"Five to 10 years from now, my current crop of volunteers will all be gone," said Weeks, who worries about how to replace them. The average age of his volunteers is 70 years old. The oldest is 89.

About 160 food shelf directors, staff and volunteers gathered this week for a two-day conference in St. Cloud sponsored by Minnesota FoodShare. Among the many topics on the agenda: How to get younger volunteers in the door.

Minnesota food shelves rely heavily on volunteers. Some have no paid staff at all. And many of those volunteers are seniors. They are loyal, hard-working, committed, and on time, according to food shelf directors who rave about them.

But Joanna Perry of the Pine River Area Food Shelf needs some younger folks too.

"Food shelves involve heavy work" said Perry, who needs volunteers to stock shelves and unload deliveries of food.

That can be tough for some volunteers pushing 70.

"Their backs are killing them, their wrists are shot, their knees are gone," she said.

Perry was among the many food shelf representatives at this week's conference trying to figure out how to draw a younger crowd.

"That's where I'm struggling," she said. "Where do I pull from? Where do I find people who are 45-50, or 55-60... who still have strong backs and want to come help me unload these pallets?"

Lee George, fund development chairman for the Minnesota Association for Volunteer Administration, drew a packed room to discuss the future of volunteers at food shelves. He described current trends in volunteering and encouraged the crowd to think about what younger generations want from volunteering and structure positions to provide that.

Generation X wants flexible schedules and expects their time to be used efficiently, he said. Millennials seek leadership opportunities and want feedback.

George also helped the room brainstorm ways to recruit younger volunteers.

"If you start making changes now... maybe in one year, two years, ten years, maybe you'll have a very solid volunteer base made up of many different generations," he said.

Making those changes can be tough for any organization, he said, but particularly for food shelves with very little staff that need to focus daily on getting food into the hands of hungry Minnesotans.

And can be hard for people like Dennis Weeks.

At 72, Weeks values the dependability of older volunteers - and isn't accustomed to volunteers who send text messages to report they won't make it on time.

But he is determined to help the Manna Food Pantry, which serves about 400 families a month, continue years from now. After the St. Cloud conference, Weeks plans to reach out to potential volunteers in new ways. He's embraced the idea of meeting younger people where they gather.

"I'm realizing that we probably need to put it on a Facebook page," he said.

Minnesotans turn to food shelves during summer

Posted at 7:02 AM on July 25, 2011 by Julie Siple
Filed under: Hunger

For many Minnesotans, summer means a dip in the lake or a weekend at the family cabin. For others, it means that feeding the kids becomes particularly difficult.

During the school year, schools provide meals for thousands of Minnesota students living near or below the poverty line. But come summer, parents can no longer count on those meals.

"The child still is hungry. The child still has the stomach," said Mary Kocak, food shelf director at Hastings Family Service in Hastings, Minnesota. "Now the parents need to absorb that food cost."

Food shelf visits tend to jump during the summer, and many food shelf directors say the reason is clear: Families that rely on free or reduced-price lunch during the school year suddenly have a harder time making ends meet.

More than 300,000 school-age children in Minnesota get free or reduced-price lunch through the federally supported program. That accounts for more than a third of the state's entire student population.

At Hastings Family Service food shelf, the jump in visits has been bigger this summer than usual. So big, in fact, that Kocak ran some numbers.

"We ran a stat because we thought we were crazy," said Kocak. "And in June we had the highest number of families requesting help from the food shelf in our forty years."

That was 134 families, a big number for a small area, she said.

Kocak suspects the jump is due to a combination of factors -- children are at home, and families are still feeling the effects of the economic downturn.

"I've had many people coming in and saying, 'I hear them saying on the radio and TV that the economy is getting better. I'd like to know where to look for that,'" she said. "They're not seeing it in their own pocketbooks. Gas is going up. Groceries are going up. People are just not making it."

Kocak said areas like hers face an additional challenge during the summer because there aren't any summer food sites, which offer children free food. Last year, the federally funded Summer Food Service Program served an all-time high of 1.7 million meals in Minnesota.

People have to wait an extra day or two during the summer to get help at the food shelf run by Volunteers Enlisted to Assist People. That food shelf also sees an increase in the number of people asking for help in summer months, said development director Karin Meier. It serves between 7500 and 8000 people each month.

To help meet increased need, the food shelf provides breakfast and lunch to 600 children a week through a special summer program. The food shelf also makes an effort to stock more kid-friendly foods, foods that can be prepared easily like yogurt and canned fruit.

"No sense in sending kids home with clam chowder and Brussels sprouts," said Meier.

But summer brings another problem, said Meier: A fall in food donations.

"Being we're in Minnesota, people are busy with other things," she said. "People are busy with getting to the cabin, and busy and otherwise occupied with festivals and other things going on their community. People tend to forget about the need."

Hastings Family Service and Volunteers Enlisted to Assist People, along with about 150 other food shelves around the state, are participating in a fundraiser this month to help meet the increased need. The effort is supported by a $100,000 challenge grant from Open Your Heart to the Hungry and Homeless.

For more information on hunger in Minnesota, see our the Ground Level hunger page.

Minnesota-based Supervalu targets food deserts

Posted at 8:30 PM on July 20, 2011 by Julie Siple (1 Comments)
Filed under: Hunger

When First Lady Michelle Obama's campaign to improve access to healthy food took a step forward today, Supervalu was there.

Supervalu, based in Eden Prairie, was one of several retailers that announced plans to open or expand in areas without easy access to fresh fruit, vegetables and other healthy foods. Those areas are sometimes called food deserts -- and the White House says more than 23 million Americans, including 6.5 million children, live in them.

"Make no mistake on it. This is a big deal. It is a really big deal," Obama said at the announcement today.

Supervalu plans to build 250 Save-A-Lot stores across the country over the next five years.

The company has not disclosed where the Save-A-Lot stores will be located, except to say none of the stores will be in Minnesota.

Save-A-Lot stores are a high-return business, said Supervalu CEO Craig Herkert. They're about one-third the size of a typical grocery store and carry a smaller assortment of products, many of which are a Supervalu brand. That allows the stores to keep prices low, about 40 percent lower than at a typical grocery store, said Herkert.

"These are not second-hand, second-class, hand-me-down products. These are first-class products that any of us would be happy to bring home to our families," said Herkert.

Recently, an article in The Economist raised some questions about whether building grocery stores is really the answer -- or whether it takes more than a new grocery store to get Americans to eat healthy food.

Access is only part of the issue, Herkert acknowledged today.

"Clearly access alone doesn't solve the problem," said Herkert, referring to similar comments from Michelle Obama. "But you have to have access to start solving the problem. And I'm proud of the fact that we can start."

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U.S. House debates cuts to domestic nutrition programs

Posted at 12:42 PM on June 14, 2011 by Julie Siple (1 Comments)
Filed under: Hunger

Lawmakers in the U.S. House started debate today on a food and farm spending bill that includes cuts to a program that helps poor mothers and their children buy food. The 2012 budget proposal cuts the Women, Infants, and Children program by $686 million, as compared to the funding level for FY2011.

If those cuts were implemented, some low-income women and their children would likely be turned away from the program in Minnesota, said Betsy Clarke, WIC program director for Minnesota.

Clarke cites numbers from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The liberal research and advocacy group estimates, based on food price projections, that Minnesota would have to turn away 3000-5300 eligible participants if the cuts passed. Minnesota currently serves about 130,000 participants each month.

For years, lawmakers have awarded WIC enough money so that all eligible people can get food. The program provides healthy foods like milk, eggs and infant formula to about 9 million people. It also provides nutrition education.

"The thing that's special about WIC is that they're not just receiving any food, they're receiving a food package that's really designed to support healthy prenatal weight gain during pregnancy and a good healthy pregnancy outcome," said Clarke. "So those services --the nutrition assessment, the nutrition counseling that goes with it -- wouldn't be available. And I think that could easily have a significant health impact on pregnant women, infants, and young children here in Minnesota."

Republicans who wrote the bill said the cuts in domestic food programs come from excess dollars in those accounts, and participants won't see a decrease in services. GOP leaders are trying to control spending in next year's budget.

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Bemidji - A conversation on the region's economic state

Posted at 9:13 AM on June 14, 2011 by Michael Caputo (1 Comments)
Filed under: Economy, Government, Hunger, Minnesota Today RSS Feeds, Northwest Minnesota

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Food stamp use in Minnesota continues to rise

Posted at 5:24 PM on May 5, 2011 by Julie Siple
Filed under: Hunger

The United States Department of Agriculture released numbers this week that show about one in seven Americans uses food stamps.

Altogether, about 44.2 million Americans receive benefits from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. The program is called Food Support in Minnesota.

According to the U.S.D.A., Minnesota had more than 500,000 people on the program in February, an all-time high. The state saw a 19 percent increase between February 2010 and February 2011, higher than the average national increase of 11.6 percent.

This map, however, that shows Minnesota still ranks below many other states in the percent of the population receiving the benefits.

Nationwide, the number of people who relied on the program in February wasn't significantly higher than January, prompting the Wall Street Journal's Sara Murray to explore whether a recent surge is ending:

The food stamp program ballooned during the recession as workers lost their jobs or saw their hours and income reduced. The rise in recipients has begun to flatten in recent months, which may mean that as the economy is improving fewer Americans are seeking to join the program. Enrollment in the program is still high though, with 11.6% more people tapping benefits in February than the same month a year earlier.