More than 120 people attend the Reshaping Hunger Relief Breakfast in support of Minnesota’s food shelves.
The event, held May 15, raised more than $89,500 to provide data, training and support to food shelf leaders across the state.
At the fundraising breakfast, attendees learned how the food shelf landscape might look very different across the state of Minnesota.
As an example, in some communities:
FFEN is “a safety net for this sector” because when “there’s a food shelf falling through the cracks that eventually means a community falling through the cracks.”
-Food Shelf Leader
- The local food shelf may be open five days a week, multiple hours a day and people can come as often as needed and shop for their groceries, receiving one bag of mostly perishable food donated that day from local retailers.
- The local food shelf might be open one day a week for 5 hours for drive-through distribution, people can visit once a week and receive a box of food prepared by volunteers using a standard supply list. The box includes milk, meat, fresh produce and some dry goods.
- The food shelf may be open two days a week for 2 hours a day and people can visit once a month. People are provided a box of food informed by their food preferences and usually receive four bags of groceries, with the majority being dry goods.
A variety of factors influence the capacity of food shelves to serve, including whether they are volunteer run and led, how often they receive food from their regional food bank and the way in which they distribute food.
Attendees saw how these differences in food shelves show up even in neighboring communities and, they learned what FFEN is doing about it.
- Partnering with food shelf staff and volunteers to create improvement plans, backed by data from their individual site.
- Providing data insights and consultation to help food shelves stretch their dollars by focusing on proactive operational decisions. FFEN staff meet regularly with food shelf leaders to discuss how they can plan for increased demand alongside budget reductions and prioritize how they spend dollars to fill the shelves.
- Fostering connections between food shelf leaders facing similar issues and hosting regular onboarding trainings for new food shelf staff and volunteers.
- Leveraging the collective wisdom of over 300 food shelves it has collaborated with, FFEN develops practical solutions and support that save time and resources.
“FFEN is doing the work that no one else is doing.
-Food shelf leader
Guests heard from Angie Cruzen, Executive Director of Gather & Grow in Watertown and Waconia about how she put the information she gleaned from FFEN into action.
Cruzen first reached out to FFEN when her Waconia Gather & Grow site was experiencing increased demand and costs for food. FFEN’s Strategic Food Sourcing Report and Consultation helped them continue to serve their shoppers with fresh produce, meat, and dairy while reducing their costs and realigning their food budget. After this experience, FFEN was one of Cruzen’s first calls when the organization was considering taking on a new food shelf location.
