The number of people relying on food shelves for daily meals is on the rise. Hunger Solutions, a Minnesota hunger relief organization, reports one in ten Minnesotans relied on food shelves in 2009, and numbers show the number of child visits are already up 10 percent in 2010.

Food shelves are now bracing for fewer donations and greater need for children during the summer months.

The U.S.

For a family of three, that means eligibility is now cut off at $30,000 a year instead of $24,000, said Moriarty. Applicants no longer are bound by a $7,000 “asset limit,” which required them to spend most of their savings in order to qualify.

Last year, advocates won state funding for a Minnesota Food Helpline that directs callers to programs such as food stamps.

Once school dismisses for the year, summer can be a hungry time for kids. That’s because during the school year, one in three Minnesota school-age children rely on free or reduced lunch for two–thirds of their daily food. Late last week, Senator Al Franken and Hunger Solutions Minnesota announced a one-million dollar grant to bridge the summer hunger gap for Minnesota’s children.

The Dassel City Council gave a $300-monthly contribution at last night’s council meeting for the rental space that would house a Meeker County Emergency Food Shelf branch pending approval by its board of directors.

“There is an incredible need,” said Mayor Mike Scanlon, who has been in strong favor of the idea from the beginning stages and would like to see the food shelf operating for Ch

Moved by tragedy, veteran gives turkeys, potatoes

By Mollee Francisco

With a trunk full of frozen turkeys and a back seat stacked high with bags of russet potatoes, John McGinnis pulls up in front of the CAP Agency on Village Road in Chaska.

The 75-year-old Chanhassen resident, accompanied by a broad smile and dressed in a respectable pair of gray slacks and a red-striped sweater, slowly

More local families are seeking aid from a Winona food shelf in 2009.

Demand has spiked at the Winona Volunteer Services food shelf, spurred largely by high unemployment, an agency spokeswoman said.

The shelf saw a 21 percent increase in the number of families it served from 2008 to 2009, and has distributed 40 percent more food so far in 2009 than at this time last year.

“We’re pleased that Minnesota Farmers are working to help combat hunger,” said Colleen Moriarty, Executive Director of Hunger Solutions Minnesota. “As Minnesota families are increasingly struggling to make ends meet, programs such as this are vitally important.”

Pine Journal

When Jason Houle started the Mobile Food Shelf of Minnesota in Jordan a few years ago, he wanted to bring food to people who couldn’t get it.

As unemployment and underemployment rates remain high, West Central MN Communities Action Family Self-Sufficiency Director Kate Ouverson said there is a new group of people who are being forced to turn to alternative options like food shelves to get their basic cooking needs.

The increase in demand, as well as a desire to help people who do not have easy access in their community to food shelve

Twin Cities businesses are shunning manicured lawns on their corporate grounds in favor of ‘giving gardens,’ where employees and other volunteers raise produce for food shelves.
By Bob Shaw
bshaw@pioneerpress.com

If lawns had legs, they would be running scared.

This summer, volunteers are tearing up the manicured lawns of corporations, replacing them with “giving gardens” to raise produce