Star Tribune
Minnesota food shelves push for donations
Minnesota nonprofits are looking to restock food shelves as hunger increases in the state.
Food supplies often dwindle the first few months of the year after a surge in giving during the holidays. But after a record-breaking 7.5 million visits to Minnesota food shelves last year, nonprofit leaders say the need has increased this year. Organizations distributing to food-insecure Minnesotans need not only goods but also volunteers.
Dawn Wambeke, executive director of Neighbors Inc., a food shelf based in St. Paul, said that starting before the pandemic, food shelf visits were steadily increasing. Organizations have been struggling to keep up with the ongoing high numbers of people in need.
“We have never reached the demand,” Wambeke said. “Our capacity is limited by funding and resources.”
Some nonprofit leaders want state lawmakers to beef up funding to combat food insecurity around the state.
“We’re hoping that good public policy wins this session, being led by great partners in the anti-hunger community,” said Sophia Lenarz-Coy, executive director of The Food Group, a food bank in New Hope.
Last year, legislators and state leaders approved significant increases in funding for food shelves, including $5 million to the state’s seven food banks to buy extra food to distribute to food shelves, an extra $3 million a year to food shelves over the next two years and, for the first time, a $7 million fund to expand or renovate food shelves. Legislators also passed universal school meals.
Lenarz-Coy said these were “big wins” for advocates fighting to improve food insecurity. “Last session will really start to have an impact on families,” she said.
This year, nonprofit leaders are pushing for changes including expanding the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefit amounts for seniors and allowing more low-income college students to access SNAP.
Another important factor is volunteerism, said Dan Furry, communications director for The Salvation Army’s Northern Division. More volunteers and donations means less money spent to keep food banks operating and food shelves full.
“Whether people are volunteering or giving a financial gift, it’s that work that allows us to do our work and help families in need,” Furry said.
At Greater Twin Cities United Way, organizers are also making a pitch for more people to give with more intention by reaching out to local food shelves and asking what types of foods they are looking for at any given time.
“A lot of people in our community want to do good and want to help,” United Way’s Director of Engagement Melissa Caldwell said. “With a little bit of intentionality and focusing on the disparities in gaps that exist, not only are we putting support forth for people who need it, we’re also changing mindsets and behaviors across our community.”
United Way started Flavors of Our Community, a culturally specific food drive to collect food for Minnesota refugees, immigrants and Native communities to be available at food shelves.
Flavors of Our Community offers 11 pantry packs for six cultures — Afghan, East African, Indigenous, Karen, Latinx and Southeast Asian. Some of the packs are staple foods represented in those respective cultures while others are popular spices and sauces.
Culturally specific food has always been in high demand, Lenarz-Coy said, but food shelves have seen more of a push in recent years due to the many diverse cultures that call Minnesota home.
And that’s what Flavors of Our Community intends to do, Caldwell said — offer foods to people that make them feel at home.
Madison Roth is a University of Minnesota student reporter on assignment for the Star Tribune.
The DFL candidate for a Roseville seat in the Minnesota House is pushing back on allegations from his Republican opponent that he doesn’t live in the district he hopes to represent.
Curtis Johnson is currently a member of the Roseville Area Schools board. He has owned a home in Little Canada since 2017, according to Ramsey County property records.
In May he filed to run for the open seat in House District 40B, saying he lived in an apartment complex less than 3 miles from his Little Canada home. The district includes parts of Roseville and Shoreview and has been represented by DFLer Jamie Becker-Finn, who isn’t seeking re-election, since 2017.
In a statement, Johnson said he and his wife decided to move to Roseville last year, but they’ve struggled to find the right house. In the meantime, he’s been renting “a Roseville apartment as my primary residence while we keep searching for a forever home.”
“My wife and our youngest child still live in the house because we didn’t want to disrupt our child’s life by moving the rest of the family into my apartment and then moving them again after we found a house in Roseville,” Johnson’s statement said.
Wikstrom released an ad Oct. 15 that accused Johnson of lying about his residency, but he has not committed to making a legal challenge. A residency challenge would be decided by the Minnesota Supreme Court.
“My confidence level is high that we have a solid case he is not a resident of the district,” Wikstrom said in an interview. He noted that Johnson’s vehicle is often at the Little Canada home and a portable storage container appeared out front days after his political ad went online.
An unlicensed driver is now charged on accusations that he was speeding and under the influence of alcohol when he set off a chain-reaction pileup on an interstate exit ramp in Minneapolis, leaving one person dead and several others injured.
Talon Covie-Cardell Walker, 29, of St. Paul, was charged late Thursday afternoon in Hennepin County District Court with criminal vehicular homicide in connection with the seven-vehicle pileup about 9:15 p.m. Wednesday after exiting from eastbound Interstate 94 toward Lyndale Avenue.
Walker remains held without bail ahead of a court appearance Friday afternoon. Court records do not list an attorney for him.
A search warrant affidavit was filed in court by the State Patrol that cleared the way for Walker’s blood to be collected to measure his degree of intoxication. Results are pending. The affidavit said Walker was “pushing 100 mph when taking the ramp, [and] it appears no braking took place before the crash.”
Walker was driving without a valid license, according to the state Department of Public Safety. In late 2019, his license was suspended, then it was revoked in spring 2021, the agency said.
Court records in Minnesota show Walker has traffic convictions for careless driving and operating a motorcycle without a license. State records also show convictions for illegal weapons possession, disorderly conduct, a minor drug offense and twice for violating a court no-contact order.
Walker’s passenger, 20-year-old Taniyah Randle-Smith, was taken by ambulance to HCMC with life-threatening injuries, according to the patrol. A hospital spokeswoman said Thursday afternoon that she was in critical condition.
Killed in the crash was Natalie Gubbay, a 26-year-old SUV driver from Minneapolis, whose vehicle was struck by Walker’s. Her passenger, Molly Elizabeth Brenton, 28, of Virginia, Minn., was taken to HCMC with noncritical injuries.
A juvenile has died while in detention at the Red Wing correctional facility in southeastern Minnesota.
Officials with the Minnesota Department of Corrections said staff on Saturday found an inmate who was unresponsive. Authorities attempted life-saving measures, which were unsuccessful. Paramedics arrived and the resident was pronounced dead at the scene, said spokeswoman Shannon Loehrke.
An investigation is underway to determine how the inmate died, she added.
No information about the identify of the deceased was released.
The Red Wing facility has a capacity of 88 inmates.
