As holiday season nears, local food shelf seeks donations to stock shelves

Pam Hanson, who volunteers on a regular basis, opened box after box of frozen vegetables and filled an upright freezer until the door barely shut.

“It seems like so much,” she said, “but it won’t last for very long.”

As the holiday season approaches, the local food shelf sees bare shelves more frequently with an increase in customers.

“Our clients are spending more of their money to buy Christmas gifts and we see them using our services more,” said Brittany Rognerud, assistant director of the Falls Hunger Coalition. “We especially see clients who only use our services during this time of year for turkey vouchers.”

Every year, the Falls Hunger Coalition supplies its clients with turkey vouchers to purchase the main dish of their Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner.

This year, however, it almost wasn’t in the non-profit organization’s budget to supply them.

“I felt bad telling clients who called asking about vouchers that we weren’t going to be able to give them out this year,” Rognerud said. “(Vouchers) cost us about $3,000 per year, and we just couldn’t afford it this year.”

Then came a donation from a new business in town.

Miner’s County Market collected donations from customers through a Dash for Cash promotion it ran from mid-July to mid-October. Last week, the grocery store presented the food shelf with $5,490 — all donated by County Market customers who participated in the program.

“That’s a huge number,” Rognerud said of the donation. “It will help with the 350 more vouchers we expect to see go out the door.”

Joe Truman, manager of the local store, said County Market is proud to be able to help out the Falls Hunger Coalition and appreciated the store’s customers who chose to donate their Dash for Cash winnings to help those in need.

With the unexpected money, Rognerud said the Falls Hunger Coalition will again be able to supply the “much-need and much-appreciated” vouchers.

“We’re getting a little bit of a late start, but nonetheless, we’re able to do it,” she said. “With the vouchers, families of two or more can buy a 10- to 12-pound turkey from County Market or Stewart’s Super One Foods. What better way to spend this money from the grocery store back at our local grocery stores. It’s a blessing in disguise.”

Donations on the rise

In addition to the Dash for Cash funding, Rognerud said both the local County Market and Super One stores continue to support the food shelf through food donations.

She said before County Market came to the community, Super Valu supplied the food shelf with a few gallons of milk and dairy products a few times each week. When County Market took over in May, Rognerud said she approached store managers to work out a similar agreement.

“Not only did (donations) continue, they expanded,” she said. “We started receiving crates of bread...We couldn’t even get rid of it fast enough. Our clients are so happy.”

Because the International Falls store is “at the end of the road” for the distribution truck, Rognerud said overflow is given to the food shelf.

The grocery stores also provide other products to benefit food shelf clients, she said.

“Both grocery stores are very giving,” she said. “We are able to utilize different things from each one. It’s amazing how giving they are...Dave at Super One has never turned us down. We are so grateful and our families are so grateful.”

Helping out

Rognerud said the holiday spirit “is definitely felt” by several other individual and group donations pouring in from the community.

“We just had a new fundraiser that we’ve never done before,” she said.

Local entertainers Naomi Woods and Darcy Sullivan hosted “A Wine, Cheese and Candlelit Evening,” Nov. 2 at the Ranier Community Building and donated all the proceeds raised to the food shelf.

“Everything was 100 percent donated,” Rognerud said of the wine and food for the event. “I don’t know where the idea to raise funds for us came from, but they raised $1,474 and it was just an incredible evening. We will definitely be having another event just like this.”

Halloween brought in about 400 pounds of food from Falls High Student Council members and local Girl Scouts who went trick-or-treating for the food shelf. Student council collected 216 pounds of food and the Girl Scouts gathered 202 pounds.

On top of food donations, last month Falls Hunger Coalition received a $5,000 grant from Minnesota Power.

Peggy Hanson, Minnesota Power Foundation director, said the grant reflects Minnesota Power’s commitment to the communities it serves.

But in a time of need, the organization still needs more.

Thursday, anyone looking to make a donation to the food shelf can do so during Give to the Max Day – The Great Minnesota Give Together.

“It’s an online giving day that happens throughout the state,” Rognerud said. “Nonprofits that are registered with givemn.org compete to see which organization can bring in the most online donations.”

The day offers a friendly competition to see which nonprofit can bring in the most money. Winning organizations receive a certain percentage of funding on top of what was donated. Rognerud said while Falls Hunger Coalition is competing against much larger organizations, she is confident the International Falls community can make a difference.

“It is a very safe and secure site to donate to,” she added. “Anyone can donate to us from 12:01 a.m. Nov. 14 to 11:59 p.m.”

The site will also accept scheduled donations through Wednesday. For more information, visit www.givemn.org and search ‘Falls Hunger Coalition.’

“This community is awesome,” Rognerud said of the support given to the food shelf. “Our director, Nancy (Anderson) always says, ‘We’re in a business that we would like to put ourselves out of business, but that will never happen.’ There will always be people who need our services...We aren’t here to band-aid, we’re here to help our clients reach self sufficiency.”

The Falls Hunger Coalition has scheduled client-service hours from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesdays and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays.