Lakeland Currents, your public affairs program for north central Minnesota.

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Welcome to a new season of Lakeland Currents.

I'm your host Todd Haugen.

My guest for our first show is from the Bemidji Community Food Shelf, his name is Michael Olson, he is the Executive Director of the Bemidji Community Food Shelf.

Michael, welcome to Lakeland Currents.

Thanks for having me Todd.

Mike people have probably heard of the food shelf.

If they haven't used it, they may not really know how it operates or what it is, what's the food shelf in the first place?

The food shelf is a, we call an emergency food shelf, where we provide food for families that can visit once a month and receive about 5 to 7 days worth of food.

And we distribute that food through a process called shelf saver basically.

What it is people come in, we look like a grocery store.

Sure.

And they get to select the foods that they use.

And we have it based on by areas proteins, cereals and whatnot.

And then the amount of the family size also determines the amount of food that they get.

And they get a monthly visit that comes in to or that they can come in for.

Do they have to qualify to be able to get this food?

Yeah, currently the qualification is 300% of the poverty line, so it's quite high, most people qualify to come in that's really not a barrier for people at all.

Anybody who shows up at a food shelf in the state of Minnesota is considered a resident so there's no need of proof of residency or even to have a resident.

We have, sometimes we have some homeless people that will come through and the reason we know that is some things they can't take because they have no place to prepare the food but we do have some.

So, about a week's worth of food and you can come in once per month.

Do they pay anything for the food?

No, no we don't charge anything for that service, yeah, there is no charge for it basically.

Where is the food shelf?

It's been in a few different locations in Bemidji over the years right?

This is our 42nd year.

Wow.

It's been started down by St Phillips, by a consortium of churches and then about 2012, I believe, we were able to purchase a building just behind the Eagles Club and that's really allowed us to provide services more efficiently.

We have about 10,000 square feet, we're probably the largest food shelf in northern Minnesota by size and by the volume of people that we're serving in a year.

So it's a big job, you know, and you not only have a good size building you have a nice size site where you can also grow some produce right?

We have a another unique thing about what we have there is about a 5 acre garden that we or farm I would call it that we produce produce and about 16,000 lbs of you know tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, peppers.

And then we distribute that right to our clients.

So it is some sustainability playing into this where we're able to grow some of the foods that we're able to give away.

You know we generate about 3/4 of a million pounds of food a year, we give away, which has a value of about $1.3 million to the community.

So for every dollar that we get at the food shelf we're able to put $4 back into the community in the form of food support.

So the farm plays into that again the size the building that we have allows us to provide the services that we do.

And you have a small greenhouse house right.

Can you grow things in that greenhouse year round?

Well the greenhouse was what they call a deep winter greenhouse and that was an experiment by the University of Minnesota a few years ago with a thought of how can we grow food year round and what they found basically is that the sun in January is not big enough to really generate growth so we use that for prep, growing seed plants for the farm.

Germinate, getting them ready for spring.

And the farm is again a larger thing than it used to be when you started I don't think it was quite as many crops as you're growing there now.

Well we use high tunnels which is a form of a quonset hut looking building that allows us to get a little earlier, stay a little later in the year because the temperature provides some protection from the elements and we're able to grow quite a bit of food within that.

That's been a recent development that we've had in the last couple years.

We're getting a little late now but in the fall when people are harvesting food from their own gardens, if they have extra food, can you accept that as donations?

Yeah we do take it we do take the donations from people and it's that thing that happens to all of us in the fall if you have a garden it's just like it all comes in at once so our farm's coming in, people are bringing in, and then we'll have a lot and then maybe coming now we start to run out because you know the season has ended but yeah we do take donations people bring by.

Just don't bring by those big zucchinis just keep those at home, you know.

Sometimes we'll get those things coming in but.

Sure.

Well speaking of donations, donations are a huge part of how you operate.

The annual Stuff a Truck campaign is about to happen but there's been some important changes, right.

We have a new partner in Stuff a Truck.

Luekens has stepped in with Marketplace closing.

Luekens both north and south are going to be helping us with this program along with Paul Bunyan Broadcasting which of course started it some 30 some years ago.

So yeah it's an important outreach that happens.

We work with the local schools and in the classrooms and in getting food donated by the students.

I think it creates some discussion within the classrooms about hunger.

Hunger is such a invisible thing.

You know they say one in seven kids in this community suffer from some form of food insecurity and that is one I think that people don't really realize how pervasive it can be.

And so then we also take cash donations which we use to buy fresh produce throughout the winter so it provides us a couple different ways of restocking a bit.

But I think just getting the community involved in that food collection and really kind of bringing to the forefront hunger within our community.

The cash donations come in especially handy, right Mike, because you can actually buy more food with that cash than people can when they bring in their donations.

I mean everything's welcome but those cash donations really come in handy.

Yeah we're able, like I said, we're able to take a dollar and make $4 dollars out of it and so the other part about that it allows us to really focus on things that we need.

Sometimes people the things that we get we may have already a lot of and we need to fill in some of the holes and that's where the cash allows us to get those things that we know people are looking for and it's a lot easier too, and I would encourage people also to consider becoming sustaining supporters where it's $10 a month, for example less than what your Netflix subscription would be you can provide a family with meals for a week and so that kind of ongoing consistent donations are really important for us throughout the year and that can be easily done on our website.

Okay, so just check the food shelf website for that.

For Stuff a Truck, as you mentioned, it's already underway, the effort to donate food in Bemidji area schools and that's not just the schools of Bemidji School District but also St Philips and some of the other schools.

Yeah correct.

Schools within our community.

All schools.

Yeah and that'll go through right to November 15th or so right toward just before Thanksgiving we start collecting.

Last year we got about 16 skids of food, about 10,000 pounds of food, and about $9,000 worth of cash, so it again both of those things are incredibly helpful for us and, you know, we encourage people to.

The other part I guess I should mention in Luekens is that we're going to be having these grocery bags for another, grocery bags that will have the ability that will be at the checkout that allow people to take and then make a donation, might be 5 ,10 or $15, so they can look for that kind of thing, a way to donate that cash part.

Will you still do the semi-trailers, will there be trailers parked at each Luekens?

Yeah from we've been discussing having some in each each lot and putting some of the food that gets donated at the stores as well.

Okay so people will be able to donate essentially anytime but it sort of focuses on the last few days of the whole donation campaign right?

Yeah obviously, you know, we're coming up to Thanksgiving and that period of time of plenty and this is just a great time to really conduct this kind of event and to get really.

Again it's, you know, the hunger part about what we're trying to address I think is something that you know we need to take stock of annually in some ways if not more but to really kind of talk about what is our community doing.

We've really seen an increase in the last few years of people coming in.

Last year we had 37,000 people come through the food shelf, about 12,000 families.

What we're seeing is about a 20% increase from the last couple years and that's really unheard of.

Usually it's, you know, 3 to 5% and from 2018 to now we've increased the number of people we serve by about 50%.

So on top of the fact that we're also facing increased food cost there's increased demand in regards that are coming in, so that makes it even more important.

We've been blessed by the community's support and we want to make sure people understand what's going on here and that that support is critical.

About 80% of our budget is donations from the community so we do get some grants, state funding, but by far the food shelf is here because the community has supported it.

Very few of us know what that's like do we Mike the idea of going hungry for I mean when you try to imagine what that would be like especially if you're a parent trying to provide for kids and you don't have enough.

You know we see people of all makes and models in our waiting room, and ages especially.

We did a study with the University of Minnesota recently looking at 60-year-old plus and their access to food and what they were finding was what they found was which wasn't necessarily surprising that the food shelf was provided the gap between all the other programs who weren't quite covering, Social Security, food supplemental program, snap and all that.

There still was a part of that for those seniors that they weren't getting enough food and that's where the food shelf steps in and provides that kind of program.

So we've been seeing a growth in our senior population in regards to folk serving people people coming in.

So veterans, you know, we probably served 800 veterans last year that identified it and some you don't know but you know.

So the food shelf is touching all parts of the community in the service that we provide.

Right and from my days in Paul Bunyan Broadcasting I know that it's hard to get through to people exactly, again like we started this conversation, what the food shelf is again we're talking about really a week's worth of food for each person that comes in and it's once a month.

Right, yeah, we are an emergency food shelf and the average is about three visits a year.

You know there are some people that come every year or every month but when we look at the number of visits and the number of people unique people it's about three.

What we're seeing the growth in is the number of visits now.

You know people would, like I said, would come maybe three, four times and now it's four, five times and so the potential for them like if they all started coming every month we would be in a world of hurt you know, we wouldn't be able to meet that demand.

But right now we're able to provide that emergency stop gap is what's going on for the food shelf here in town.

Do you ever run out of room to be able to store food like from the upcoming Stuff a Truck campaign?

Oh no, it goes.

We put out about 6,000 pounds a day of food that goes out, so right now the food comes in on the pallet and goes right on the shelf.

We're blessed to have a warehouse that we are able to store some but by and large it goes out.

Comes and it goes.

It comes and it goes.

So something when I looked at your website before our show I saw the Mobile Food Pantry, which was something I didn't know about.

What is that?

That's a service that we've been providing to Kelliher and Blackduck once a month where we've been going up there for the last few years and there's a, we're at the community center in Kelliher and then Blackduck at the EFree church like I said once a month.

And just select some things that you have on hand and people don't request things do they, can they.

No it's pretty much we have a box of food per se and then we bring up some meats and, you know, and try to provide a service to people that can't get down to Bemidji.

And you do that once a month?

Once a month.

Any certain date that you do it?

It's the first Tuesday of the month.

No I'm sorry, second Tuesday in Kelliher, third Tuesday in Blackduck.

In Blackduck, okay, good to know.

Volunteers, I know you have a huge group of volunteers working at the food shelf right.

We run about three, there are about 300 people people that come in and help us volunteer help us with operating the food shelf.

So some of the jobs that we have are shoppers, people that work with the clients when they come in to help them through the process of selecting the food, answer any questions they may have.

The client makes the selection, the shopper answers the questions and then there are people who do interviews.

So when someone comes into the food shelf they meet with an interviewer and that basically establishes their name, how many in their household and then that allows us to know how much food that they're going to be entitled to.

We have people work in the warehouse.

We have others that are out in the morning going to local stores picking up food that is still good but that they're not going to sell.

They bring that in, we get that on our shelves as well.

And so people come once a month, once a week, once a year kind of thing to volunteer so it's really easy to do.

Again if somebody is interested in that we have on our website our volunteer coordinator and they can get a hold of her to set some time up for training or to look more into it if they're interested.

So despite the fact that you have 300 volunteers you can always use more.

Well, you know, yes.

Yes and the other thing that happens is we're coming into snowbird season so we lose a substantial amount of folks that way.

So there are a potential of 300, they're not always available you know, so that has a play in it and so sometimes we're scrambling for people.

And so we're always looking for new folks to come in and get involved with it.

Donations to the food shelf are accepted constantly I would assume Correct.

Monday, Wednesday and Friday usually the AM is the best time to drop by with any kind of food.

Foods that have not been opened.

Processed foods.

Home processed foods we're not able to take.

If it's something from the store then yeah Monday, Wednesday, Friday in the AM is a good time to bring by.

Dated material there's some guidelines on it, it's kind of hard to get into it right now.

But the one thing we know is that baby formulas and stuff like that can't be given out if they're past due.

Some material you can.

Canned goods you can go past the expiration point because they're still good.

But baby formula is one that's not, but MWF in the mornings.

And there are certain items you need more than others usually, isn't there?

Well, you know, that's a hard one because again it fluctuates.

Personal care items are always a good item to But that's kind of where the cash donations help us.

You know if people are interested in donating bring it.

We'll gladly take it.

And then we sit back and look and say what do we need to fill in here, cooking oil or whatever it may be you know that we then purchase to fill that gap.

But we also have a list of items that people can purchase for Stuff a Truck.

We'll have that on our website as well.

If people are interested in seeing the things, that suggest they want to get.

It's hunting season so venison that's been processed is that not accepted?

That's a real difficult one because it used to be a lot easier to do but they've tightened that up in regards to so we really don't do anything with the venison.

But requirements now around it make it kind of prohibitive.

Filleted fish, I would assume, probably doesn't work either.

Yeah.

I mean it would be nice but that's kind of the restrictions we have to operate under.

And I know the food shelf gets a lot of donations from businesses Do the local grocery stores donate to the food shelf?

Oh, yeah, all the stores in town.

The grocery stores in town provide us some level of support.

Luekens has been by far our biggest supporter over the years and continues to be.

But yeah all the stores provide and that's where I was talking earlier about the folks we call them gleaners that go out in the morning and make those collection runs.

That's where they're going to the stores.

Do they do that in their own vehicles?

Yeah.

We provide a stipend for mileage.

But, you know, that's kindof one of the things that when you start looking at the food shelf that it's here because the amount of volunteers that have really put their time and energy and treasure into making it happen.

I'm always amazed by the community support that we do get.

People are very, very generous with us and without them we would not be here.

Your building was improved not too long ago by a local construction firm.

Zetah Construction's been helping us a great deal in renovating some of the outside.

The building's 50 years old and as a result, you know, it's both a blessing and a curse right in the sense that it's great to have that space but it also needs to be So we've been putting a new outer skin on it, re-insulating windows, that kind of thing.

Trying to create an inviting place for people to come to.

It was severely dated and again it needed some TLC.

And so we're trying to create that atmosphere so that when you pull up to it it's something to be very proud it's something that entices people to go in.

So we're doing some more of this right now, we're redoing our entrance to Again, trying to create a space where people who come in there for services feel welcomed by what they see.

What do you think the future is like for the food shelf Mike?

What would you like to see happen most?

I think food shelves in general need to really look at being more than just food in a way.

We really need to try to work at breaking that poverty cycle.

And part of that is helping, there's the food aspect and then there's the economic aspect.

If you're going to get out of poverty some people need help to do that.

And that may be connecting them with services.

For example we host services within our waiting room We do a free medical clinic first Friday of every month We provide employment counseling.

We get legal aid.

County nurse comes in with vaccinations and that happens as well.

All this happens throughout the month.

But I think even a little bit further to break that cycle of poverty.

Maybe it's get their GED or maybe it's whatever or things that It's like lessen the lines they say.

You know we will always be feeding people, that has been happening for eons, but, if we are to be I think more effective and bringing more to the community one of the things we can work with our And the food shelves have only been around since the 80's in any kind of form.

You may have remembered when Reagan was giving away cheese back in the day.

That's when the food shelf started.

And so it's still evolving to some extent, the food shelf movement I'll call it.

There are about 500 hundred food shelves in the state of Minnesota.

And they're all different.

If you've been to a food shelf you've been to one food shelf.

Ours is a unique one.

Bagley, Cass Lake all of them have them but they're all very different.

Do a lot of the clients of the food shelf, do a lot of people use it just a few times and then they don't use it for awhile and or do most people use it on an ongoing basis?

I think it varies.

I mean there's part of the population there that relies on it monthly.

Most people are using it as supplemental that I'm seeing.

Come when they need it and so yeah it's all of the above.

But more than likely is that people come periodically.

So review of hours and location of the food shelf.

When is it open and where is it again?

We're open Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 10-3 pm.

We're located one block behind the Eagles Club on 1260 Exchange Avenue in Bemidji.

You don't need any identification or anything like that, documents, you can just come in and we'll get you some food.

So if you're hungry and need food come in and you'll have a chat with someone but you can get food that day.

Absolutely.

And the Stuff a Truck campaign, again, underway already in the Bemidji area schools.

And will culminate at Luekens later on this month?

The 15th will be, if I'm getting my dates right, will be the last, that Friday, when we start pulling things in, in time for And you can purchase pre-assembled bags of foods at Luekens?

The bags that I mentioned are empty and basically they just represent a bag of food that would be a value that'll be a value of 5 or 10 or 15, but yes, that's how they make cash donations at the cash register at Luekens north or south.

That is underway already, the Stuff a Truck campaign.

33rd year.

And just in advance of the holidays and imagine if we could going into the holiday season of the year with winter coming and not having enough to eat, it's a tough situation.

So I'm sure you're appreciative of the help you get Mike, and we're sure glad the Bemidji Community Food shelf is here.

What's your website address for people to check?

It's bcfsmn.org Well, Michael Olson, Executive Director of the Bemidji Area Food Shelf, sure appreciate your work.

And thanks for coming in to see us for this edition of Lakeland Currents.

And I hope we can find out how the whole Stuff a Truck campaign goes.

We'll let you know.

Thanks Mike.

Thanks for having us.

Thanks for listening and thanks for watching this edition of Lakeland Currents on Lakeland PBS.