The Alden Area Food Shelf has been awarded the Hunger Solutions Minnesota Blue Ribbon Food Shelf Initiative Seal.

The seal demonstrates that the food shelf meets the standard of excellence for Minnesota Food Shelves.

By earning the seal, the food shelf can consider itself among “the best of the best,” said Rosie Rasmussen, a co-director of the food shelf along with Barb Stenzel.

“With this, people know we have good food, distributed fairly and safely, and a commitment to the people we serve,” Rasmussen added.

She said Hunger Solutions Minnesota wanted to recognize food shelves that were operating at a high level of service. The self-assessment process addressed performance in nine key areas: mission, governance, technology, food, operations, financial, client services, volunteers and community.

“We needed to have so many points to qualify,” Rasmussen said. “We found we were doing a lot of these things already.”

The process reminded volunteers of the food shelf’s mission statement and history, operating policies and confidentiality agreement and included job descriptions.

“A lot of it is common sense,” said board member Ann Troska. “This made us follow through and put what we do down on paper. It made us stop and think about it.”

The directors also said the process also addressed technology, including whether the food shelf has a telephone and a computer with Internet access. “They want to make sure people have a way to contact the food shelf,” Stenzel said, adding she and Rasmussen have their phone numbers on a business card.

In addition, the process looked at how the food shelf plans to deal with disasters, like tornadoes, and inclement weather that strikes when the food shelf is open.

The Alden Area Food Shelf serves western Freeborn County and eastern Faribault County. People can visit any food shelf in Minnesota, but only one per month.

The food shelf is a sustaining food shelf and is open from 4 to 6 p.m. Each Tuesday. Until last year, when Wells opened up a sustaining food shelf of its own, volunteers were seeing about 50 families per month.

“When they opened, that took a lot of stress off us,” Stenzel said, adding more than half of those who visited the food shelf at that time were from Wells.

Food shelf volunteers also need to be knowledgeable about what other resources are available for their clients in need.

“We try to connect them with food stamps, WIC (Women, Infants and Children) and heating assistance,” Rasmussen said.

The Alden Area Food Shelf opened in 2003. “At first, we had to do a lot of footwork to get people to come,” Rasmussen said, adding people in Alden were reluctant at first to visit. “They’d say, ‘I think there are some who are worse off than me.’”

In reality, the volunteers said, many of those who visit the food shelf are working families, those on disabilities and those whose unemployment benefits have run out.

The food shelf accepts both monetary and food donations. “Of course, a dollar goes a little farther for the food shelf because we can purchase food from Channel One Food Bank,” Rasmussen said.

She added that the food that can’t be purchased at Channel One, like bread, milk and eggs, is purchased at groceries stores in Albert Lea and Wells and from Sampson Dairy.

The directors added that students and staff at the Alden-Conger School just completed a food drive and collected 1,200 pounds for the Alden Area Food Shelf.

Forty-two food shelves in the state were recognized as Blue-Ribbon Food Shelves, by Hunger Solutions Minnesota, an organization dedicated to ending hunger and assuring food security for all Minnesotans through advocacy, supporting sound public policy and strategic communications. Its Web site is www.hungersolutions.org.