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By Hannah Yang, MPR News

A moment in August 2023 is seared on Dianne Jorgenson’s memory. She found herself at the one place she never thought she would ever need: the St. Peter Area Food Shelf.

“I was embarrassed, humiliated, in the beginning. But I don’t want anyone else to ever feel that way,” Jorgenson said. “I hadn’t eaten for three days. Nothing. My cupboards were totally bare.”

Jorgenson said when she started using the St. Peter food shelf more often, she felt the stigma that came with asking for help. She acknowledged that once she herself looked down her her nose at food shelf clients.

Now, Jorgenson plans to volunteer at the food shelf and welcome others inside.

“You have to experience it,” she said. “You have to live it. You have to be hungry.”

The St. Peter Area Food Shelf has seen a surge in demand in recent months. And it’s not the only one.

According to an analysis of Minnesota Department of Human Services data by the nonprofit Hunger Solutions, there were 7.5 million visits to Minnesota food shelves in 2023, a 2 million visit increase over the  year before.

Sophia Lenarz-Coy is executive director of The Food Group, a nonprofit which aims to provide fresh food across Minnesota and Wisconsin.

She anticipates the number of client visits will start plateauing. She said 2024 numbers are on track to be higher than 2023, but not as dramatically. However she predicts the numbers likely won’t return to pre-pandemic levels soon — if ever.

“I do not think we are at a point where we’re going to start seeing a decrease,” she said. “I think something more dramatic would need to happen to sort of reverse the trend.”

Federal and state food and nutrition programs helped support food shelf visits during the pandemic, but as the COVID-era funds ended, grocery prices and other costs of living still continued rising into 2023, Lenarz-Coy said.

“I think what has happened is that through diversification of service delivery, more and more folks are taking advantage of the foods they need,” she said. “So, it’s a really good thing, but to the point, it is putting a strain on those local food shelves for sure.”

Volunteers run the St. Peter Area Food Shelf. They deliver groceries to clients who aren’t able to get to the food shelf in person. They ask clients to make appointments and volunteers pull items in advance to have ready for clients when they come in.

Food shelf coordinator Jodi Donley said they still take walk-ins, but there might be a bit of a wait.

“That also has to do with just the sheer volume of clients that we get into the shelf,” Donley said. “We can only see three every 15 minutes, and we’re only open for two hours. That’s an average of 24 would be the max. But there are days where we service 32 households.”

Food shelves were originally considered supplemental supports, Donley said. Now they are the main source of food for many dinner tables as families struggle with high living expenses. Some clients visit multiple food shelves seeking items they can’t initially find.

This might be another reason for multiple trips. Clients’ work schedules may conflict with a food shelf’s opening hours. Some clients need language interpreters and the food shelf they’re visiting may not have one.

Donley said they’re seeing clients arriving from Le Center, Le Sueur and Cleveland. There are also more families with children as well as college students and individuals aged 65 and older.

“We have clients who utilize multiple food shelves because there is no money left in the budget for food,” she said. “They’re paying their bills and they’re getting to work, but feeding their families and themselves there’s not enough money to do it.”

Donley said clientele has “doubled,” and now demand is so high the St. Peter Area Food Shelf was forced to cut back on some items such as cleaning products in order to focus solely on providing food. It  also relies on local churches for donations.

The food shelf used to allow weekly visits, but now limits clients to one visit a month.

Because the St Peter facility receives federal funds it is obligated by federal law to serve anyone in need  regardless of where they live.

“You could live in Minneapolis or St. Paul and have a food shelf right next door, but for whatever your own personal reasons and needs, you could find yourself here in our city, our town needing food tonight,” she Donley said. “We will take care of you.”

Systemic strain

A federal program central to funding food shelves is the Emergency Food Assistance Program— otherwise known as TEFAP. It helps supplement the diets of low-income people by providing emergency food assistance at no cost. The USDA purchases nutritious foods through the program and makes those foods available to state distributing agencies.

Minnesota received over $5.65 million in fiscal year 2024, and more than $9.15 million bonus pounds in food for distribution. Food shelves also rely on grants, fundraisers and donations from local, regional and state partners and community organizations.

However, those depend on the fiscal 2025 federal budget and the reauthorization of the Farm Bill, which has a number of nutrition or domestic food nutrition programs including SNAP and school meals.

Housing, health care and economics all intersect with food insecurity, Lenarz-Coy said, and contributes to the need for food shelf models. While organizations were able to adapt during the pandemic, moving forward, she said society still needs to address the root of the problem.

“Any kind of policy solutions that are taking the pressure off of low-income families or low-income seniors that’s all going to ultimately help the strain on the food shelf system, too,” Lenarz-Coy said. “But as long as grocery prices remain high, housing prices remain high, health care prices remain high, these are pressures that people are talking about. Food is one of those things that is often the most flexible piece of the household budget and often the first thing to get cut.”