Food Banks Call For Funding Increase At Capitol
Minnesota food bank leaders came together at the Capitol on Tuesday, calling for policies to address hunger in Minnesota.
Allison O’Toole, the CEO of Second Harvest Heartland in Brooklyn Park, said according to Second Harvest’s 2024 hunger study, one in five Minnesota households are food insecure. Likewise, 26% of the households with children don’t have regular access to the food they need to thrive.
O’Toole said the Federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) helps families with more than food shelves are able to provide. She said for every one meal a food shelf provides, SNAP covers another nine. She said if these programs are cut, busy food banks will be more strained.
“This trajectory is not sustainable,” she said. “We must convene nonprofit and social services leaders, corporate partners and our lawmakers to find fixes for these solvable, non-partisan issues. We can’t stress enough that any reduction to SNAP benefits will turn the current crisis into a catastrophe.”
Allison O’Toole speaks at the podium in a press conference, flanked by other food bank leaders from across the state. O’Toole said statewide hunger is a “nonpartisan, solvable issue.”
Leaders were there for “Hunger Day on the Hill,” alongside community advocates who came to speak with legislators about hunger relief.
Sophia Lenarz-Coy, Executive Director of The Food Group nonprofit in New Hope, asked the state to invest further.
“It is why we are asking the state legislature to increase investment in the Minnesota Food Shelf Program” she said. “It’s a program that The Food Group coordinates, in partnership with the Department of Children, Youth and Families to get flexible grants to food shelves statewide.”
The food banks are asking lawmakers for $10 million annually to address the growing need.
Other food banks from across the state also spoke, citing increased demand on their area pantries amid frozen federal funding. Virginia Witherspoon from Rochester’s Channel 1 Food Bank, said some of their grants that they budgeted for were frozen without warning.
The Food Group said they were also locked out of grants with no word from USDA.
