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Minnesotans Are Missing 100 Million Meals Every Year

Hunger hurts us all. Fight hunger where you live.

Hunger in Minnesota has doubled in five years. One in ten Minnesotans runs out of resources before the end of every month, missing a meal every other day. That's 100 million meals missed every year, with devastating effects.

From hungry expectant mothers who deliver low birth-weight babies to hungry adults who become diabetic, hunger costs Minnesota at least $1.2 billion in direct and indirect healthcare and education expenses.

Hunger-Free Minnesota has a strategic, three-year action plan to close the gap in missing meals. It has the support of many corporate sponsors, nonprofit agencies, food banks, food shelves and Minnesotans statewide. You can show your support by joining the movement on this website. Then, join the movement in your community. Help close the gap in missing meals.

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Who is Hungry in Minnesota? It might not be who you think it is. To see the real faces of hunger in our state, and to hear their stories, as they volunteered to tell them, click here.

Minnesota campaign aims to expand food stamp rolls

by Julie Siple, Minnesota Public Radio

Thursday, February 23, 2012

St. Paul, Minn. — Beginning this week, you may see advertisements in your community encouraging people to sign up for food stamps.

Part of a new statewide outreach campaign to enroll more Minnesotans in the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, the ads encourage senior citizens and the newly unemployed to seek government help.

About 65 percent of Minnesotans who qualify for food stamps receive them. The new campaign aims to convince more people to sign up using ads all over the state — on buses, in clinics, in food shelves and on the radio.

State officials and anti-hunger groups launched the campaign on Wednesday.

Lt. Gov. Yvonne Prettner Solon said the governor's office wants all who are eligible to enroll in the program, which not only ensures Minnesotans have enough to eat and be healthy, but also helps the state's economy.

Every dollar of use of the SNAP program, there's $1.73 that's generated for our economy, which helps our grocery stores," Prettner Solon said. "It helps our farmers. It helps everybody along the food supply chain."

Only 41 percent of eligible seniors in Minnesota are enrolled. Marlys Toogood, a 78-year-old who delivers free meals to seniors in Roseville, attended Wednesday's unveiling of the ad campaign. She said it's... Continue Reading

Food Rescue Feeds Hungry People

Shaye Moris, Executive Director
Second Harvest Northern Lakes Food Bank

The USDA’s Economic Research Service at one time estimated that 27 percent of the food produced in the United States never even makes it to our dinner tables, but instead is thrown away as waste. This is a powerful statistic and one that begs the question, “Are we doing enough to rescue usable food before...Read More