Local Food Shelves Stepping Up to Meet Record Demand

The number of people in the area who lack a steady supply of food is growing dramatically

By David Phillips, October 27, 2025

A large Channel One Regional Food Bank truck is parked beside a red brick building with boarded windows. A worker in a gray hoodie unloads boxes on a lift gate, while two people stand near the open door labeled “Food Shelf.”

Channel One makes a weekly delivery to the Spring Valley Area Food Shelf. This regional food bank supplies all the food shelves in the area. (Photo by David Phillips)

At the time of publishing this article, the United States was within days of hundreds of thousands of families losing their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits due to the federal government’s shutdown. In Minnesota alone, according to Minnesota Governor Tim Walz’ office, thousands of Minnesotans could lose access to nutrition assistance beginning November 1 which will only exacerbate an already difficult time for families in need. And as Root River Current contributor David Phillips has discovered, families across the greater Root River Valley are finding personal circumstances just as challenging here as across the rest of the state.

SOUTHEAST MINNESOTA – Local food shelves are reporting increased, even record, numbers of visits in 2025. That aligns with statewide data that shows one in five Minnesota households – more than one in four that have children – is food insecure, according to a study by Second Harvest Heartland, a Minnesota hunger relief organization. The study showed that 18 percent of the state’s population is already supported by the emergency food system.

Several of the region’s cities, even as small as Wykoff, operate food shelves to help those in need. Most rely on volunteers for staffing with funds from donations and grants to stock the shelves.

Food shelf supplies for area communities largely come from Channel One, a regional food bank in Rochester that serves more than 100 programs in southeastern Minnesota.

Inside a storeroom lined with shelves of boxed and canned goods, a woman wearing glasses and a sweatshirt sorts grocery bags filled with food into shopping carts. Signs label shelves for dry beans, vegetables and baking goods.

Spring Valley Area Food Shelf board member Maureen Johnson brings in supplies purchased from the local grocery store. The food shelf supplements the supplies from Channel One mostly due to the generous donations of the community. (Photo by David Phillips)

Although the amount of food insecurity in this region is slightly lower than the state as a whole, Channel One reports that food shelf visits in the area continue to increase rapidly, mirroring state and national trends. The regional food bank served 296,000 households in 2023 and more than 390,000 in 2024.

Record visits to area food shelves in 2025

The Spring Valley Area Food Shelf has seen a 20 percent increase in average household visits through the first nine months of 2025 compared to 2024.

The largest food shelf among area small towns, Spring Valley has about 200 households registered in 2025 and serves an average of just over 101 households per month, up from 86 in 2024. August set a monthly record with 120 households served.

“It is just so changed this year, completely changed this year from years gone by,” said board member Maureen Johnson.

The number of visitors first spiked when COVID hit about five years ago. Since then, it has been a more gradual increase until the jump this year.

“It never went back down after COVID,” said food shelf board member Carol Gross, who compiles usage statistics for the facility.

Three volunteers work together in a food shelf storeroom. One man carries a flat of canned food, a woman in a black hoodie stands beside him, and another man wearing a cap labels cardboard boxes stacked on a table.

Spring Valley Area Food Shelf volunteers Dan and Vicky Freeman, left, bring in supplies from a Channel One delivery for volunteer Stu Gross to check before they are ready to display. (Photo by David Phillips)

Lynnea Olson, who manages the Grand Meadow Food Shelf, said her number of visitors has also increased throughout 2025, with the last couple of months bringing “excessive amounts” of new clients. In recent months, people have lined up in the hallway before the food shelf opened, she added.

Bev Loven, who manages the LeRoy Area Food Shelf, said that it has also had more demand than ever in recent months. Although the increase has been spread out over various demographics, she noted it had its highest number of senior citizens ever in August.

“We’ve had a lot more working families,” said Johnson about the Spring Valley facility. “Of almost all the new ones, they are working families.”

In Grand Meadow, a lot of the increase is in families with children, noted Loven. Because it is such a small town, older people don’t want it known that they need help, she speculated.

Coordinators at the food shelves in Chatfield and Rushford have also seen increases in their use, although they didn’t notice a perceptible change in demographics as families with children, adults and elderly people all increased their numbers.

Minnesotans made nearly 9 million visits to food shelves in 2024, shattering records for the fourth consecutive year, according to data collected by The Food Group in partnership with the Minnesota Department of Children, Youth and Family. Seniors make up 11 percent of those visits, adults are 53 percent and children are 36 percent.

A woman wearing a purple sweatshirt reading “University of Sioux Falls Grandma” stands near shelves lined with canned goods, boxed meals, and baking supplies. She looks over the organized rows of food in a small, brightly lit room.

Spring Valley Area Food Shelf board member Sharon Jahn looks over some of the food offered by the facility. (Photo by David Phillips)

Reasons for the increase are varied

The food shelves don’t specifically ask visitors why they are there, but the main reason appears to be high prices, not just for food but for most everyday necessities.

“It’s the cost of living,” said Johnson. “You’re just seeing and hearing that from people; it’s just everything is more expensive.”

“They just say they can’t afford food,” said Olson. “If their bills are going up, that means less money for food.”

The Food Group survey showed that food is often the most flexible line item when households have competing budget priorities, with many participants saying they had to choose between spending limited funds on food or other necessities such as healthcare, utilities, transportation and housing.

Andrea Andresen, who manages the Semcac food shelf in Rushford, said the cost of gas makes an impact because rural people travel a lot for work, errands or medical appointments. However, utility bills have increased recently and, of course, food prices make an impact, she added.

“I think it’s more the cumulative effect over the last few years,” she said. “We’re not really seeing the price increases from shortages anymore like we had with COVID, but now it’s just that prices never went back down, even though the supply is stabilized. People just kind of started to get tapped out.”

Other assistance programs have an effect as well. For example, Minnesotans saw a sharp decrease in SNAP, or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, benefits in March 2023 when pandemic-related emergency allotments ended. More federal cuts are anticipated in the future.

“We’re kind of expecting that when some of the benefits run out, it could be increasing more – but that’ll happen next year, I think,” said Steve Strickland, who coordinates the Chatfield Community Food Shelf.

An older man in a blue jacket and gray cap leans over an open chest freezer, stacking cardboard boxes of frozen food. Shelves filled with packaged goods are visible behind him in the storeroom.

Spring Valley Area Food Shelf board member Steve Heusinkveld arranges one of the freezers. (Photo by David Phillips)

Another factor, noted Gross, is that people are more willing to ask for help these days.

“I think it’s probably more due to the fact that it used to be a shameful thing to come, and it doesn’t seem to be that anymore,” she said. “How often did you hear your parents say, ‘I’m never going on welfare?’”

“We try to be very welcoming, and I think the tone has changed a lot,” added board member Sharon Jahn, who recalled early on volunteers couldn’t even say the first name of visitors out loud.

Andresen echoed the effort to make food shelves more welcoming.

“We try to make sure people feel welcome and comfortable, because we can’t help them if they don’t feel comfortable and they don’t come in,” Andresen said. “We try to make it as easy as possible and walk them through anything if they need help.”

Food shelves also need volunteer help

Despite the increase in demand, local food shelves, which generally open up two days each week, are in good shape as their shelves are stocked and donations continue to come in. However, some are worried about their supply of volunteers to help keep them open regular hours.

The LeRoy Area Food Shelf, a function of the LeRoy Area Ministerial Association serving 52 households, has 12 volunteers to keep it open four times each month, which is down from five times previously due to lack of staffing. Loven is concerned about the future because the helpers are all older than 60.

“I’m always looking for new volunteers,” she said.

The same is true for Olson in Grand Meadow, who said getting help is becoming a “serious problem.” The food shelf was set up through the local faith community in the 1990s with each church supplying volunteers.

Donations have been adequate to serve the approximately 70 households now, Olson said, although it has cut down on some things, such as full holiday meal packages.

The Chatfield Community Food Shelf is doing well, according to Strickland. Set up in 2015 by the Chatfield United Methodist Church as a community-wide facility, it serves 50 to 60 households each month.

“We’ve had very good support from the community, both with volunteers and with donations,” said Strickland, who has been coordinating the food shelf from the start.

A worker operates the lift gate of a Channel One Food Bank truck as another volunteer unloads boxes wrapped on a pallet. The scene takes place on a wet sidewalk beside a brick building on an overcast day.

Volunteers help unload a delivery from the Channel One food bank. (Photo by David Phillips)

The Spring Valley Area Food Shelf, which started in 2009 and moved to a downtown location in 2014, also has good support, both in volunteers, who number more than 20, and donations.

Spring Valley’s donations allow it to supplement the supplies from Channel One with purchases at the local grocery store so it can provide more things, even personal hygiene products, diapers and laundry or dish soap, one of the few facilities to offer those products.

The food shelf is operated under the Spring Valley Ministerial Association with a separate board overseeing it. In addition to many individual donations, the food shelf receives grants, as do others, and corporate donations from Kwik Trip and Dollar General.

“We have an extremely generous community. If I weren’t on the board, I wouldn’t know that,” said Jahn.

The Rushford food shelf has a unique component since it is under Semcac, a community action agency that provides many other programs from energy to housing assistance. Semcac also operates nearby food shelves in Preston and Caledonia.

“There’s outreach (through Semcac) that can help with emergency funding sometimes for mortgage and utilities, things like that,” said Andresen. “If people mention something they’re struggling with, if we know a resource, we can refer them.”

The food shelf in Rushford started in 1985, although an emergency food assistance operation there dates back to 1966. It now serves about 90 households a month.

Although Andresen, who has two volunteers to help her, said demand is increasing, Rushford had its highest use during a devastating flood in 2007, about the time Andresen started.

While on the local level, food shelves are well positioned to meet the need, changes in federal funding may have a significant impact.

In addition to proposed federal budget cuts, a more immediate concern is the government shutdown, which means funding for SNAP will run out in November if the shutdown drags on, and local food shelves are unlikely to be able to fill the gap.

One additional concern is that the food banks, such as Channel One, also partially rely on federal funds that may run out.

To learn more about services in your community, check this Food Shelf Near Me list provided by Southeast Minnesota’s Channel One Regional Food Bank.

Contributor

David Phillips

David Phillips lives in Spring Valley. He is a writer, photographer and editor who worked with various newspapers for 45 years until retiring as publisher of the Bluff Country Newspaper Group in southeastern Minnesota in 2020.