Food Resource Center going strong after three years
The Food Resource Center celebrated three years of successful operation on May 20. The staff of United Way St. Croix Valley, which runs the center, held an open house for food shelf volunteers and representatives of agencies that use the center.By: Randy Hanson, Hudson Star-Observer
- From left, Duana Bremer, Tracy Davis, Melissa Wyss and John Coughlin
- Food Resource Center
The Food Resource Center celebrated three years of successful operation on May 20.
The staff of United Way St. Croix Valley, which runs the center, held an open house for food shelf volunteers and representatives of agencies that use the center.
“We opened it at the right time,” John Coughlin, executive director of the local United Way, said of the food center.
The economy went into a recession soon after the food center opened in early 2008. Over a four-year period, the number of St. Croix County residents on food stamps increased 149 percent, from 3,181 people in 2006 to 7,909 in 2010.
Coughlin reported that, since opening, the center has distributed 625,305 pounds of groceries to 12 food pantries in St. Croix and Pierce counties, plus Grace Place homeless shelter in Somerset and Turningpoint domestic abuse shelter in River Falls.
He said 59,000 pounds of food moved through the center during the first five months of 2011.
Coughlin retold how the food center came to be.
SuperValu Inc., the large grocery wholesaler and retailer, had offered to donate an entire semi-trailer of groceries to the United Way to meet the needs of the annual Christmas gift and food give-away at Somerset.
The catch was that a warehouse with a loading dock was needed to take delivery of the groceries.
Jim Dahl of Houlton, then a SuperValu executive and the United Way St. Croix Valley board president, had arranged for the shipment. He said SuperValu was prepared to make regular donations of soon-to-be outdated groceries if the United Way was prepared to receive them.
Later, the We Do Feet people from Trinity Lutheran Church approached Coughlin about financial help to build a facility to hold the furniture the ministry gives to needy families.
Coughlin suggested that the United Way and We Do Feet put up a building together and share the space. The grand opening for the 3,700-square-foot food center was held Feb. 1, 2008.
The center is located on the grounds of Trinity Family Center on Badlands Road in the town of Hudson. Trinity Lutheran rents the land that the food center is located on to the United Way for $1 a year. We Do Feet pays the same rent for roughly half the space in the food center building.
In addition to a loading dock, the center has an industrial size freezer and a cooler that enables food pantries to have a steady supply of perishable food. It’s also equipped with tall storage racks and a forklift.
Coughlin said the food center’s most recent delivery from SuperValu was worth $17,000.
The center also receives donations from Hammond Cold Center and a variety of other businesses. It has received a total of $116,000 worth of donated groceries so far in 2011, Coughlin said.
In addition, the United Way uses donated money to buy groceries from Second Harvest Heartland and the Emergency Foodshelf Network. Coughlin said that $4 to $9 worth of food can be purchased for $1 donated.
Area food pantry volunteers come to the center every two to four weeks to get items to restock their shelves.
Three speakers talked about how their charitable organizations, and the people they serve, have benefited from the Food Resource Center.
Melissa Wyss of Glenwood City-based WestCAP (Western Wisconsin Community Action Agency) is in charge of assembling 550 boxes of food each month that are delivered to low-income senior citizens.
The food comes by the truckload and is put into the smaller boxes at the Food Resource Center.
“If we didn’t have this facility we would be in trouble, because we have to have a place that has a loading dock,” Wyss said. “And we fill this whole area up to assemble all of this.”
She also said that the Glenwood City food pantry where she volunteers has been able to increase the amount of food it gives to people and the number of people it serves because of the Food Resource Center.
St. Croix County Salvation Army Director Duana Bremer said the food center provides the food for a program in which Head Start students are sent home with a backpack full of food each Friday.
Tracy Davis from the Aging and Disability Resource Center of St. Croix County said the food center is instrumental in providing meals for the county’s senior citizens.
The ADRC served 47,464 home-delivered and senior center meals in 2010, Davis reported.
For more about the Food Resource Center go online to www.unitedwaystcroix.org.
Tags: saint croix county, lifestyle, food
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