Second Harvest waves fees for NE Minnesota and NW Wisconsin non-profit agency partners

Second Harvest Northern Lakes Food Bank is permanently waving fees for the nationally and regionally donated food it provides to 75 northeastern Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin food shelves, soup kitchens, shelters, and the other non-profit agency partners it supplies as the Region’s only “food bank.” This announcement comes at a time when the demand has increased beyond pandemic levels and when Cook County communities need the food bank the most.

“We’re seeing a 32 percent increase at our region’s food shelves,” shares Shaye Morris, Executive Director, Second Harvest Northern Lakes Food Bank.

“We made our decision to waive fees to ensure our Region’s non-profit partners could be as generous as possible to those effacing hunger in their local communities. So many of our neighbors have been impacted by the pandemic, economic impacts of inflation, and high cost of living recently that we felt it an important time to make this decision.”

Although often confused with a “food shelf ” (which the food bank does operate), Second Harvest Northern Lakes Food Bank is the Region’s only food bank supplying non-profits with nationally and regionally donated food and non-food items. Before their decision, agency partners paid an average $.02 per pound fee to share Second Harvest’s food acquisition, storage and distribution cost.

“You’re our primary source of food.” Shared Karl Oberstar, manager of Quad Cities Food Shelf in Mountain Iron, Minnesota, one of Second Harvest’s largest partners. “Without you, there’s a lot of people who wouldn’t get fed up here.”

In Cook County communities, over 145,500 pounds of food have been provided by SHNLFB over the last year. This food has an estimated $279,000, but agencies will no longer pay to access it other than a nominal delivery fee.

Each year Second Harvest provides over 6.5 million pounds of product to the 75 non-profit agencies (and 135 programs) it serves throughout northeastern Minnesota (St. Louis, Carlton, Lakes and Cook Counties) and northwestern Wisconsin (Douglas, Bayfield, Ashland, and Iron counties).

Throughout the U.S. there are just over 200 Feeding America food banks like Second Harvest serving specific geographic regions. Together, these food banks distribute over 5 billion pounds of food through 60,000 food shelves and other programs reaching 38 million Americans.