Food drive for Keystone as need increases locally

March is Minnesota FoodShare Month. Area food shelves are struggling to keep up with growing demand.
Hamline Church United Methodist, 1514 Englewood Ave., is hosting a food drive for Keystone Community Services, 1-4 p.m. Sunday, March 19 in the church parking lot. The most needed items at Keystone are rice, peanut butter, canned fruit, canned meat, pasta, cooking oil, sugar, flour, soy sauce, fish sauce, laundry detergent, toilet paper and dish soap.
The food shelf always welcomes paper, plastic and reusable shopping bags.
Food insecurity and hunger are growing problems. The total number of visits to Keystone’s food shelves increased by 80% from December 2021 to December 2022. In December 2022, 10,626 people received food support from Keystone’s food shelf program.The number of new participants nearly tripled in 2022 compared to 2021 (4,972 new in 2021 vs 13,441 in 2022).
In a typical day, Keystone supports 200 families a day at its two sites and a food mobile distribution. The week of Jan. 9, Keystone supported 140 households in one day at one site. Emergency SNAP benefits will go away in March and many families could lose $100 in extra SNAP support.
Keystone is feeling the impact of inflation, too. The social services provider spent 30% more than budgeted in 2022 on food alone to support the increase in participation and increased food prices and other operational costs like gas, insurance and supplies which are also increased due to inflation.
Ramsey County recently completed a food assessment of the needs of Ramsey County residents and found that food insecurity rates across the county have the highest concentrations in the University Avenue, Midway, Frogtown and Capitol Heights areas of Saint Paul. Keystone’s basic need programs supports neighbors in all of those neighborhoods.