Valley Natural Foods is participating in the Minnesota FoodShare’s March Campaign. Come to our store today to buy a food variety bag to help the fight against hunger in Minnesota! Over the holidays, we initiated a similar event that was an overwhelming success because of your generous support. We raised $650 and sold over 160 bags of food for our local food shelf. Now we are trying to do this again with your help! We strongly appreciate it!

What is Minnesota FoodShare?
Each March, for the last 29 years, Minnesota FoodShare runs the largest food drive in the state that restocks 300 food shelves. Minnesota FoodShare contacts thousands of congregations, companies, civic groups and schools to run local cash and food drives to aid in the effort. All food donations benefit local food shelves. Our food drive at Valley Natural Foods will benefit Burnsville food shelf, 360 Communities. 360 Communities, located at 501 Highway 13 E, serves more than 20,000 people each year through its food shelf, domestic violence and early education programs.

Minnesota FoodShare, a program of the Greater Minneapolis Council of Churches, also advocates for hunger issues along with lobbying the state legislature and U.S. Congress to develop public policy that positively impacts Minnesota families living in poverty.

What is Valley Natural Foods Doing?
We have organized a “food variety” bag drive that is of significant value.  This event will start March 2nd thru March 31st. Not only will we be selling food variety bags at the cost of $5.00 (value of food in the bags is $10-$20) for customers to purchase for the food shelf, the sale of the bags will also act as a fundraiser.  All food bags will be donated directly to 360 Communities. All proceeds from the sale of the bags will be donated to Minnesota FoodShare. Therefore, not only are you buying some great food, you are also donating $5 per bag that will go a long way in purchasing food for needy people in our area.

Why participate in the Minnesota Food Share Drive?
In 2009, there were more than three million visits to food shelves in Minnesota – a 25 percent increase from the previous year. Today more than 80,000 people rely on food assistance a week in Minnesota. Seventy percent of these people have incomes below the federal poverty level, 40 percent are children under age 18, and 35 percent of these households include at least one employed adult.

Tags: 360 communities, food shelf, Minnesota FoodShare, valley natural foods outreach

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011 at 11:52 am and is filed under Community Outreach, Healthy Updates Newsletter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.