Everyone deserves access to food that is nutritious, culturally relevant and affordable. But food is hard to come by right now for many people in our community.
Together with our nonprofit partners, we developed 16 pantry, spices and baking packs filled with highly requested items at local food shelves. Each pack — representing six cultures and 4 ready-to-eat and snack options — contains a variety of nutritious and culturally familiar food and spices. All these ingredients mean our community can eat when cooking isn’t an option or make familiar meals that remind them of home.
Gather your friends and family to purchase, assemble and drop off food packs with highly needed items for local food shelves.
Your support helps our whole community thrive by providing foods that are local, nutritious and meet cultural preferences. Your $16 donation purchases 4 meals for a family in the Twin Cities.
Purchase items that are highly needed and requested at local food shelves.
Great news! Every Thursday night in April, local Hy-Vee stores will donate $1 from every steak dinner to help provide meals for families in the Twin Cities.
The 13 participating Hy-Vee stores are: Brooklyn Park, Cottage Grove, Eagan, Lakeville, Maple Grove, New Hope, Oakdale, Plymouth, Robbinsdale, Savage, Shakopee, Spring Lake Park and Maplewood.
Interested in hosting a group or company volunteer project? Email VolunteerUnited@gtcuw.org to learn how Volunteer United can partner with you!
The 6 cultures represented in the packs were determined in partnership with our food shelf partners as populations most highly impacted by historic and current systemic under resourcing. We continue to listen to our partners and reflect the current needs and requests of our community in the pack lists we put together.
In partnership with local nonprofits and food shelves, we created food packs containing ingredients that are highly needed and requested. These ingredients are familiar to the communities our community partners work with. When supplemented with fresh foods, food packs create dishes that align with cultural traditions and dietary needs. And when cooking isn’t an option, there are packs that ensure local families can still eat.
We are very connected to our nonprofit partners. Our packs are responsive and reflect what our partners say the people they’re working with ask for. We work together to ensure packs meet our community’s needs and represent the many cultures of people that live in the Twin Cities. This year, we’ve developed ready-to-eat and snack packs for families that are strained because of disruptions to SNAP benefits and Operation Metro Surge.
We partner with 10+ nonprofit partners who distribute the packs to their food shelves across the greater metro area. You can see the full list of our partners here.
We ask volunteers to assemble complete packs containing all items listed to the best of your ability. If items are inaccessible or missing, please include a note in your pack(s) listing each missing item.
If you’re looking to volunteer at home, we host a community-wide collection March 23 - May 1 with drop-off sites at participating Old National Bank locations. However, we can accept food pack donations year-round! If you’d like to assemble and donate packs outside of this timeframe, please contact VolunteerUnited@gtcuw.org to coordinate a drop-off location and time.
If you are with a company or group looking to host a volunteer event, contact VolunteerUnited@gtcuw.org to learn more about corporate volunteer opportunities available year-round!
The Karen (pronounced kuh-ren) are an ethnic group of people from Myanmar (formerly Burma). The Karen have resided in Burma for over two thousand years but fled to Thailand and other countries as refugees because of religious and ethnic persecution. More than 20,000 Karen people live in Minnesota, making it the largest Karen community in the country. You can learn more about the Karen from our community partner, Karen Organization of Minnesota and from Minnesota’s Department of Human Services.
