“When someone asked me to open my trunk and people started filling it up with groceries, I started to cry,” shared Elsa.
It’s become our norm, wiping down door handles and gently placing boxes of non-perishable food, fresh produce, and other supplies in our neighbors’ vehicles. Cloth face masks are also common as we’ve moved from indoor distribution to low-contact, curbside delivery.
When the world changed in early March, we stripped back everything we knew about program delivery and instead focused on how to keep our employees, volunteers, and program participants safe.
Our supply of food, mostly non-perishable boxes of food, are packed by groups of 10 healthy volunteers. They enter through a special door, are pre-screened to ensure good health, and are asked to deeply wash their hands and don personal protective equipment.
Once packed, our boxes of food make their way to our region’s 40 area food shelves from Ely to Moose Lake, and from Hibbing to Hurley, WI, to feed our neighbors like Elsa.
“We didn’t have the strength or the financial capacity to stock up,” she shared. “Thank you for helping us.”