Don Heinzman Editorial -- The alarming use of food shelves by those who thought they’d never use them poses a challenge to stock food shelves throughout the region during this Minnesota Food Share month.

People who once contributed food to local shelves now are getting food from them, even as they are working. Minnesota Food Shelf reports that the fastest growing group of food shelf users reported they have a job, but the wage doesn’t stretch far enough.

Loss of jobs and income are forcing them to the food shelves, and that’s what these shelves are for.

A community’s major responsibility is to stock food shelves to feed the hungry in their midst.

Food shelves in Minnesota have drives under way for you to give money or food this month.  Churches and grocery stores have special promotions to get you to give.

It’s not hard, just fill a bag with groceries and take it to your church or food shelf. If that’s not possible, donate dollars.

The statistics on hungry Minnesotans are heart-breaking.  According to the Emergency Food Shelf Network, the number of people being served by food shelves in Minnesota has risen 45 percent in the past four years.

An estimated one in 10 children in Minnesota lives in poverty and one in three qualifies for free and reduced lunches, based on low income guidelines.  Half of the households that get food from the shelves have at least one child under the age of 18.

Area food shelf staffs say most of their clients are in the 18 to 55-age range.

Food shelves throughout the state have special drives to raise money and get food for depleted shelves. If the drive raises the money, the food shelf qualifies for help from Second Harvest.

Few, no matter what their ideology, dispute the value of having well supplied food shelves.

A check around the local area tells the same story.  More people need food and are getting it at food shelves.

This is evident in western Dakota County where from 2005 to 2009, the users of the food shelf went up from 7,600 to 12,000.  The number of middle class families who never thought they’d go to a food shelf continues to go up and may bottom out in May.

One measure of the change is in the growing number of students qualifying for free and reduced lunches in the schools.  In Burnsville kindergarten, half of the students qualify for the reduced lunch program.

Mary Ajax, director of the Community Action Council, says in her experience since 1975, this recession is the worst in Dakota CountyCAER, the food shelf in Elk River, heavily hit by home foreclosures, has launched a drive for $85,000.

In Farmington the food shelf is serving 100 people a month, and requests are going up.

The North Anoka County Emergency Food Shelf reports that since 2006 the number of weekly food shelf visits has gone up 35 percent.  This food shelf serves Andover, Bethel, East Bethel, Ham Lake, Linwood Township, Oak Grove and St. Francis.

Kelly Bailey, coordinator for the Family Pathways Food Pantry serving residents in Forest Lake and Wyoming, says more middle class families are coming for food.  The pantry served 180 families involving 519 members in February and the number is increasing every year.

At the Morrison County Food Shelf, The number of pounds of food given out last year was 20 per cent higher than the year before and double what it was in 2004.  Last year, the food shelf gave out 350,000 pounds and there has been no let-up this year.

In most communities residents have kept the food shelves supplied.   This March Food Drive month is your challenge.  Those who have should give.  – DON HEINZMAN