NOURISH and Grow!
A nonprofit fundraiser supporting
Mount Olivet Lab School, Inc.You can help NOURISH Food Shelf secure a larger space to meet the community's rapidly growing need.
$100
raised by 1 people
Update #1
While many of you have shown concern for our story and suggested possible spaces, we still do not have a place to call our own. Fact is, NOURISH has been asked to vacate the church where we share space by next Monday, June 17th (the day after Father’s Day) because of the news story broadcast on Fox 9 News- a story that talked about our growth and the lack of space for storage of food.
Seemingly written out of spite, the letter we received doesn’t speak to the fact that NOURISH feeds 250 families each week (approximately 1,000 people) or that it is located in the most food insecure area of Saint Paul, MN. It doesn’t share that the immediate community is comprised primarily of BIPOC individuals and families living in Summit-University, Frogtown, and Thomas-Dale neighborhoods who are impacted by unemployment, underemployment, discrimination, and health conditions driven by lack of access to nutritious food, quality healthcare, and health education. Neither does it tell you about how NOURISH stood in the gap, leading through the pandemic when we were needed most. We didn’t stop knocking on doors or making calls until we got a “yes” big enough to feed a community and provide essential needs as well.
Over the last 4 years NOURISH has continued to grow at an astounding rate, but we have not lost our sense of community. We have employed individuals from the community; celebrated birthdays and graduations with community youth. What is most important to us is that we continue to make food accessible to everyone in the community who faces hunger. It doesn’t matter what you look like, what size your house is, what you drive, who you love, or what your faith tradition is. All we know is that everybody eats and at NOURISH there is no shame attached to accessing good food. Everyone deserves to be treated with dignity. Everyone deserves to eat well!
We started on this path of building a stronger, healthier, food secure communities over 4 years ago. Food insecurity continues to increase at an alarming rate, but with your help we’ll keep going…and going…and going…and going….
Please consider a donation today!
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mount Olivet Lab School was forced to make a shift in its youth programming. We closed our Kid’s Cafe’ on-site meal program and adapted a grab & go model. As the impact of Covid quickly spread, we responded by broadening our meal distributions to include fresh groceries and basic needs- becoming a safety net organization. The number of affected families continued to increase and we began to advocate for better quality food and healthier offerings. NOURISH Food Shelf was born from Lab School’s partnership with Second Harvest Heartland and the Emergency Food and Shelter Program.
Recently, what began with 3 families has swelled into almost 300 families weekly. Our services are offered in one of the most economically impacted and food insecure neighborhoods in the city of Saint Paul. Although we have strong partnerships, we are limited because we don’t have physical space to store or adequately prepare for the increased numbers without spending hours transitioning the space we share with another organization. Our hope is that someone might generously donate or open their unoccupied building to us to serve the community better. Additionally, we are raising funds to operate the new space.
Please consider a tax-deductible contribution to Mount Olivet Lab School, Inc. (NOURISH) today!