The Bountiful Basket Food Shelf is once again participating in the Minnesota Food Share Campaign that is being held from February 28 through April 10. The purpose of this annual event is to bring awareness to the over 300 Minnesota food shelves that participate as well as to raise money and food that will be donated to help people who are in need. This state wide effort will also help to build healthier and better communities where everyone has easier access to nutritious food. Last year over 13 million dollars were raised in addition to 6 million pounds of donated food.
Financial donations to the Bountiful Basket are appreciated with the dollars being used at area food banks such as The Food Group that provide discounted food purchasing opportunities. To make a donation you may go online to bountifulbasketfoodshelf.org or send to the Bountiful Basket, 1600 Bavaria Road, Chaska, MN. 55318. Recently many of the basic needs including food that families require to live on comfortably have gone up in cost. The food that that the Bountiful Basket needs to purchase has gone up in cost for the same reason it has for families shopping at the grocery store.
The Bountiful Basket continues to focus on Eastern Carver County and the communities of Carver, Chanhassen, Chaska and Victoria. Food partnership opportunities continue to be explored with other area service organizations that have as their mission an interest in helping individuals and families in need. Our partnership with Humanity Alliance is an example of a food assistance program where they provided over 275,000 healthy weekend meals over the past year with nearly 60% of those benefiting being Carver County residents. A new Bountiful Basket partnership currently being worked on is with Mi Casa and His House where a food assistance program will start up in March that will be focused primarily on serving the growing number of Latino families in the area. The food shelf will be open on the first and third Thursdays of each month and offer culturally specific food in addition to our usual basic food provisions. Spanish speaking client assistance will be on site for those who may need the service to make their shopping experience more enjoyable. Other ongoing food partnership programs include monthly food drop offs at Waybury and Talheim senior citizen dwellings as well as the weekly deliveries to the New Beginnings program in Chaska. SouthWest Transit also partners twice a month to deliver food to those who request it. Each month over 1,400 individuals access over 30,000 pounds food at the Bountiful Basket.
JOHN MYHR – The success of the food shelf is predicated in total on the kindness of its nearly 100 volunteers. Although every volunteer hour is appreciated there has been 1 individual that has been able to shine the brightest over the past 10 years and that person is John Myhr. John has decided to retire from his 20+ hour a week volunteer job to spend more time doing other things that he enjoys as of the end of March. John’s primary duties focused on the food warehouse operations that included food ordering, food pick up/weighing/safety and volunteer coordination. A reception in John’s honor is scheduled for March 17 from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m. at the Chaska VFW with the public invited to attend.
Thank you for caring.