Food shelf planned for Oakdale

Reacting to home foreclosures, sky-high gas prices and other signs of economic distress, several Woodbury residents are rallying to open a new community food shelf that would include other kinds of help like ride shares and child care.

"With the economy and the way it's going, everybody's getting overloaded," said Tammy Jensen-Boehne, who's organizing Place of Hope, a food shelf that she hopes to start this summer in Oakdale. The food shelf would serve residents of Oakdale, Woodbury and Maplewood.

Directors of food shelves already serving the three target cities question the need for another one.

They say they've worked hard to find donations and carve out resources to serve their clients as demand at east-metro food shelves grew in 2007 from the previous year.

"There are needs out there, but why double up and make it harder for the rest of us?" said Linda Zick of North St. Paul Area Food Shelf, which serves much of Oakdale. "The problem when you have too many food shelves is that you're duplicating clients or skimming resources."

Christian Cupboard, which has served Woodbury, Landfall and parts of Oakdale and Maplewood for 25 years, hasn't run out of food since its second year of operation and will grow to meet new demands, said Dick Wolfe, who runs the food shelf with his wife, Sharon. "We don't honestly feel there's a need," he said of Place of Hope.

Jensen-Boehne, a former client at Christian Cupboard who also volunteered there, said she's starting Place of Hope to help the community at a time of escalating financial misfortune. She said Place of Hope won't compete with Christian Cupboard.

"My goal from the beginning has been never ever to take from the current food shelf because that would be defeating our purpose," she said.

Food shelves throughout Minnesota are busier than ever, said Jill Hiebert, a spokeswoman for Hunger Solutions Minnesota. In Washington County, which includes Woodbury and Oakdale, food shelves saw 10 percent more clients in 2007 than in 2006, according to Hunger Solutions figures. Carver County in the southwest metro had the largest percentage increase at 22 percent. Elsewhere in the east metro, Ramsey County had a 6 percent increase. Dakota County fell 4 percent.

Some of Dakota County's decrease, Hiebert said, might be attributed to more food-shelf clients applying for government food stamps and therefore shopping elsewhere.

At Washington County's largest food shelf, Friends in Need in St. Paul Park, clients include "middle-class families now that aren't making it," said Director Michelle Rageth. The nature of people's economic struggles is outwardly more serious, such as sudden homelessness, and "it's just been really severe," she said.

1.3 million pounds of food

The demand is evident in the amount of food given out at the five Washington County shelves that Hunger Solutions tracks: 176,000 pounds more in 2007 than the previous year, for a total of nearly 1.3 million pounds of food distributed.

"Budgets are definitely being strained," said Hiebert, describing "food inflation" and escalating gas prices.

One of the Place of Hope board members, Tina Altman, said economic problems are becoming more and more evident in Woodbury despite its image as a wealthy city. She said her neighbors who have worked for a company for 25 years are in danger of being laid off, and three families in her neighborhood lost their houses in the mortgage crisis.

"Hard times can fall on anybody," said Altman, who supported her family after her husband and 3,000 other employees lost their jobs in cutbacks at St. Paul Travelers Companies Inc. three years ago.

Jensen-Boehne, who was unable to work after having surgery, went to Christian Cupboard for food and then volunteered there. She said Christian Cupboard's persisting growth in clients -- Wolfe said it's been 5 to 15 percent a year -- convinced her that another food shelf is needed. Place of Hope will offer other services, such as a free flu clinic, she said.

"The bottom line is you can feed them, but until you give them resources to get back on their feet, it's only a matter of time until they're back in the same circle," she said of food-shelf clients.

Altman is a member of the Woodbury chapter of Women Today, a fellowship and service organization that is backing Place of Hope. So are several churches, she said.

Jensen-Boehne, a Brainerd native, has lived in Woodbury for nine years. She is a certified nursing assistant at St. John's Hospital in Maplewood. Planning for Place of Hope began a month ago, she said, and the group is looking for a location in Oakdale.

Wolfe said that Christian Cupboard provides other services, too, including Thanksgiving and Christmas baskets for families, Christmas gifts for 800 children, and backpacks and supplies for schoolchildren. Christian Cupboard helps operate a financial crisis line for people experiencing foreclosures, evictions, utility shutoff or transportation problems, he said.

Zick said she wished that Place of Hope organizers had asked the North St. Paul food-shelf representatives if a dual arrangement would work in Oakdale. She said food shelves have to abide by boundaries to know who they're serving and how money and food will be donated.

"All of a sudden they're infringing on an area we're covering," she said.

Jensen-Boehne said that more people will turn to food shelves as gasoline and food prices continue to rise.

"It's to help people in the community," she said of Place of Hope.

Kevin Giles • 651-298-1554