Food shelf seeks home where rent doesn't eat up everything

An East Bethel church is preparing to close the ministry center in the church's former building. Advocates of the North Anoka County Emergency Food Shelf worry that the food shelf may close as well.

Our Saviour's Lutheran Church Ministry Center has been the 25-year-old food shelf's longtime home, but the church moved into a new building four years ago and plans to close the ministry center Sept. 1.

The food shelf needs a new home, but prospective landlords are asking for more than 10 times the rent that the church charged.

The church collected about $2,500 a year in rent from the food shelf, "almost like a donation" from the church, associate pastor Dennis Wright said last week.

Paying "little or no rent" for the past 25 years has enabled the food shelf to "supplement the donations with purchased food when needed," said Nancy Matson, food shelf board secretary.

Three potential landlords have set rent at $2,000 to $2,500 per month, plus another wanted $2,000 up front as a damage deposit. At least one of those rental spaces is not air conditioned and has no office space.

"We can afford maybe $3,000 a year, but $2,000 a month will knock us out," said James Kappelhoff, 73, of East Bethel. "We feed 1,500 to 1,800 people a year. What are those people going to do if we lose our home? Where are they going to go?"

"I write out all my monthly checks on the third of the month, tuck them in the mailbox, add it up and I might have $50 left for the rest of the month," she said. "With gas prices what they are, there are plenty of people who wouldn't have food on the table if it weren't for that food shelf."

Because she has a car, she said, she picks up food for other people who live in her senior housing building. "We just take what we need, nothing more. We don't ask for much. There may not be anything left to ask for," Eckman said.

Kappelhoff, who has helped run the food shelf for nearly 20 years, recently organized a meeting in which he invited officials from several communities in northern Anoka County to talk about the food shelf's future. Ham Lake's Paul Meunier was the only mayor to attend he said.

Church officials may have provided a short-term solution Wednesday when they told Kappelhoff that the food shelf can make a request for an extension "and our board will deal with it," Wright said.

Earlier last week, Doug Sell, East Bethel's city administrator, met with food shelf board member Jill Hoffman, with Sell offering suggestions of possible new homes. Hoffman said it's important that the food shelf remain in the northern section of Anoka County, where longtime clientele have come to rely on it.

"We were blessed with a wonderful space, provided by a wonderful ministry," she said. "But we can't work out of a closet. And we can't pay rent that could be used to put food on people's tables."