Local Food Shelf Will Keep Federal Food Supply

The will continue to receive its federal food supply after all.

Not long after learning that The Emergency Food Assistance Program—which provides roughly a quarter of STEP’s food—would be a , quick work was done Friday to get it back online.

“We were thrilled,” said STEP’s director, Jackie Olafson. “It would have been horrible for STEP (to lose it).”

The Emergency Food Assistance Program, or TEFAP, is federally funded and provides USDA commodity items to states, which in turn distribute the food to local food shelves. Despite accounting for roughly 30 percent of the state’s emergency food supply, the program was initially listed as “non-critical,” meaning it would have been suspended during the shutdown.

Joan Wadkins, a spokeswoman for the food shelf Second Harvest Heartland, said this spurred Hunger Solutions Minnesota into action. The group represents hundreds of food shelves in the state and acts as the “mouthpiece” for issues like this, Wadkins said.

Hunger Solutions contacted the Minnesota Department of Human Services, which eventually got a previously laid off worker who oversees TEFAP distribution back to work.

"We expect to continually evaluate whether a service has reached the critical level as the shutdown continues," DHS spokesman Terry Gunderson told Minnesota Public Radio. "However, given the fact that food is available and in the warehouse, we have called back staff to ensure it gets delivered to those who need it."

Wadkins said she thinks TEFAP was simply overlooked, as it is a lower-profile—but certainly important—source of food.

“There was literally one million pounds of food that wouldn’t have been distributed,” Wadkins said.

Instead, the issue caused a “minor blip” for food shelves across the state, Wadkins said. STEP, for instance, missed a weekly supply of TEFAP but should get the food next week, food shelf manager Kate Burggraff said.

Olafson said getting the TEFAP food back is great news, but added that it does nothing to address what could be a much larger issue—increased food shelf usage if the shutdown drags on.

“As this goes on, there will be a larger ripple effect,” she said.

Olafson said she is confident that the community would step up if more help was needed. And online, Second Harvest has started a GiveMN.org campaign to bring in much needed funds for STEP and others.

“We will be here,” Olafson said. “We will respond.”