Making Hunger History: Year One Progress

It will take all of us to Make Hunger History. That’s why in the two years leading up to the launch of our initiative to cut hunger in half by 2030, we gathered insights from neighbors, partners, and community leaders to guide our work. These conversations created five areas of focus:

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More Food Where It’s Needed

While the data and community conversations prove that food banking alone isn’t enough to end hunger, food banking is a crucial part of a growing effort. So, we took a close look at our deliveries to find more efficient schedules and routes, while keeping our delivery costs flat. This increased the pounds we delivered by 18%. This includes 20% more protein and 30% more produce—essential nutritional building blocks most requested by Minnesota families.  

“We love the different types of vegetables. We try to eat as healthy as possible, as well as economical as possible,” says Luis, a neighbor who uses The Open Door Pantry in Eagan, one of Second Harvest Heartland’s partners. “We eat a lot of meals that are protein heavy—so, chicken and beef. But we also want to include all of the vegetables to make sure we have enough for everyone.”

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Finding Families Grocery Dollars

The Supplemental Nutrition Access Program (SNAP) is the most effective and largest anti-hunger program in the country. However, navigating the application process can be difficult for neighbors to do alone. Recognizing this, Second Harvest Heartland ramped up our Care Center’s capacity with the technology and staffing to handle up to 30% increased volume.  

One neighbor who used the Care Center was feeling overwhelmed by the process of applying for SNAP. “They had hit a wall in their application process, and so I was able to connect them with our amazing county contact to help smooth out the process to proceed to qualification,” says Dana, one of the Second Harvest Heartland’s Care Center advisors.  

The Care Center met its goal of supporting 15% more neighbors in 2024 and plans to do the same in 2025.

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Turning Advocacy into Action 

As the state’s largest food bank, we saw that the need confronting our state’s hunger-relief system was becoming unsustainable and knew that public policy had the ability to help turn the tide.

Thanks to the hard work of Second Harvest Heartland’s Public Affairs team and our food bank and food shelf partners, we secured more than $10 million for hunger relief in 2024.  

“We must continue to build on investments in the emergency food system along with universal school meals and the child tax credit in order to end hunger once and for all," says Second Harvest Heartland CEO Allison O’Toole.

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Getting Local to Get It Done

Through our mapping and data collection, Second Harvest Heartland chose seven communities where neighborhood partnerships could significantly move the needle on hunger. Once identified, Second Harvest Heartland hosted listening sessions to learn about each community to understand how we could help organizations scale up their services and purchase culturally affirming food.

Furthermore, with the continuation of the Rising Partners program, direct support is provided to community-led food programs. This program allows a small cohort of agency partners to receive resources, one-on-one support and additional funding to increase organizational sustainability.

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Setting Benchmarks

The centerpiece of our plan to track shared progress is the Statewide Hunger Study, released in January 2025. We partnered with Wilder Research on this high-resolution look at hunger across the state, to identify the kinds of support families are using to meet their food needs and where more help is needed.

Among the report’s key findings:

• 1 in 5 Minnesota households cannot afford the food they need and must use external support such as food shelves and SNAP to meet their needs.  
• Another 1 in 5 Minnesota households are worried they may experience food insecurity within the next year.  
• Food insecurity is higher in southwestern and northern Minnesota, with 1 in 4 households classified as food insecure.
• Racial disparities are significant, as only 60% of households of color are food secure, compared to 81% of households overall.
• Households with seniors or children are especially vulnerable to food insecurity.

These numbers show the stark reality of food insecurity in our state and outline the work that needs to be done to cut hunger in half for all Minnesotans by 2030. Second Harvest Heartland will be conducting comparison studies during each year of the Make Hunger History initiative, allowing our partners and supporters to track progress along the way. With these areas of focus, combined with the efforts of our partners and the generous support of our advocates and donors, we are confident in our mission of ending hunger together.   

READ THE REPORT

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