Kitchen Table food shelf volunteer Twila Henning gathered grocery items for pickup on Friday. United Community Action Partnership food and nutrition manager Nikki Knobloch said the Kitchen Table has seen a growing number of people use the food shelf this year. Across Minnesota, the number of people visiting food shelves has set records over the past few years.

MARSHALL — The number of people visiting food shelves has grown across Minnesota this year. Local food shelves are also seeing a growing need.

“The numbers have increased,” said Nikki Knobloch, food and nutrition manager at United Community Action Partnership. Knobloch said the number of people visiting the Kitchen Table Food Shelf in Marshall has gone up each month over the past year.

There could be a number of reasons why more people were using the food shelf this year, Knobloch said. One possibility was rising costs.

“A lot of (clients) are seniors that are coming in,” Knobloch said. For some food shelf clients, Social Security wasn’t enough to cover the costs of necessities like groceries.

In 2022 and 2023, Minnesota broke records for the number of people visiting food shelves across the state. By the end of this year, there are likely to be close to nine million food shelf visits statewide, the Minnesota Star Tribune reported last week.

Just before Thanksgiving, Gov. Tim Walz announced that Minnesota will use $5 million in American Rescue Plan Act funding to help support food shelves.

The number of people using the Kitchen Table food shelf in Marshall jumped up this fall, Knobloch said. Between January and July 2024, an average of about 350 households a month were getting groceries from the food shelf. “We are now averaging about 450 families a month,” she said.

The month of November was a high point for food shelf usage. A total of 485 families came to the Kitchen Table that month, Knobloch said.

United Community Action Partnership has a total of five food shelves operating in its service region. In addition to the Kitchen Table locations in Marshall and Tracy, the list includes food shelf locations in Westbrook, Heron Lake and Worthington.

The Kitchen Table in Tracy is also serving increased numbers of people this year. Knobloch said the Tracy food shelf was serving an average of about 50 families a month in October 2023. Now, they’re serving about 60 to 80 families a month, she said.

“We’re ordering a lot more food,” Knobloch said – around 11,000 or 12,000 pounds of food per order. “This year, we’ve distributed 315,000 pounds of food.”

The Kitchen Table works with Second Harvest Heartland to help keep the food shelf stocked. The food shelf also works with a number of local businesses, including Aldi, Hy-Vee, Walmart, Kwik Trip, Performance Foodservice and Schwan’s, to do food rescue. Community donations have also given the food shelf some major support, Knobloch said. “Food drives have been amazing this winter,” she said.

The number of people coming to the food shelf in Marshall has fluctuated over the past few years, Knobloch said. In 2021, the highest number of visits in a month was 490. But the following year, the food shelf served about 250 families per month.

While the number of people visiting the food shelf has risen this year, Knobloch said it doesn’t necessarily give a complete picture of area residents’ needs.

“I think there’s a lot of people that we’re missing,” she said.

Knobloch said households can be eligible to use the Kitchen Table food shelf if their income is up to 300% of federal poverty guidelines. For a family of five, that would be an annual income of less than $109,000 a year, she said.

Knobloch said there were a few different ways area residents could support the Kitchen Table food shelf. Monetary donations are always accepted, she said.

“We are in need of more volunteers,” Knobloch said. Volunteers help assist people as they come through the food shelf, and help organize and prepare the food shelf for clients.