Bemidji Food Shelf Donations Stretch Further With FoodShare Month Matching

The Bemidji Community Food Shelf is on pace to distribute more than one million pounds of food in 2026, a record for the organization, and donations made before April 6 will stretch four times further through matching funds tied to Minnesota FoodShare Month.

The statewide campaign, which runs March 1 through April 6, pairs donor dollars with partial matches from the Greater Minneapolis Council of Churches through the Minnesota FoodShare FoodFund. The mechanics are straightforward: every $25 donation translates into $100 worth of food. The matching grant each participating food shelf receives also scales upward based on the number of people served and the total funds and pounds raised during the campaign period, meaning the Bemidji shelf's own fundraising performance directly affects how large a match it receives.

That local performance context matters. In just the first two months of 2026, the Bemidji Community Food Shelf recorded more than 2,000 visits, a pace that puts the year-end projection into sharper relief. The one million pound figure, if reached, would surpass any previous year on record for the shelf.

Minnesota FoodShare has coordinated this annual campaign for more than four decades, with roughly 300 food shelves across the state participating each March. The statewide need it addresses is significant: in 2021, Minnesota's projected food insecurity rate reached 8.6 percent, up from 7.7 percent in 2019, and 9 percent of Minnesotans lived below the poverty line in 2020, including 11 percent of the state's children. Food shelves statewide logged 3.7 million visits in 2021 alone. The FoodShare campaign is specifically designed to fund purchases through spring, summer, and early fall, the months when donations from the public run thinnest.

Donations to the Bemidji Community Food Shelf and other local shelves across Lakeland Country will continue to be accepted through April 6. Donors can give directly to the Bemidji Community Food Shelf or route contributions through the Greater Minneapolis Council of Churches via the FoodShare website, where 100 percent of Food Fund dollars are distributed back to participating shelves.

Alongside the FoodShare Month push, the Bemidji Community Food Shelf announced an expansion of its access hours. The shelf currently operates Monday, Wednesday, and Friday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Starting in April, it will open one evening per month, the first Monday of each month from 5 to 7 p.m., to accommodate community members who cannot reach the shelf during daytime hours.