Bemidji food shelf seeks volunteers for farm planting days
Two planting mornings at the Bemidji Community Food Shelf can help fuel a 3.5-acre farm that grows thousands of pounds of produce for Beltrami County families.
Fresh produce on Bemidji shelves starts with planting in the dirt at 1260 Exchange Ave. SE, where the Bemidji Community Food Shelf is seeking volunteers for two mornings of work from 8 a.m. to noon on Tuesday, June 9, and Wednesday, June 10.
The request carries more weight than a routine call for help. The food shelf says its 3.5-acre farm, located next to the main building in Bemidji, started in 2017 on an industrial site and now grows thousands of pounds of fresh produce every year for distribution through the food shelf. Those two planting days are the first step in that chain, turning a few hours of volunteer labor into harvests that can later reach households across Beltrami County and the Bemidji School District.
That local growing capacity matters because the organization says it purchases two-thirds of the food it distributes. In other words, the farm is not a side project. It is part of the food shelf’s core supply strategy, helping fill gaps with locally grown greens and vegetables while the rest of the inventory is bought in. For families that rely on the food shelf, that combination can mean more fresh food, not just shelf-stable items, when budgets are tight.
The food shelf also points to a broader year-round production plan. It is one of five Minnesota sites to construct a Deep Winter Greenhouse in partnership with the University of Minnesota, using a prototype designed by the university’s Center for Sustainable Building Research to help grow greens and vegetables through the winter. That makes the planting days part of a longer calendar of food production, not just a short spring push.
Volunteers are needed across the food shelf’s work, from the front desk and warehouse to the community farm, and the United Way of Bemidji Area says helping in the garden is one way to get involved. For Bemidji, the immediate ask is simple: show up for two mornings, plant, and help build a local food system that can keep producing long after the last seed goes in the ground.
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