It can happen to anyone.

Five years ago, Katherine lived the good life. Her long and enjoyable career in the book publishing industry allowed her to easily pay the mortgage on her nice house in her nice St. Paul neighborhood. She enjoyed plenty of travel perks. A company car. Great benefits.

It all went away suddenly. Like more and more people throughout the country, Katherine was laid off with little warning. The gravity of her situation didn’t worry Katherine at first, because with her experience and resume, she assumed that a good new job would be easy to secure. Seven months later, Katherine was squeaking by on the weak income generated by the part time jobs she managed to cobble together. She no longer worried about health insurance or job perks. She worried about making the house payment.

With no steady job on the horizon, her savings dwindling and her home in jeopardy, Katherine realized that she needed help. Like many people plunged suddenly into a dire situation, she didn’t accept this fact easily. "I thought that there was something wrong with me that I needed such help,” she remembers. "I was angry, embarrassed and frustrated.”

With the prodding of a concerned friend and some enlightening research, Katherine made her way to Keystone Community Services, her local food shelf and a Second Harvest Heartland partner. What she found there put it all in perspective. "The people around me looked like me,” she remembers. "They looked like members of my family, people I worked with. It was a humbling and educational experience.” Katherine realized that everyone needs help from time to time. She is proud that she was able to keep her house.

Katherine’s experience inspired her to get more involved. Once she got back on her feet, she made it a point to give back herself, volunteering at her local food shelves or holding mini food drives within her neighborhood. And she plans to continue as long as there’s a need.

"I would like to tell people that there is help out there, that people do care,” she says. "There is plenty of food in America and certainly enough within Minneapolis and St. Paul to feed everybody. The help is out there.”

Food delivery to the food shelves, soup kitchens and shelters that make up the distribution network for Second Harvest Heartland’s Food Bank program has increased 56% in just the last year. Working families, children and seniors are in need like never before. Your contributions are more important than ever. Join us, won’t you? Make a difference today in the lives of your hungry neighbors.

A little help, a long way.

Sometimes, you just can’t catch a break. Second Harvest Heartland realizes that during the toughest times, a little help can go a long way.

Richard’s struggles began in 2001 when he severely injured both of his arms on the job. Torn ligaments in his elbows and hands made it impossible for Richard to continue working. Despite surgeries in both arms, he never regained full functionality. Adding insult to injury, Richard developed cataracts on both eyes, resulting in further surgery. And recently, Richard had a stroke. Working is no longer an option for him.

While Richard was healing, his wife Alice broke her elbow and developed arthritis in both of her hands, and when her company changed ownership, she was forced to retire. Since then, she has developed chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, a condition that makes breathing very difficult.

"It’s just been a constant battle," Richard said of his family’s predicament. With neither able to work, the couple exists solely on their meager Social Security benefits. They just get by with the help of the Commodity Supplemental Food Program (CSFP), which provides 35-pound boxes of nutritionally balanced USDA food every month at no cost to approximately 10,000 income-eligible pregnant and post-partum women, children up to the age of six and to seniors age 60 and older.

A federal program, the CSFP is managed locally by Second Harvest Heartland and allows Richard some breathing room when it comes to paying the bills. "We find that the extra food does help a lot because we can keep up with our bills," he says of the program. "Otherwise we’d be behind and people would be coming knocking on our doors, shut off our gas, our electricity. And I don’t know what we’d do then. I...I just don’t have an answer to that without that extra help."

Food delivery to the food shelves, soup kitchens and shelters that make up the distribution network for Second Harvest Heartland’s Food Bank program has increased 56% in just the last year. Working families, children and seniors are in need like never before. Your contributions are more important than ever. Join us, won’t you? Make a difference today in the lives of your hungry neighbors.

Creating a community of giving.

Talk about paying it forward. Meet Gloria. She’s a perfect example of how helping just one person can create an entire community of giving.

Gloria makes the most of the nutritional assistance she receives from Second Harvest Heartland. What she and her husband can’t use, she redistributes to hungry families around her neighborhood. Meat and vegetables left over from her meals are turned into soup soup that Gloria also donates to those who need it most.

Gloria’s soup donations create a chain reaction of giving in her neighborhood. The man who lives across the street appreciates the soup so much that he shovels Gloria’s sidewalk after snowstorms. Other soup recipients have been known to follow Gloria’s and her neighbor’s examples — paying it forward by babysitting, mowing grass or just helping those in the neighborhood who need help.

"Second Harvest Heartland has a far-reaching effect," Gloria says, "not just for my family, but for a lot of other families. If I can’t utilize it, I find somebody in the neighborhood who can."

The money she saves by visiting Second Harvest Heartland member agencies goes right back to the community. While she’s at home taking care of her husband, a victim of a severe heart attack in 1995, Gloria enjoys knitting. Perusing thrift stores and other bargain shops, Gloria purchases quality yarn and knits slippers that she then donates back to Goodwill, the Salvation Army, Toys for Tots or people in the community who simply need some good foot warmers.

Gloria works so hard at giving back because she feels that every single person can make a big difference. "I want people to realize that you may think that one person can’t do much. But if 500 one-persons think that...Let’s say you have 500 people that have never contributed and they each contribute a dollar. Now there you go. Now we’re talking some money."

If Gloria can do it, so can you. Set an example by giving back to your community. Sometimes, one action can start a chain reaction of giving.

Food delivery to the food shelves, soup kitchens and shelters that make up the distribution network for Second Harvest Heartland’s Food Bank program has increased 56% in just the last year. Working families, children and seniors are in need like never before. Your contributions are more important than ever. Join us, won’t you? Make a difference today in the lives of your hungry neighbors.

Helping out in those times of need.

Julie is a mother of four struggling through the hardest times of her life. The father of her children recently passed away. She had to quit school to take care of the family. She lost her house and then her job. In her time of need, her local Second Harvest Heartland member agency has been a vital part of her life.

"I’m so glad the food shelf is there," she says. "It helps to be able to know that you are able to put a meal on the table and that your kids won’t have to go hungry."

While the money she saves by shopping her local food shelf has made it possible for Julie to secure a new place to live and consider going back to school, the peace of mind she receives knowing that her children aren’t going to go hungry is perhaps the most valuable aid of all.

"It helps you to not have to worry about putting food on your table," she says. "But also the money that you would have used for food, you are able to use for your rent, or the phone bill, or gas for your car, or transportation to get to where you need to go, to be able to be productive and earn a living wage."

Despite her recent hardships, Julie has maintained a positive outlook on life, due in large part to the good works she sees done at the food shelves in the Second Harvest Heartland network. She wishes everyone would follow the examples set by these programs.

"I just want to thank all the people who help our communities and our children," she says. "Because there’s no reason why children should have to go to bed hungry at night. This is America. There’s no reason at all."

Food delivery to the food shelves, soup kitchens and shelters that make up the distribution network for Second Harvest Heartland’s Food Bank program has increased 56% in just the last year. Working families, children and seniors are in need like never before. Your contributions are more important than ever. Join us, won’t you? Make a difference today in the lives of your hungry neighbors.

We’re there when hardship strikes.

Meet Don and his family. Like many Americans, Don, his wife and their two children (a 6-year-old daughter and a son of seventeen months) lived a carefree life just a year ago. As an X-ray technician and a building planner, Don and his wife had built a comfortable life around their solid, white-collar jobs.

Like it usually does, hardship reared up from nowhere to hit the family. Don was diagnosed with a degenerative illness, and suddenly he could no longer work. Then, just as the family was adjusting to the constraints of a single income, Don’s wife was laid off from her job. Just like that, all other concerns were pushed aside to make way for one scary thought: How are we going to put food on the table?

Four weeks later, Second Harvest Heartland reached Don and his family through a food distribution service. The family was provided with food that went a long way towards making ends meet. In a time of need, Second Harvest Heartland was there. In spite of his family’s hardships, Don realized the blessing of programs created and coordinated by Second Harvest Heartland.

“It’s good that these programs are here because people need them,” Don said. “My children need things. They need to have food. They need to have clothes. We need to have a roof over our head. Hopefully it won’t be something that we (will need) for long. But in the meantime, it’s kept us with food.”

Food delivery to the food shelves, soup kitchens and shelters that make up the distribution network for Second Harvest Heartland’s Food Bank program has increased 56% in just the last year. Working families, children and seniors are in need like never before. Your contributions are more important than ever. Join us, won’t you? Make a difference today in the lives of your hungry neighbors.