How St. Paul City School is Supporting Food Access for Students and Families

Last spring, Shina Massey began talking to Second Harvest Heartland about starting a food shelf.

As coordinator of partnerships at St. Paul City School (SPCS), Shina saw firsthand how deeply food insecurity affected many of her students. The community school serves 650 students, ranging from pre-k to 12th grade, and Shina had noticed a continuous rise in the number of families reaching out for food help in the last few years.

“My goal is to listen to families and bring essential resources directly to them,” said Shina of her role as coordinator of partnerships. “Creating a food pantry is another way we’re ensuring our students and families have what they need to thrive—both inside and outside the classroom.”

Shina connected with Second Harvest Heartland to explore a partnership and learn what it takes to open a food shelf. After several meetings, an opportunity to partner with Hy-Vee to fund the creation of a school-based food pantry came about. The employee-owned grocery store chain had recently made a commitment to reduce child hunger in their stores’ communities through helping schools create on-site school pantries.

“We had many internal discussions about how Hy-Vee could fight childhood hunger by supporting school pantries at the local level,” said Dawn Buzynski, director of communications at Hy-Vee. “This fall, we decided to launch a pilot program to provide funding for three on-site school pantries across our region, and St. Paul City School was the first to open.”

Dawn Buzynski, Shina Massey, and Second Harvest Heartland Chief Development Officer Erica Campbell at the SPCS Food Pantry grand opening.

Not only did Hy-Vee provide SPCS the seed money to outfit their food pantry but also provided sweat equity with Twin Cities-area Hy-Vee store leaders coming to build shelves and stock food prior to the school food shelf’s grand opening.

Since opening, the food pantry has seen a steady increase in families using the food resource. 

“September 25th was the grand opening, and we served about 60 families,” said Shina. “We opened again in October and served about 80. We're opening tomorrow and I have 90 families on my list.”

Some of the foods offered at SPCS’s on-site food pantry.

The SPCS food pantry provides families with a variety of foods that families know and love, like produce, meat, eggs, dairy, and cultural staples like beans and rice.

“As a grocer, we don't want anyone to go hungry, so we are going to help when we can to provide for our communities,” said Dawn. “Food insecurity has long existed, and it continues to rise. Whatever we can do to help our neighbors and our customers, we want to do that.”

“We’re deeply grateful to Hy-Vee and Second Harvest Heartland for their generosity and partnership,” said Shina. “This pantry represents more than food—it represents dignity, access, and opportunity for our students and families.”