Yvette and Carola Pay Forward the “Love and Respect” from Hastings Family Service

For Yvette and Carola, Hastings Family Service—a Second Harvest Heartland partner food shelf—is not only a place to receive fresh, varied groceries, but to be welcomed into community, and they encourage others to do the same.

Three or four years after moving to Minnesota from California, Yvette’s husband got in an accident. The process of trying to get on Social Security Disability Insurance was arduous; it left Yvette and her husband “counting the days... barely making ends meet.”

Carola, Yvette’s aunt, is on a fixed income. Rent, utilities, and maintenance for her trailer left her without much money remaining for groceries.

Both women found Hastings Family Service to be a “godsend.” After moving across the country, far away from family, to “be treated like family and with respect” was a welcome respite.

Yvette and her aunt Carola regularly visit the Hastings Family Service food shelf together to pick up groceries.

Staff and volunteers aren’t simply administering a service; they are forming relationships. They know about Carola’s penchant for sweets and will point her in the direction of cookies when she does her shopping. When Yvette mentioned that Carola was struggling to pay her utility bills, they told her about the Energy Assistance Program, which has now cut her bills in half. At prom and homecoming time, a display of shoes and dresses appears in the organization’s thrift store for those who would not otherwise be able to afford them.

Hasting Family Service meets a diverse range of food needs. When Carola still prepared her own food, but needed less labor-intensive options, she could find microwave or stovetop-ready meals. Yvette cooks a lot of Hispanic food and appreciates the selection of fresh foods offered by the food shelf. “Right now, there's chiles and cilantro and limes and everything I use,” she says. “There's tortillas, just a wide variety of stuff.”

Yvette and Carola have also made sure that others reap the same benefits they have from Hastings Family Service. Carola described a time she saw a woman sitting outside the building crying, a baby in her arms. It turned out the woman was afraid to enter but needed food for herself and her baby. Carola offered to accompany her, and they stocked up on food. Upon leaving, the woman thanked Carola and told her she would be back.

“It is Family Services,” Carola says. “That’s the perfect name for it, really.”