Today, at the Shelf of Hope, many tasks were completed. For example, a couple of friends and I cut and packaged Panera bread for the people. A few others worked to give the food to the people when they arrived. Also, some people took packages of food that the Shelf of Hope recieved and well, put them of the Shelves of Hope. 

I start my day by greeting all the customers at the doors of the Church. They are all so nice, friendly and appreciative of what we do every Wednesday for them. Today I bagged pastries and bagels, but on most days I work the front desk with Donald. That is my favorite job because I love talking to all the people. I like talking to the people about their days, or where they are from or what they like to do during the day. This is fun because I am a people person and I love having our service day and the Self of Hope.

As I walk into the room, which emits a strong smell of Panera bread, I notice that there were many tasks that need to be completed. There's three full boxes of Panera goodness, a bag of tuna, and of course the garden. I decided to take the job of writing, cause it seemed fun. Maybe the internet will help get the word out about the Shelf of Hope. Well, I guess I'm not going to get anything done typing all day, so... I'm going to go serve now. 

We start our day walking through the doors of Gethsemane church with a warm welcome from the many people waiting in the lobby. It's always amazing how happy they are, even though it's about 40 degrees and raining out today, and they might not have anywhere to go. After going into the back room, where they keep the food, we get to work. There are always lots of things to do including bagging up the fresh bread that is delivered each week, helping Doug pick out food for each individual person, picking food from the food shelf's garden, or organizing food on the shelves. Overall, we always have a fun time, and knowing that we're a part of feeding the hungry each wednesday, makes us leave feeling good. 

Although we haven't posted for a while, things are growing at the shelf.

The Shelf of Hope had a productive January.  We have seen a shift in the population we are serving.  The majority are single staying at one of the various shelters downtown.  We continue to serve people at the Drake, but there are fewer families there now.  We are told this will pick up again.  We served a total of 130 individuals - 9 children, 119 adults (18-64), and 2 seniors (65+).  We were able to give out over 874 pounds of food to people in need.  

Thank you to everyone who participated in the Shelf of Hope raffle at this year's Diocesan Convention in Minneapolis. We are happy to say that we raised nearly $300!

Without further ado, the raffle winners were Mary Lou Wiley and Kathleen Fischer.

Congratulations to both of you and to everyone for supporting such an important cause. We enjoyed talking with all of you about the Shelf of Hope and look forward to your continued support. Once again, thank you!

Today, our service group went outside with around twenty bagged lunches, it was a little chilly outside and really cloudy so we all had to dress warm. We went around downtown near Super Target and the IDS building. There were a few people around in Target and a few people sitting around in the IDS building. The people i went to really appreciated it and we all put smiles on their faces.

Today was a rainy day outside of The Shelf of Hope, But that didn't stop people from making the trip over to the corner of 9th and 4th avenue south. We found out today that The Shelf of Hope was accepted by Second Harvest Heartland. For those who didn't know Second Harvest Heartland is a large food distributor that helps food shelves around Minneapolis and Wisconsin. Hearing that good news we cleaned and organized the shelf. But cleaning didn't stop us from helping people that came by. Everyone that came in today had a happy attitude as always.