Moveable Feast: Food for Social Good

For our new weekly feature, "Moveable Feast," Rachel Hutton of Minnesota Monthly joins John Birge to talk about food topics in which Classical MPR listeners may be interested.

'Tis the season for Handel's Messiah — music composed for a charity benefit concert. This week, John and Rachel talk about how people around Minnesota can use food as a force for social good.

Visits to food shelves in the Twin Cities have almost doubled in the past five years, and hunger relief organizations are always in need of volunteers to help stock shelves, assist clients and process donations. Examples of such places include VEAP in Bloomington, and Neighborhood House in St. Paul.

There are also great organizations that deliver food to the ill or elderly; volunteers get more social interaction by visiting people at their homes through programs like Meals on Wheels or Open Arms.

Often food banks receive surplus produce from grocery stores and farmers, but there's a relatively new program in the Twin Cities called Fruits of the City which harvests surplus from individual homeowners' trees. You can offer up your tree or volunteer to pick fruits.

One other way to support is to eat at the new Daily Diner Frogtown in St. Paul, a restaurant operated by Union Gospel Mission, which trains people struggling with challenges such as homelessness and addiction and prepares them to work in the hospitality industry.

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