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Founded in 1992

The Friends in Need Food Shelf, started in 1992, is a community-funded food shelf and we are a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Friends in Need serves the residents of Cottage Grove, St. Paul Park, Newport and Grey Cloud Island. This past year we distributed over 1,000,000 lbs. of food and served 48,000 people.

Mission:

Provide food and resources to those in need.

Vision:

Improving lives by ending hunger.

What our clients are saying:

I wanted to express my gratitude for your help &support since COVID. Your support means the world to my family & I! I work more hours now and my husband got hired at a new job with better payment starting next month. So, we don't need help from Friends in Need anymore. However, We would love to thank you so much for your help!!

Thanks to all the Food Shelf volunteers for all you do. I appreciate that you understand and treat with dignity those of us experiencing financial hardship. May God bless you."

I have tried to find the right words for weeks to describe my thankfulness to you for all you have done for my husband and me. We are forever grateful. We have worked very, very hard all of our married life, but because of loss of job and a surgery I had, we had so many reversals. I never dreamt in a hundred years that we would be coming to Friends in Need. I wish I was in a position to pay you back. A simple thank you is so inadequate for all you have done.”