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Between the two markets, Today’s Harvest has over 600 visits almost every weekday. Neither store would be possible without all of your help, thank you! 

The change to shopping for one family at a time has gone very well. As a reminder, if someone is shopping for a second family, they will need to get another pager or go to the end of the line before shopping again. If you notice someone shopping for two families at the same time, please remind them of the change. 

For our THOS (4th Street North market) volunteers, you may have had people come in and ask about the DoorDash deliveries. Open Cupboard recently partnered with DoorDash, and we now offer deliveries on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays. If a driver comes inside asking about deliveries, you can direct them to the sorting center’s garage door or let the manager know by calling pager 66. 

After weeks of waiting, we now have new signs at the original Today’s Harvest. We also have a new sign for the bread table at THOS. We have new flyers with updated drive-up hours. As a reminder, customers can visit both the market and drive-up on the same day. On Thursday and Fridays, please remind customers when they receive a pager to shop inside before going to the drive-up line. 
 
Thursdays are now our busiest day at the new market, with the drive-up opening an hour earlier at 2 pm. It also happens to be a day we are often short on volunteers. If you are interested in being on a last-minute help list, you can fill out the form here.

 
Meet volunteer Judy

Judy knew that Open Cupboard would be a great place to volunteer. A family member was severely impacted by the early pandemic shutdowns--they lost both their sources of income; Judy had heard about Open Cupboard and convinced her family member to use our services. Through this, Judy was able to see "how valuable it was for people in tough circumstances." She finds it gratifying to meet the unseen need of hunger in the community. 

You probably haven't seen Judy at Open Cupboard or Today's Harvest; that's because she volunteers to help with our Landfall Mobile Food Shelf every Tuesday. There, she helps pack boxes for delivery and loads them, then helps with the walk-up distribution. Her "crew-mates" are great to work with. She loves that both volunteers and customers are multi-generational, which makes it fun to work with everyone. 

Judy loves to suggest ideas and recipes to customers when they aren't sure how to use certain foods. She also loves to learn the different ways people will cook an item based on their cultural background--there was even a woman who came back with a sample of her recipe. This might be why Judy's favorite food is "any food one eats when they share a meal with friends and family." 

When she isn't at Landfall, Judy loves to golf in the summer and do curling in the winter. Year-round you can find her working on her family history. And if you can't find Judy, it is probably because she is traveling the world--she's been to all seven continents! You might even find her in a forest in Sweden with her cousin, Lennart, foraging for mushrooms (the buttery yellow, apricot-scented chanterelle is her favorite). 

New Food Rescue Partner

Open Cupboard has partnered with United Noodles in Woodbury. We will now pick up food rescue from the grocery store Tuesdays and Fridays which will be about 150 pounds of food each week. This is the Woodbury location's first foray into food rescue and we are not only excited to partner with them, but to also be able to provide more culturally relevant produce choices for our shoppers. 

4th Street Closure 

If you volunteer at 8264 4th Street North, be aware that 4th Street is currently closed to traffic. The work started July 11th and may go into September. The best way to enter will be off of 3rd Street, by the Best Buy. 

You can learn more about the road closure at https://www.ci.oakdale.mn.us/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=280
Landfall Mobile Food Shelf:
Creating a Community Resource
 
In September 2020, Open Cupboard started its first service of the Landfall Mobile Food Shelf. Prior, we had only Senior Mobiles--a mobile food shelf for a senior living center-- or one-time large-scale distributions for various communities. This would be the first long-standing mobile food shelf in a community setting and we knew that Landfall was a perfect community to start in. The Landfall is a low-income community with about 300 families, half of which speak Spanish. While we knew there was need in Landfall, we were not seeing residents come to Open Cupboard--so we decided to come to them. 

Every Tuesday, rain or shine or a surprise snowstorm, Open Cupboard is in Landfall. Families are able to walk into the Community Center and pick out the food they want. Those that can't make the distribution can get a food pack delivered to their house courtesy of Newtrax. Each week, we serve about 80 families and all together will provide food to about half of the residents of Landfall. 
 
Our Programs take a lot of people to help make them successful and we are so grateful for your help each and every day. But there are times we need more volunteers to help us feed our community. 

We encourage you to sign up for our "Volunteer Stand-by" list. You will submit your availability (ie Monday and Wednesday afternoons). If we are short on volunteers, we would contact you if the shift is listed as a time you would be available. This does not mean you need to be available all the time--but you could be a "stand-by" volunteer if we needed extra help. 

If you have any questions, please reach out to volunteer@opencupboard.org
Volunteer Stand-By Sign Up
Important Dates

September 3rd-5th
Open Cupboard and Today's Harvest closed for Labor Day
 
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8264 4th Street N
Oakdale, MN 55128

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