ABOVE; Heaven’s Table Board Chair Greta Lintelman stands with a stockpile of products, as they anticipate both a rise in attendees and a piece of the $4 million in state money as a result of SNAP benefits not going out for November.

FAIRMONT – With SNAP benefits officially set to not be sent out for November, and Governor Tim Walz releasing $4 million for Minnesota food banks, Fairmont area food shelves are prepping for a rise in attendance.

Income Maintenance Manager for Health and Human Services of Faribault and Martin Counties, Nicole Worlds, said this stoppage of SNAP will affect hundreds in Martin and Faribault County.

“Currently, we have 685 cases that receive Federal Food support in Faribault County,” Worlds said. “That [includes] 1,352 people, and 479 of those people are children. In Martin County, there are 936 cases, with 1,863 people, and 676 of those are children.”

Overall, $269,000 in benefits across both counties will not be sent. From the communications she and her staff have had, Worlds said people are very scared.

“Food support is for working families and working people who don’t quite make enough to support their family,” she said. “A great majority of the people on food support do work. They’re not quite covering all the expenses. It’s a gap filler for our working people who are trying to scrape it together and make ends meet.”

Heaven’s Table Board Chair Greta Lintelman said the preliminary thought regarding the money is that it will be a check to each food shelf, around $5,000. She said there has not been a firm confirmation on this, but there have been several meetings with the state and Second Harvest Heartland, their food bank, to keep everybody aware of what’s going on.

Support like this would be extremely beneficial, said Lintelman, as it would be able to cover their expenses for at least two weeks.

In the last couple of weeks, Lintelman said the number of families using the food shelf has increased, but not as fast as she expected.

“The notification to folks just went out last week that they’ll be affected,” she said. “I would expect that will continue to slowly increase.”

Heaven’s Table will be open for the same Tuesdays and Thursdays from 5 to7 p.m. and Saturdays from 9 to 11 a.m., as well as emergency phone orders on Monday and Wednesday from 8:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. for those who don’t have transportation. It is expected they call ahead of time.

What has changed is supply, which Lintelman said they have beefed up to match projected demand increases. Thankfully, she said she has also received an increase in people looking to volunteer.

“A couple people who are interested in their families coming and working with their churches to see if they can get volunteer work together to help us with some things,” Lintelman said. “It might be food deliveries, it might be working a shift. It might be building community boxes, but we’re certainly happy to hear that there are people that are looking to volunteer and give us some of their time.”

On top of the milk grant the state gives food shelves, Lintelman said funding from the state at this time has them grateful to be in a state that cares about feeding the less fortunate and impoverished.

Salvation Army Southwest Minnesota Service Area Manager Krystal Stover said around 80 to 90 percent of their food shelf attendees use SNAP. The Salvation Army Food Shelf is open Wednesdays from 9:30 a.m. to 12 p.m. and 1 to 3:30 p.m. Stover said they’ve known for around a month that this could be a possibility.

“We’ve started to reach out to some of the local churches and community members, asking for donations, food donations, non-perishable food items, to try to prepare for this increase in need we’re going to see,” she said.

At this time, Stover said they are not sure how they will benefit from the money from the state, but they do share a food bank with Heaven’s Table. What they’re looking for at this point in time is volunteers.

“We’re going into our kettle campaign, which does fund the food shelf for us, like purchasing food, doing other community outreach, such as rental assistance and stuff,” she said. “We are asking community members to consider ringing a bell this year, because that is what causes us to have the funding to meet needs within our community. We are asking for all the volunteers we can get right now.”

Volunteers can come from 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday to stock shelves, load the truck and help with the food shelf overall. Bell-ringing will be from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Saturday, with shorter shifts available, in front of Hy-Vee, Walmart, Fareway and Bomgaars, starting Nov. 15 and ending Dec. 23.

The St. John Vianney Hope Shop is open from 4 to 6 p.m. on Mondays and 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Fridays. The Hope Shop supplies the food itself, as volunteers for the shop, including Kathy Langer and Rita Lenertz, go out and get groceries once or twice a week. In addition to food, the shop supplies clothing and other items for people and their families.

Generally, they will have around 10 to 15 families across both days. In the last two sessions, they had 17 families last Friday and 21 families this Monday, totaling 38 separate families. People can get what they need from the shop once every four weeks.

Since they do run independently, they are not slated to receive any of the $4 million from the state. However, Lenertz said they have a good crop of volunteers able to help them with whatever needs to be done.

For information or to volunteer at Heaven’s Table, call (507) 238-5424; for the Salvation Army, call 507-238-9797 ext. 2; and for the St John Vianney Hope Shop, call (507) 235-5535 or visit the Parish Center at 901 South Prairie Avenue.