Southern Minnesota city's souped up food project aims to end hunger in the area

Almost 1 in 11 people in the Austin, Minn., area, home to Fortune 500 food manufacturer Hormel Foods Corp., has trouble finding enough to eat. This community hopes to change that.

Community leaders in Austin launched a program designed to help people access more food two years ago. Though the Hometown Food Security Project hasn't run for long, advocates say it's already making a difference.

"It's one thing to roll out a document stating that we've addressed food insecurity, but it's another thing to really roll up our sleeves and get to work to understand the root causes," said Gema Alvarado-Guerrero, co-director of the project.

The concept sounds simple: Get a full-time social worker to connect families to local food shelves, backpack programs and other services that will help feed them. Start an advertising campaign telling Mower County families how to get food benefits. Bring groups together and coordinate programs so they can spread resources around.

The work includes a recently launched app, available in nine languages, that connects people to food pantries and other resources. It also helps folks figure out how to apply for SNAP benefits and what changes there are to the program — while at the same time providing project organizers with data on who needs help in the community.

The project took more than a year's worth of planning before it launched, and more than a decade of work from individual agencies that weren't getting anywhere on their own.

Nonprofit food bank network Feeding America estimates that between 8% and 11% of Mower County residents couldn't find enough food to eat from 2009-2020. Most qualified for federal SNAP benefits, formerly known as food stamps. And in Austin Public Schools, nearly 70% of students qualified for free or reduced lunch programs before Minnesota started offering school meals for free.

Local organizations have tried to tackle food access issues on their own. The United Way of Mower County and local churches have backpack programs that provide students with food during weekends, while the local senior center and other groups bring food to those in need, among other strategies.

"It's a big challenge," said Molly Lanke, director of the United Way of Mower County. "I think that's probably what has held the community up before when we tried to tackle it. It's just too big of a bite to take, and so this initiative has helped us scale it back."

Hometown Food Security put out a report in 2023 that laid out the need for more cooperation. Local groups formed a coalition under the United Way, which funds many of the agencies involved. Alvarado-Guerrero was hired to head the project along with volunteer Tammy Snee, wife of Hormel CEO Jim Snee.

The project has its own office along Main Street in Austin. Officials plan to track how many people it serves over the next few years. That data will create a blueprint that local leaders hope to share with other communities across the state to increase food access.

In a statement, Tammy Snee said the project is "a testament to what we can achieve together to address complex social issues like food insecurity."

"It's about more than just feeding the hungry; it's about understanding the root causes of hunger, educating our community, and building scalable, sustainable systems that uplift everyone," she said.

It will be difficult to replicate the advantages Austin has — Hormel is the city's most prominent employer and the Hormel Foundation gives out hundreds of thousands of dollars to community causes. But leaders say similar networks can be built around partnerships with local businesses or other groups.

"Keep chipping away and find that champion," Lanke said.

Organizers say it's too early to tell how successful the project is, but they're seeing encouraging signs. The United Way's backpack program went from serving about 530 students to more than 800 last year. The project has poured extra resources into certain programs, such as a Thanksgiving dinner at the Salvation Army or coordinating grant funding through the United Way to expand area resources.

That comes from advocates like Alvarado-Guerrero meeting face to face with more people, who help them navigate resources for the food-insecure.

"There's never going to be a silver bullet for addressing food insecurity across Mower County, and that's been a very humbling experience," Alvarado-Guerrero said. "Being able to take an individualized approach ... has been great as far as some of our accomplishments go."