Open Your Heart is excited to announce our 2024 Spring grantees! Thanks to our generous supporters, Open Your Heart awarded nearly $90,000 in funding this quarter to Minnesota crisis service agencies in need! Collectively, this funding will support over 964,000 Minnesotans experiencing food and housing insecurity. None of this would be possible without you. Thank you!
$4,000 | Minneapolis
To support the work of Street Voices of Change, with purchase of bus tokens so that people experiencing homelessness can attend two weekly Street Voices of Change meetings and make meaningful change for themselves and their community.
$3,757 | Chaska
Toward a new two-door stainless steel freezer for their food shelf in Cologne, Minnesota, a site which primarily serves rural families who live in a food desert and are struggling to meet their basic needs. The project’s outcome will be to decrease food insecurity for low-income individuals in the community. With rising food insecurity, Bountiful Basket’s service numbers are increasing. Newer, more reliable equipment will ensure they have the frozen storage capacity to continue to meet this growing need.
$9,000 | Minneapolis
Toward a refrigerator/freezer to be able to provide fresh and healthy food to clients. This will impact the people Community Bridge serves greatly by providing them with the fresh produce they want.
Compassion Ministries dba The CHAP Store
$5,500 | Burnsville
Toward two commercial refrigerators. This funding will assure that the quality of food given will benefit those in need. It will also help reduce cost of time and money to operate the program.
Face to Face Health & Counseling Service, Inc.
$4,500 | Saint Paul
Toward a new larger oven, expanding kitchen capacity for serving hot meals to youth aged 14-24 who are experiencing homelessness. Many young people eat all their meals at SafeZone each day and having two hot meals available is essential to their health and well-being. Support from Open Your Heart will dramatically decrease meal preparation time and increase the number of hot meals available to youth.
$2,122 | Minnetonka
Toward a new commercial freezer. ICA is serving more clients now than ever in their history. Adding a commercial freezer at Hopkins High School will reduce food waste and increase the amount and type of food ICA can offer students and families to access at the school. Without a freezer at this time, the food pantry in the high school can only offer limited perishable items.
$6,821 | Minneapolis
Toward infrastructural expenses crucial to Mobile Loaves Twin Cities’ success in delivering food, clothing, and hygiene products to people in need throughout the Metro area.
$4,000 | Bloomington
Funds will be used to modify their mobile outreach van to operate more efficiently and effectively; purchase additional outreach supplies such as hygiene items and weather specific items; and reduce barriers to education for youth by funding transportation and vital documents needed for enrollment.
$4,000 | Oakdale
Toward the building of a walk-in cooler space in Maplewood, bringing an expected 2 million+ pounds of fresh food into the community each year. This cooler will provide additional space to store food and the ability for volunteers to backstock, furthering the feel of a traditional grocery store. Along with other renovations, this walk-in cooler will be essential to the Open Cupboard’s new high-access Today’s Harvest market that will serve an expected 4,000 households a week directly within a high-need community.
$5,000 | Elk River
Funding to cover costs associated with support for youth experiencing homelessness at the drop-in center, specifically gas cards so youth can get to Open Doors for Youth to meet with staff and access services, purchase phones and phone cards so youth can communicate with staff and their support systems, and funds for hotel vouchers.
$3,000 | Eagan
Funding to provide unhoused individuals and families in the Twin Cities with direct access to critical and needed items and resources like tents, sleeping bags, and essential hygiene items with the goal of providing access to longer-term resources like housing, shelter, case management, and other mental health and community resources.
$5,000 | Brainerd
Toward bus passes, taxi, Uber, and Lyft credits for residents of the emergency shelter and for clients requiring transit for needed services. The dollars for transportation will enable more people to utilize Relationship Safety Alliance’s services and have greater access to community. Opportunities for employment, education, medical and recreation will open to people with transportation barriers. It will create a greater independence and autonomy for people experiencing relationship violence and assist them in building a better life.
$3,500 | Minneapolis
Funding to acquire and install an additional freezer to accommodate the increased demand for their meal program & grocery distribution, particularly among unhoused and food-insecure individuals living with HIV/AIDS. The added freezer will enable the Aliveness Project to order and store more food, extending their reach and impact on vulnerable communities.
$5,630 | Eagan
Toward an Electric Pallet Jack Weighing Scale for use in their food rescue operations and Mobile Pantry execution. Acquiring an additional electric pallet jack with built-in scale will improve the efficiency of The Open Door’s food rescue operations which are carried out 5 days/week. They will be able to pick up more fresh and perishable food from partner grocery stores as well as load their trucks for Mobile Pantry deliveries across greater Dakota County.
$5,000 | Minneapolis
Funding toward transportation expenses incurred by Tiny Diner Food Distribution Program. The Real Minneapolis’ BIPOC team has lived experience of transformative recovery from homelessness, substance abuse, incarceration, and hunger. Not only will this grant provide necessary funding for expenses to distribute more than 25,000 meals, but it will also help to provide jobs, economic development, education, mentorship and support for community members coming out of homelessness so that they don’t have to be hungry or homeless again.
$8,000 | Tower
Toward a new HVAC in their recently purchased property requiring several updates to accommodate food operations. Once operating in the new location, the Tower Area Food Shelf will have capacity to expand services and increase hours of operation, allowing more individuals and families experiencing food insecurity to access emergency food services.
$6,750 | Walker
To secure a supply of the most requested personal care, hygiene, and cleaning products from the 1,000+ people served monthly. The Walker Area Food Shelf is seeing more than a 75% increase in virtually every metric from the number of new families that register for assistance to the food they must purchase to meet the growing needs of the community. OYH’s funding ensures the next 2-3 months of supplies are guaranteed for the public.
$4,000 | Minneapolis
To support their 2024 residency program at the downtown Minneapolis Library, primarily led by and intended for people who have experienced homelessness; and offering employment, workforce and soft skills training, community, and healing opportunities.