Manna Market / Youthway Ministries

Manna Market 

Manna Market (Manna) was founded in 2008 by Youthway Ministries to provide food at community gatherings sponsored by faith-based organizations. Manna’s founder, Forrest Gregory, initially began volunteering at a local food shelf, where he would collect and deliver food to individuals living in a local trailer park. It was there that he began to hear stories of the people who received the food. He quickly became aware of the immense need that existed in his own community and began increasing the days he delivered food.

By 2010, the program had outgrown the youth center where it originated and expanded into other faith-based organizations across the Twin Cities Metro Area. Offering food seven days a week to support food insecure households. The economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic has led Manna Market to expand our offerings even more. Currently, Manna serves any individual or family seeking food support in Fridley, Wyoming, Anoka, Spring Lake Park, St. Francis, and Blaine, Minnesota.

In Minnesota, 338,000 people are facing hunger - and of them 121,140 are children. 1 in 17 people face hunger every day. Manna Market seeks to alleviate these issues by recovering good quality food that has been pulled off grocery store shelves and distributing it to people in need that same day. 

YouthWay Ministries Cultivates Hope

YouthWay Ministries started in 1996 as a small drop-in youth center in a trailer park in Blaine that was riddled with problems: substance abuse, teen pregnancies, and school drop outs. Police calls were frequent. But over time the area began to change. A community began to emerge from this little oasis of hope. 

In 2020 we opened a new Manna Market program in Spring Lake Park. It is a food ministry that recovers nutritious food from local grocery stores and provides it to people who are in need. A month later COVID hit, and as other food shelves were closing their doors, the program grew exponentially. Since that time we have distributed over 7 million pounds of food to people who were severely impacted by the pandemic. The number of people that we serve continues to grow.