TC Food Justice

Help Us Reduce Hunger and Food Waste in the Twin Cities by Donating Today!

TC Food Justice is a volunteer-driven nonprofit working to reduce hunger and food waste in the Twin Cities. We partner with local grocery stores, markets, bakeries, farmers and others to "rescue" unsold fresh foods and redistribute them to individuals and families in need. On the ground, we are seeing that the barriers to food access are rising. 

SNAP and WIC benefits have ended for 40 million people across the country: among them, more than 450,000 Minnesotans. Our partners have already begun to see a sharp increase in the number of people in need of food, and new complexities in access to basic services. I was at a partner food shelf this weekend, and saw firsthand that they were serving four times the number of people that would normally come on an average day. None of them had appointments, but each received an emergency bag of eggs, bread, fresh vegetables (from TCFJ), and canned soup. Some visitors were picking up food for as many as eight families: neighbors taking care of each other.

Our food relief partners witness these profound acts of community care every day, and are doing their best to meet the escalating scale and complexity of need--but this is a call to action for all of us. TCFJ takes food directly to organizations who serve those who are hungry at absolutely no cost.  We don't have warehouses or big trucks - we just have dedicated volunteers who pick up food and deliver it immediately to neighborhood food shelves and community kitchens.  

Your donation will support TCFJ as we provide healthy food to more people!   Here are some things we are planning to do as funding allows:

TCFJ not only supports small farmers through the USDA grant, but also family-owned farms which produce thousands of pounds of produce.  We have reached out to many of them to see what we can purchase to deliver at no cost to our partner food relief organizations.   

• • • A 700 pound bin of watermelons for $290

    • 500 pounds of onions and shallots in 10 pound bags for $375

    • A semi load of squash (42,000 pounds) for $16,800

    • 2000 pounds of cabbage for $4856

More about TCFJ:

Our Progams:

The Food Rescue Program is our largest and longest-running program. We are proud to specialize in working with smaller grocers and hunger relief organizations that have often been excluded from traditional, larger-scale food rescue programs. 

Our small, part-time staff coordinates all necessary logistics including scheduling weekly food rescues and deliveries, and recruiting and coordinating volunteers to collect, sort and deliver the food to community partners. We deliver all food within 24 hours, maximizing its quality and likelihood of being consumed. And all of this is done free of cost to our partners. 

We've launched innovative new programs to help increase access to fresh foods in non-traditional settings such as clinics, public housing and low-income housing sites. We directly stock community fridges several times each week at low-income housing sites through our Full Fridge Initiative, making sure residents have access to high quality fresh foods right at home. We also lead education sessions in schools, neighborhoods and community forums helping to share information about food waste and hunger with tips on how to make a difference. 

Please support our work with a gift today. 

Your gift will help us:  

• Support our new programs bringing food directly to those in need.
• Implement new donor management and food rescue software. 
• Increase the number of recipient partners we can serve throughout the Metro area. We currently have a waiting list of organizations hoping to receive food!
• Grow the number of pedal-powered food rescues we do by helping us purchase and maintain more bike trailers.
• Share our knowledge and ideas through increased outreach, education and special events in the community. 

Thank you for your support! We couldn't do our work without you!!

For a better food future,
TCFJ Staff and Board Members
www.tcfoodjustice.org