Catholic Charities Food Shelf Is Certified as a SuperShelf

Catholic Charities Emergency Services Food Shelf has been certified as a SuperShelf. The transformation from food shelf to SuperShelf built on existing foundations and results in a welcoming, positive grocery store-like experience for clients.

An event on Tuesday, February 4, 2020, from 3 pm to 5 pm at Catholic Charities Emergency Services, 157 Roosevelt Road, Suite 100, St. Cloud, will mark the designation as a SuperShelf. Supporters, donors, clients, community members and local media are welcome to gather and celebrate this achievement.

“We are so proud to have achieved SuperShelf status,” said Sue Hanks, program manager, Catholic Charities Emergency Services. “It has taken much hard work and the support of our staff, volunteers and the community to accomplish. We believe that the changes we’ve made will set us up to bring good food to all for many years to come.”

Over the past several months, Catholic Charities Food Shelf has made a number of positive changes to secure the SuperShelf certification. Highlights include:

• Increasing the quantity, accessibility and variety of healthier foods;
• Reconfiguring the food shelf layout to give prominence to fruits, vegetables and less-processed foods;
• Changing food categories to encourage selection of healthier options;
• Showcasing and promoting healthier foods by spotlighting them, providing recipes and samples;
• Developing policy to sustain practices and protecting supply to avoid inventory issues.

Over the coming months, Catholic Charities Food Shelf will continue evaluating the changes and identifying further opportunities for improvement.

Donations of appropriate foods or finances are always welcomed. Please visit ccstcloud.org/services/emergency/food-shelf to learn more.

About Catholic Charities of the Diocese of St. Cloud
Catholic Charities of the Diocese of St. Cloud is a nonprofit organization that works to build communities, promote family life and enhance human dignity by providing quality services to meet the physical, social, emotional and spiritual needs of individuals and families of all faiths and beliefs.

About SuperShelf
The mission of SuperShelf is to transform food shelves, creating welcoming environments for communities to access appealing, healthy food. SuperShelf was founded by a partnership between The Food Group, Valley Outreach, HealthPartners, the University of Minnesota Extension Health and Nutrition team, and the University of Minnesota Department of Family Medicine and Community Health. Many additional community partners have since joined the project in support of the work. The foundations for SuperShelf began in 2012 at Valley Outreach in Stillwater, Minnesota. Valley Outreach partnered with Lakeview Hospital (part of HealthPartners) to transform its environment for clients. Once the potential for community health improvement was realized, the scope of the project expanded. The founding partners worked to identify and implement promising practices at other pilot food shelf sites. A 2.1 million-dollar, five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 2017 enabled SuperShelf to expand to a number of additional locations and study the impact on the community’s health.