(Spirit Lake)– Local food pantries continued to see an increase in demand in November. Supervisor Kim Wermersen represents the Board of Supervisors on the Dickinson County Hunger Coalition. He shared the numbers at today’s (Tues.) Board of Supervisors meeting…
“60 households and 110 people received food from the Lake Park pantry and there was as we’ve had these wintry, stormy, blizzardy days, there was one when Milford had their day open they only had 18 households but still 41 people who were served during that. And Upper Des Moines and Good News are both up in folks that are receiving foods and goods from them.”
On a related note, Wermersen says a new resource booklet has been compiled by students from Iowa State University and Katy Burke of Dickinson County Public Health that’s available for distribution to those in need…
“What they did is they put together a booklet that’s one page on food insecurity, who to call, where to go, what benefits we provide. They did the same for mental health, for transportation, for homelessness, and for substance abuse. And so we have at least something that we know where to direct these folks or where we’ve got help immediately for folks.”
Wermersen says they’re looking at ways to widely distribute the booklets throughout Dickinson county adding that they are a work in progress and may include additional resource information in future revisions.
