(Spirit Lake)– The Dickinson County Board of Supervisors Tuesday heard an update from Julie Edwards, Executive Director of Upper Des Moines Opportunity. She says the demand for services out of Dickinson county continues to increase, especially when it comes to food assistance…
“Three years ago we were at about $250,000 in services to Dickinson county; a year ago, almost at $500,000 and this year at $662,000. Where some of those big changes were were food program services that we provide which is our food pantry, so that’s counting the donations that we receive. That was up $217,000. That’s quite a jump. And you can see we served 1,242 more individuals. Probably the next biggest jumps were in our special projects which doesn’t surprise me. People who access the food pantry frequently need the Back to School program or the holiday programs that we provide. Offered that to 483 additional individuals at an increase of $33,000.”
Edwards says they did see a slight decrease in assistance for energy emergency services and youth services. Edwards adds that due to funding issues, Upper Des Moines Opportunity will be forced to temporarily close it’s offices in its eight county service area, similar to what what was done this past year…
“This year we’re anticipating a two week shutdown. That’s because we have client services and we have general operation dollars cannot cross. If you donate it for client services that’s where it stays. If it goes for general ops that pays our rent, utilities, phone, internet, staff wages. So that is where our budgets are really tight and they run at a deficit frequently. We have a little bit of money in a Community Services Block Grant that we can put into client services or general operations. But if you’re aware of private donors who would like to donate and have a tax exemption, if they just tell us but it in general ops, put it into the operations of the program, we will use it for rent and utilities. Dickinson county, we’re buying a new furnace so that’s an over $6,000 expense that will come out of that general operations budget.”
Edwards says the shut downs will likely occur in late May and again in late August, 2024.
