Jason Viana, Executive Director of the Open Door Pantry joins host Steve Francisco to discuss the record-breaking demand for food at Dakota County’s largest food shelf, including the growing disparities in incomes.
To meet this urgent and growing demand and to help streamline its services to clients, the Open Door Pantry moved into more spacious quarters in Eagan earlier this year.
Jason dispells some of the myths about hunger and points out that most clients are, in fact, working families. Nearly two-thirds of the food distributed by the Open Door is fresh or perishable. The Open Door also has imaginative initiatives such as its Garden to Table Project supporting more than 300 garden plots where families can grow their own food. The Mobile Lunchbox Program delivered over 40,000 meals in four school districts in 2021.
Learn more in this interview about the vital role that the Open Door serves in helping fight hunger in Dakota County.
