On a rainy, overcast day in November, the Keystone Foodmobile turns in from Cleveland Avenue to park in front of the Iversen Center for Faith at the University of St. Thomas. It is the first Tuesday of the month and the bus is loaded with food that is ready to be distributed to campus and community members. Volunteers approach the bus and unload boxes of produce, tables, and a small tent to provide protection from the rain. Within 15 minutes, the mobile food shelf is ready for distribution and Tommie Shelf begins.
Tommie Shelf is a food access-focused program that provides free groceries for St. Thomas students, staff and surrounding community members. The program is a key part of St. Thomas’ initiative to combat food insecurity. According to research from the Minnesota School of Public Health, nearly one in four college students in Minnesota face barriers of food insecurity. For marginalized students, such as first-generation students and students of color, the rates are even higher. Tommie Shelf brings groceries directly to the St. Paul and Minneapolis campuses to increase food access in a streamlined and convenient way.
“Tommie Shelf Tuesdays,” aptly named for the day of the week for St. Paul campus distributions, have grown in demand over the last five years. This fall, each distribution in September, October and November saw more than 100 guests receive free groceries through the program, greatly surpassing the average number of participants from the same months in 2023.
Teri Mueller Dorn, senior program manager in the Center for the Common Good, manages the Tommie Shelf program and spoke about its expansion over the past five years.
“The growth in utilization of the Tommie Shelf program really demonstrates the importance of increasing food access for our campus community,” Dorn said. “The increase in individuals receiving groceries from our St. Paul distributions is one example of how important the program is for our Tommie Students.”
Tommie Shelf is supported by the Center for the Common Good and the Tommies Together Volunteer Center. The Tommie Shelf grocery giveaway occurs twice a month, once on the St. Paul campus and once on the Minneapolis campus. Tommie Shelf works with nonprofit community partner organizations, including Keystone Community Services and Good in the ’Hood, to provide nourishing foods, including fresh fruits and vegetables, dairy products, proteins, and shelf-stable items. During its five-plus years of operation, the groceries provided at Tommie Shelf have been a stable and no-cost option for its customers.
Piloted in 2019, Tommie Shelf was initially focused solely on the St. Paul campus, working with Keystone to provide groceries for the monthly giveaways. Tommie Shelf St. Paul successfully reached many people and assisted an average of 43 individuals per month during its first full academic year (September 2019-May 2020). When campus shut down for the pandemic in spring 2020, Tommie Shelf St. Paul remained in operation, continuing to offer groceries for students who remained on campus as well as local community members.
As Tommie Shelf continued to grow, it became clear that the program also needed to be available to students on the Minneapolis campus. Keystone is focused on Ramsey County, so the search began for a community partner that could help St. Thomas set up a monthly food shelf in Minneapolis (Hennepin County). In 2021, St. Thomas solidified a new partnership with nonprofit organization Good In the ’Hood, and staff from Dougherty Family College (Angela Mendez-Vanegas and Amy Kardmas) and the School of Law (Henry Bishop) helped get Tommie Shelf Minneapolis off the ground.
In early 2022, Tommie Shelf connected with another organization that was interested in assisting members of the St. Thomas community in getting access to quality food. Kitchen Coalition is an organization operated out of Second Harvest Heartland that provides individual prepackaged meals to both campuses. These meals are distributed in addition to the food given out during the monthly grocery giveaways. The meals provided by Kitchen Coalition are prepared by local restaurants or catering companies in partnership with Second Harvest Heartland. Kitchen Coalition meals were piloted on the St. Paul campus in May 2022 and the Minneapolis campus in February 2023 and have continued to be available since. The Kitchen Coalition collaboration has improved Tommie Shelf’s efforts greatly and has been a quality addition to the food resources St. Thomas is able to offer.
Tommie Shelf relies on many resources to operate successfully. In addition to the services from Keystone and Good in the ’Hood, the monthly grocery giveaways are run by staff and student volunteers. These volunteers contribute their time to Tommie Shelf each month, assisting in areas such as checking in and setting up the grocery giveaways, distributing goods, greeting customers, and much more.
Lydia Cole, a fourth-year student at St. Thomas, enjoys volunteering with Tommie Shelf each month.
“I volunteer with Tommie Shelf because I appreciate being able to help community members while they gather their groceries,” she said. “I feel one with the community when I help however I can.”
Volunteering with Tommie Shelf has allowed many students like Cole to explore volunteering and engage in community-focused work.
Along with the efforts from Tommie volunteers to help run the grocery giveaways, Tommie Shelf also accepts donations, which are given to the community partner organizations that support the program.
“Maintaining mutually beneficial relationships with community partner organizations is central to the Center for the Common Good’s mission,” Mueller Dorn explained.
Periodic food drives are held throughout the year and individuals are always welcome to drop by nonperishable items in the Center for the Common Good (ASC 207).
