Need continues to grow: PRISM sees increase in shoppers

FROM: SUN POST NEWS

PRISM’s programs are serving more folks, larger families and a wider geographic range than its established five-city radius than ever before.

“Families are living on smaller margins,” Alisha Weis, advancement director at PRISM, told Sun Newspapers. “It’s not big crises that people are experiencing that are having them reach out to the food shelf, it’s very small things — a flat tire, an unexpected medical bill, staying home one day to take care of a sick kid — that’s resulting in people coming in and utilizing services.”

The Golden Valley nonprofit has a food shelf, a Shop For Change thrift store and some housing programs. The thrift store is open to the public but families in need of help can get vouchers to buy objects for free. There are also pop-up events throughout the year like the toy shop and school supplies programs.
According to data from Oct. 1, 2023, to Sept. 30, 2024, 16,492 individuals in 6,299 households used services last year. This is a 39% increase in individuals and a 25% increase in households from the previous year.

Weis said there are more multi-generational families coming to PRISM. Folks come in who are caring for their children as well as their aging parents. In other cases, more people are living with nieces, nephews and grandkids.

Approximately 61% of all households were new households.

“Normally we see about maybe a 10-15% growth in new families year over year,” Weis said. “So the fact that this is 60% is really significant.”

Food shelf: beyond the service area
Some programs, like housing help, the back-to-school packs and the December toy drive, are location-specific. Golden Valley, Plymouth, Crystal, New Hope and Robbinsdale residents are officially in PRISM’s service area.

However, the food shelf itself is open to anyone. PRISM has to keep its doors open to all due to some of its funding sources. In total, the food shelf had visitors from 125 different cities. The top nine cities of origin for food shelf shoppers, in order of frequency, were as follows:

Minneapolis
Golden Valley
New Hope
Plymouth
Robbinsdale
Brooklyn Park
Brooklyn Center
Saint Paul
St. Louis Park

The demand became so great, that the organization had to make a big change in February. Shoppers can no longer go to the food shelf once a week, but once a month. In a trip, the shoppers can pick up about a week’s worth of food for their families.

“We just could not keep up with the families we were seeing,” Weis explained.

There were 1.3 million pounds of food distributed through 25,917 total visits to the food shelf.
About a million pounds of food were donated, but PRISM has to spend about $20,000 each month buying the rest from Second Harvest.

Housing is expensive
Housing programs blossomed during the pandemic, allowing the organization to give about $1.5 million a year. Unfortunately, since funding sources like RentHelpMN ended a few years ago, PRISM has had to scale back to pre-pandemic levels of assistance.

In the past year, they fielded about 2100 calls for housing assistance but were able to give aid to only 177 households.

“There’s way more need in the community than what we’re able to provide,” Weis said.

Part of the difficulty, in addition to pandemic-specific funds having disappeared, is that rent has gone up.

“Rents are increasing,” Weis said. “We can do less than we could do before with the same amount of money. Rent used to be $800 or $900, now they’re like $1500 to $2000 for rental assistance.”

To help those 177 families with rent and utility bills, it cost PRISM $250,000.

Connect with the community
There are many chances for folks to be involved with PRISM. People can volunteer, which is a way for folks to meet others and give back to the community.

People can donate or buy items at the Shop For Change secondhand. This thrift store is staffed by volunteers and stocked entirely with donations. Every cent made there goes into the same bank account as the food shelf. Last year the store made $350,000, an increase from the previous $304,000.

Folks can send money, and their donations are tax-deductible.

“We’re really doing a push this year for recurring donations,” Weis. “So rather than giving one lump sum at the end of the year, consider giving that divided up by twelve months and giving that one every single month just so that we have a little bit of that sustainability and can plan for things throughout the entire year.”
Although there are businesses that give donations, as well as various federal funding sources most of PRISM’s cash comes from smaller donations by individuals in the area. This money is used for things like stocking the food shelf, but also less glamorous stuff like paying their staff, paying rent for the building, garbage hauling and snow plowing.

For folks who like to shop themselves, they can give food directly to PRISM or participate in a special drive like the back-to-school drive, the Holiday Train or the Holiday Toy Shoppe.

Holiday Train
A pop-up concert from the Canadian Pacific Holiday Train is set for 5 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 12, Golden Hills Drive, Golden Valley. Concert artists will be either The Lone Bellow and Tiera Kennedy or Seaforth and Alana Springsteen.

People can hang out, give money and food and meet Buddy the Elf.

Holiday Toy Shoppe
PRISM is planning to give toys to 1,000 children in 400 families between the ages of 0 and 17 who live in the five-city service area.

Check out the wish list at bit.ly/prismwish to see what the nonprofit is looking for. People can order directly from Amazon to send to PRISM, or they can drop off new toys they buy elsewhere.

A toy drive with hot cocoa and treats is set for 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 7 at PRISM, 1220 Zane Avenue North, Golden Valley. Weis said they hope to “fill the van” a few times with toys.

Toys will be distributed from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Dec. 14 at the Valley Community Presbyterian Church. Registration is required to receive a gift. The organization is still seeking some volunteers for that day. Learn more at prismmpls.org.