Ground Level Blog

Ground Level adds Minnesota hunger to coverage

One out of 10 Minnesotans struggles sometimes to find adequate food.

These are not the emaciated, starving we sometimes see in news coverage from around the world, but people the federal government classifies as "food insecure." That can mean skipped meals, not knowing how to pay for the next trip to the grocery store, cheap calories.

By a number of measures, more Minnesotans are falling into this category -- more tell surveyors they have difficulty finding meals, more use food stamps, more use food shelves.

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So for several months, MPR News reporter Julie Siple has been exploring the contours of this issue. She's covered food waste, missed meals, the changing face of food shelves, how school lunch programs address the problem in summer. And she's written about the people taking action to make a difference.

Ground Level has pulled this archive of stories together and added background material, data and a collection of additional resources to learn more. It's a one-stop shop of sorts and is the latest in a collection of topic pages we're building to help Minnesotans learn about challenges in their communities and find avenues to take action.

Check it out here.