A handful of Little Free Library owners in the metro area are putting food alongside the books after the federal funding for SNAP benefits was recently threatened. From Spring Lake Park to Richfield and St. Louis Park to St. Paul, there are more than 20 little libraries that now function as little food pantries.
Michelle Filkins, a steward of a Little Free Library in Waite Park, said the libraries are indicators of what the community needs. When she and a few of her neighbors got together to put food in her small library three weeks ago, people responded positively. Filkins and her neighbors have been working to keep it stocked.
“This community resource that people always thought of as a way to share books, has really become this sort of vehicle for mutual aid and hyper-local support,” Filkins said.
Even though the government shutdown ended and funding for SNAP was restored in Minnesota, eligibility has changed for some Minnesotans. Filkins is planning to keep the makeshift food pantry going for a while. When it gets cold enough, she plans on only contributing dry goods and anything that will not freeze. As long as people are taking food, she plans to keep giving the community what it needs.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Filkins kept her library stocked with home goods like toothpaste and canned food to help people who could not return to work. Once people were more stable, they stopped taking the goods, according to Filkins.
“I kind of look to the community for cues,” Filkins said. “When those goods stop being utilized, then I’ll know that we can go back to stocking it with more books again.”
There are also Little Free Liibrary food pantries outside of the Twin Cities. Madeline Sorlie in Winona, who has gotten a lot of attention on Instagram, had placed a library in her yard since last spring, but she has always kept it with food alongside books and even Narcan. Hers is bigger than “little,” it contains three wide shelves full of goods. A Little Free Library was something Sorlie always wanted to take care of. Before last spring, she would bring her kids to other local ones to look at books.
“It was always something that was kind of heavy on my heart,” Sorlie said.
Sorlie added food to her library right away. She worked in administration in Winona County and worked on community health improvement projects. She has seen the barriers people face when trying to access food.
When Sorlie started stocking hers, she put in snacks and hygiene products. After her brother passed away from a fentanyl overdose, she had included Narcan and fentanyl tests as well.
“I was like, ‘You know what? It’s going to be an extra little resource that people don’t have to fill out an application for or go wait in line for somewhere,’” Sorlie said. “It’s nice and easy to access.”
Now, she puts dry milk in her library that people can use with other foods she stocks, like mac and cheese cups, oatmeal, and cereal. While she noticed an uptick in people taking food after the SNAP benefits funding panic, food is always coming and going from her library. Sorlie lives in a neighborhood with a lot of foot traffic, and her Little Free Library is constantly being utilized. One day, two kids came by, opened a can of peaches, and ate it right there in her front yard. To Sorlie, a Little Free Library is there for anybody.
“It’s there for the right reason,” Sorlie said. “I don’t care about why people are using it. I’m just so glad that it’s being utilized.”
The food pantries can be found on the Little Free Library app. Just go to the search bar and filter through the Sharing Box tab.
Dining and Cooking