Inside a glittering new facility, filled with the essential foods a family needs to stay healthy, Jessica Sund of Channel One Regional Food Bank could not help but draw a parallel between the organization she works for and the people they serve.

When a family falls on hard times in Rochester, it’s likely that one of the city’s hundreds of nonprofit organizations will play a role in getting them back on their feet. But last spring, in the midst of the pandemic, everyone needed help, including nonprofits like Channel One — which faced a six-figure monthly deficit after closing its shopping area and losing a sizable chunk of its retail donations.

So when the helpers need help themselves, who steps in to give them what they need?

For many local nonprofits, it came from various levels of government or even other, larger foundations — but in the case of Channel One, their relief also came from the community itself. Channel One reported $4.5 million in cash contributions in 2020 — one of the largest numbers in the food bank’s 41-year history — on top of nearly $17 million worth of donated food.

“It was amazing to see the sheer amount of people that helped us,” said Sund, the organization’s director of development and communications. “The response was insane. We got an incredible amount of donations from the community, then with CARES [Act] funding and local grants, the deficit went away just like that.”

Photography by William Forsman / Story by Isaac Jahns

Quickly, an uncertain time turned into a time of growth: the influx of cash allowed Channel One to remodel its food shelf location through the pandemic, working with local food retailers to model their location after a typical grocery store.

In the meantime, they kept providing meals through the pandemic and construction — first through pre-packed boxes, then through an open-air market outside the Channel One building. Their mobile pantry unit also made 70 stops across southeast Minnesota in 2020, getting essentials in the hands of people in rural communities.

While the mobile market continues to make stops across the region, the new shopping area — a project that Sund says had long been on Channel One’s ‘wish list’ — is now open, positioning the organization for a strong future and giving their patrons a more dignified experience.

“It’s been a long and winding journey, and it was really hard for a long time,” said Sund. “But I can’t help but think that it was all worth it, because now I feel like we’re stronger than ever.”

Helping the community find answers

Across the city, community groups saw the proverbial storm clouds forming before mid-March, giving them critical time to make sure their services stayed open when they were needed most.

At the Rochester Public Library, head of reader services Kim Edson saw the impending pandemic and decided to work from home before it was mandated — due to health concerns, she didn’t want to risk exposure. To make that happen, she had to quickly learn how to use the remote work technology we all grew to know over the past year-plus.

Her knowledge came in handy just days later, when she learned that public health and city officials’ offices were being inundated with calls from residents, wanting information on the virus and ways to stay safe. After working with the Olmsted County Emergency Operations Center, library staff became Rochester residents’ point of contact for all things Covid — questions, concerns, tips, or just someone to listen.

Kim Edson working the Covid hotline / submitted

Edson, who was the head of the Covid hotline, says the hotline took information from trusted sources — the CDC, Mayo Clinic, and others — and relayed it to the public in real time. By acting as the “point people,” staff at Public Health were able to focus on fighting the pandemic, while the library handled information that was already in the public sphere.

“The thing is, Public Health staff were inundated right away,” says Edson. “They didn’t have the time to answer these questions — but they were all valid questions! The pandemic experience was scary and really hard for a lot of people, and we were the empathetic voice that people needed to hear.”

More than 7,700 calls came through the library’s hotline in its 15-month existence, with the library’s reference staff handling each call and finding answers to nearly 90 percent of the questions they were asked: anything from directing people to free face masks, to quelling vaccine hesitancy and walking people through the stimulus check process.

Edson credits the hotline’s success to the library’s strong reference team, who helped the library win the 2018 National Medal for Library Service. When they couldn’t be working their normal jobs inside the library, staff were still able to do what they do best: connect people with the things they need.

“Libraries have always been tasked with providing community information,” said Edson. “We expected to take that role, but I don't think anyone could have imagined the form it ended up taking through the hotline.”

‘We knew we had to move quickly’

With community spaces like the library closed indefinitely, Emily Johnston, VP of impact and engagement at United Way of Olmsted County, said her organization saw an immediate need: what would happen to kids without a solid support system?

“We knew that as soon as schools closed, all the other dominos would fall and it would place a huge burden on social services,” said Johnston. “We knew we had to move quickly to make sure kids didn’t get left behind.”

UWOC set up distance learning support for the rest of the school year, even setting up physical learning pods — in the Meadow Park neighborhood and elsewhere — to give children a safe, comfortable place to learn.

As one of the largest nonprofits in the city, a large part of United Way’s outreach is dedicated to helping other nonprofits succeed. Over the course of 2020, it worked with Mayo Clinic and the Rochester Area Foundation to raise and distribute over $900,000 in emergency funding to local nonprofits.

A rewarding experience

As the summer wears on, Johnston says one relic from the beginning days of the pandemic may stick around for years to come, hopefully creating a closer-knit group of nonprofit leaders.

Johnston helped set up virtual meetings with as many leaders in the nonprofit community as possible during March and April 2020, in the hopes that each organization could help each other stay afloat. As the pandemic wore on, the Rochester Nonprofit Consortium took over the organization aspect and meetings became less frequent, but the group still meets once per month — and it’s likely that they will continue indefinitely.

“[Covid] changed the way that a lot of us worked together,” said Johnston. “One organization can’t do it alone, especially because lots of these organizations work with very specific communities. Everyone has a role to play, and the whole ecosystem has to remain strong for the wheel to turn.”

At the library, the Covid hotline has now been “sunsetted” into a voicemail box. Edson says library staff still answer the questions they can, but the live hotline is now under full control of Public Health. If variants cause a spike in numbers, the hotline could come back, but for now, Edson is content to get back to doing what she does best: helping readers find what they need.

“I feel like people forget sometimes that libraries are trusted resources, but that role was definitely reaffirmed,” said Edson. “It was a challenge, but all in all, helping so many people was incredibly rewarding.”

And at Channel One, Sund said the outpouring of support has allowed Channel One to remove their monthly limit on food shelf visits and relax their rules on how much people can take.

Jessica Sund, director of development and communications at Channel One

If one thing has come out of the pandemic, she says, it’s the realization that a deep connection between the people in charge of a nonprofit and those that need its services is the most core aspect of being a part of these organizations. The more you can put yourself in their shoes, the better the experience will be.

“I think we’re listening to the communities we serve a lot more, and acting on what works for them best,” says Sund. “We were forced to pay much closer attention — not that we weren’t paying attention before, but [the pandemic] revealed a lot more about what the people that use our services want to see from us, and that’s what it’s all about.”