The St. Kate's Food Access Hub is a collaborative project between St. Kate’s and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet serving the St. Kate’s community without distinction. Our food system prioritizes health equity, cultural inclusivity, environmental sustainability, care, and compassion.
We serve St. Kate’s community members collaboratively through partnerships with the community gardens, educational departments, and other community organizations. Faculty and staff members who make the food shelf function do so on a volunteer basis, guided by student workers.
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please email foodshelf@stkate.edu.
Any St. Kate’s community member is welcome to use the food shelf, and create a bag of groceries that serves their needs. We offer fresh fruits and vegetables, breads, and an assortment of other foods that will provide a balanced diet.
The food shelf is open on the first and third Wednesday of every month during the school year. During summer 2024, the Food Shelf will be open on June 19th, July 17th, and August 21st. All Food Shelf Days will be from 12-6 p.m. and is located in the Carondelet Center Kitchen 101, on the CSJ campus across from The O'Shaughnessy.
If the food shelf's open hours do not accommodate your availability, please reach out to foodshelf@stkate.edu to arrange a pick-up time that works with your schedule.
We are seeking volunteer support for the first and third Wednesdays of each month (except June, July, and August, only third Wednesday) from 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. The actual food shelf service hours are noon to 6 p.m.
We also need assistance with food delivery stocking on the second and fourth Tuesdays.
If you have an additional bilingual skill in Spanish, Hmong, ASL or Somali, your assistance is very much needed. You will be provided with additional orientation and training.
All who are interested in helping may fill out the online interest form.
Please contact Deb Sheats with any questions you may have.
Come join us in the Garden from late May – October, Tuesdays, 5 – 7 p.m. Gather and tend to the Garden and harvest the Garden when ready. Contact jtacheny@csjstpaul.org with any questions, concerns, or suggestions.
See our intern job descriptions or learn more about work some interns have completed in these positions in the past.
If you are interested in supporting the St. Kate's food shelf, please email us at foodshelf@stkate.edu. Your donation will go directly to the fight against food insecurity in the St. Kate's community. While we appreciate all donations, monetary contributions are especially appreciated. For every dollar donated we are able to purchase $4.00-5.00 worth of food/personal care items.
Students, did you know that your meal points can go directly to helping the St. Kate's Food Shelf? Donate your extra meal points at the end of the semester. To learn more please talk to your Sodexo representative or reach out to foodshelf@stkate.edu.
For other food resources, visit Access and Success
Food justice “is a holistic and structural view of the food system that sees healthy food as a human right and addresses structural barriers to that right.”
“A food justice lens examines questions of access to healthy, nutritious, culturally appropriate food, as well as: ownership and control of land, credit, knowledge, technology and other resources; the constituent labor of food production; what kind of food traditions are valued; how colonialism has affected the food system’s development and more.”
Food apartheid refers to the intentional design of our urban spaces to enact racist urban planning practices that create large geographic areas without nutrition-dense food nearby. Rather than the outdated term “food desert,” this newer term focuses on “creating food sovereignty through community-driven solutions and systemic change” (read more here) and “brings us to the more important question: what are some of the social inequalities that you see, and what are you doing to erase some of the injustices?” (read more here)
Food desert is an outdated term for “geographic areas where residents’ access to affordable, healthy food options (especially fresh fruits and vegetables) is restricted or nonexistent due to the absence of grocery stores within convenient traveling distance.” Opt for defining and using the term “food apartheid” to recognize that these so-called deserts do not naturally occur but are rather the result of racism and policies that reinforce the segregation of resources in the US.
Food sovereignty is defined as people’s right to healthy and culturally appropriate food produced through ecologically sound and sustainable methods, and their right to define their own food and agriculture systems. This term was developed by the international peasant group La Via Campesina.
Food swamp refers to an “environment where there is a lot of food for sale that is not nutritious, or worse, and therefore is seen to be a threat to public health. This foodscape is typical of the North American food system that is corporate, industrial and increasingly global.” This term is complicated and sometimes considered controversial; read more here.
Foodways as a discipline examines the role of food and food-related behavior in cultural groups, and the ways in which food knowledge is transferred within and varies between different societies.”
Example: “We’re interested in exploring how Black foodways emerged in northern states in the US following the Great Migration.”
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