Last supper - Community Table wraps up years of feeding Elk River
On its first day in June 2020, the Elk River-based nonprofit Community Table served about 250 free meals to residents at the Sherburne County Fairgrounds.
The menu included a hamburger or hot dog, apple slices, a bag of chips and a cookie.
Five-and-a-half years later, the organization has become a popular local institution. Each month, Community Table serves about 450 free meals, including roughly 100 people who dine inside, socialize and listen to live music.
Community Table’s leadership plans to serve its last meal Sunday, Dec. 21. Due to dwindling donations and several leaders stepping down because of life changes, the nonprofit will dissolve by Dec. 31 and merge under Minnesota Good Works, an Anoka-based nonprofit that plans to resume the program next summer.
The final menu will feature double-smoked ham, mac and cheese from Big Bore Barbecue in Hanover, a garden salad and a Christmas cookie.
“We were called to give as many good, healthy, nutritious and appetizing meals as we could within our budget,” said Community Table founder Amy Erickson. “I am so proud and humbled by the people who came together to serve the community with us. We met our goals and exceeded a lot of them. We helped our community get healthy, stronger and more united.”
“In many ways, the sun is setting on the time for Community Table as we have known it, and it will become something new and wonderful under the stewardship of Minnesota Good Works,” the Community Table executive team said in a news release.
Donna Martin, founder and executive director of Minnesota Good Works, said Community Table is a natural fit for her organization’s mission of “filling gaps in service.”
Minnesota Good Works, which launched in June 2022, focuses on three areas:
- Providing a two-year mentorship program for survivors of sex trafficking ages 25 and older to fill the gap left by government programs that typically serve ages 16 to 24.
- Distributing food and goods donated by local businesses to trafficking survivors, veterans and individual or families in need.
- Selling overstocked retail products that they are able to purchase at steeply discounted prices to local residents at those low prices to help fund their mission.
“Community Table serves with heart and soul, and that’s what we’re all about!” Martin said.
She said they plan to pause the program for about six months because the organization will lose its donated hosting space in Rogers next March. They will spend the coming months looking for a new donated space in Anoka County or the Elk River–Otsego area.
When the program restarts, they also plan to give away household items donated by local businesses to those attending the monthly meal.
Founded to feed
Erickson remembers “having my comfortable bubble popped” in 2019 after mentoring a young woman and learning how many area residents—including teenagers—struggle with food insecurity, housing insecurity and related challenges. She chose to provide free community meals because she has always been passionate about feeding people and wanted to meet a fundamental need in a way that brings people together.
After that experience, Erickson felt called by her faith “to do something for our community, especially with food, to bring it together.”
“I love food! I love good food! I love bringing people together over good food! It makes everything more pleasant,” Erickson said. “It is also a basic need we all have. We all need sustenance and we all need community.”
She gathered more than a dozen people from different parts of her life, with skills ranging from graphic design to planning to legal expertise, and eventually formed a nine-person core team.
After a year of planning, they obtained 501©(3) tax-exempt status and decided to host meals on the fourth Sunday of every month to avoid overlapping with other free-meal programs in the area.
Erickson said they intentionally did not set any criteria for who could receive the free meals, avoided holding events in a church and provided gluten-free options because they wanted to remove any barriers to participation.
“We wanted to create something that is comfortable for people. If I was going to host someone at my house for dinner, how would I make them feel? That’s the sense of community we wanted to create,” she said.
The group was ready to launch in May 2020, but that coincided with Minnesota’s stay-at-home order during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. They opened a month later, in June, with social distancing rules in place and a drive-thru option. Because the program launched during the pandemic, drive-thru service remained the most popular format, accounting for about 75% of all meals served.
Starting the program came with challenges. Expecting turnout similar to other nonprofits, they purchased enough food to feed 500 people but served only half that. Their first September meal was held outdoors and met with sideways rain and 40-degree temperatures. They vowed never to hold the September meal outside again and soon found a permanent home at the Elk River American Legion Post 112.
They provided live music for nearly the entire five-and-a-half years, with Zimmerman musician Tony Digatono donating his time to perform for most events.
Community Table eventually grew to a peak of serving 565 meals at a single event, regularly serving more than 100 diners indoors. But with volunteers feeling burned out, the organization scaled back to a more manageable 450 meals per month.
Erickson said she felt sad when she realized the nonprofit would likely have to dissolve this year, but she was proud of what they accomplished.
“It started to become clear our season was coming to an end. You can’t sustain something forever. It was clear we had accomplished what we set out to accomplish,” she said.
During this process, she spoke with Martin and quickly realized Minnesota Good Works would be the right organization to take over.
Once Community Table resumes service, Erickson plans to volunteer for the first six months, if needed, to help the new leadership get comfortable operating the program.
“It has been such a privilege to serve this community,” Erickson said.
