Casa Maria, a food pantry and ministry of St. Nicholas Episcopal Church in the Minneapolis suburb of Richfield, Minnesota, was used to providing food boxes to about 100 mostly immigrant families every Saturday. But by mid-January, as more people in the communities it serves stayed home, fearful of being swept up in aggressive Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, requests for food help skyrocketed.
During the week of January 24, requests came from 500 families. And with the help of volunteers and an increase in donations, Casa Maria was able to fulfill all of them.
Cyara Carabarin Carretero, Casa Maria’s manager, said that the pantry’s original model had been to pack boxes of food—either donated or purchased by the pantry—that people could have delivered or could pick up. But they quickly shifted most of the requests to a delivery model, aided by monetary donations that the pantry used to purchase gift cards.
