Interfaith Outreach and Community Partners - IOCP

• Hamel
• Long Lake
• Medicine Lake
• Medina
• Minnetonka Beach
• Orono
• Plymouth
  • (Those areas West of Highway 494, and areas that are both East of Highway 494 and South of Highway 55)
• Wayzata

Services include: Information and referral to community resources as well as advocacy surrounding client specific issues, emergency/crisis referrals for medical assistance/ financial assistance for rent or mortgage payment, tax preparation, budget counseling, legal assistance, mental health counseling, transportation for medical appointments/job interview, food shelf, Thanksgiving and Holiday Adopt-A-Family programs.

Volunteer Opportunities

• Bob's Sleep Out Campaign
• Sponsor of the Holiday Shopping Day
• Habitat for Humanity housing projects
• Donations to the food shelf from our weekend Masses

• The Adopt-a-Neighborhood program
• The food shelf
• The transportation program

Please contact Susan Fetterer, Director of Volunteer services either via e-mail or phone: (952) 516-6061.

For more information, visit IOCP's web site.

Below is an excerpt from the March/April 2007 edition of touchpoint, the IOCP Newsletter:

From the Executive Director
LaDonna Hoy
Impulsively, she picked up a sweet roll from the near-empty box on the counter…and took a bite. At the other end of the food shelf while rummaging through the diapers in search of a size 4, I happened to look up and then looked away…not to see. But I did see. She…was a single mom who came by just after 5 p.m. on her way home from work. Weary and tentative, she asked, “Is this the place that has a food shelf?” It was her first time at Interfaith. A friend persuaded her to come by. She was broke. It was Friday, and between “now and when I get paid” her cupboard was bare. She didn’t know where to turn. Her friend did. Thank heavens. Thank you.

Another working mom described to us a too frequent routine of leaving work at noon to create an impression of going to lunch. She would sit in her car for 45 minutes. Didn’t have lunch, couldn’t afford lunch, and didn’t want her co-workers to know. “Thank God for free and reduced lunch and for the food shelf,” she said. “I don’t know what we’d do without either.”

A senior on fixed income, she comes by every Friday morning to use the food shelf. Her vibrant spirit lifts us all, and a weekly supplement to her limited resources lifts her.

Immigrant seniors on fixed incomes and living out their days far from their homeland, line up, quietly, patiently, waiting for the food shelf to open. Used to lines and scarcity assumptions, it’s difficult for them still to believe there will be enough. But there is. Thanks to you.

Each day we have the privilege of seeing the difference the food shelf makes, but you are the difference makers. March is Minnesota FoodShare month, an opportunity for us to leverage donations of food and funds to shore up the food shelf. For moms and kids and seniors who need to know-there is enough, and in this community, there will always be enough.

Please look for the opportunities you have—in your family, in your workplace, in your community of faith, in your scout troop, school, in your heart—to make the difference.