BLAINE, MN (October 26, 2016) – Good Shepherd Covenant Church is closing next month, and the impact that will have on its community is featured in an article today in the Star Tribune highlighting situations where congregations have to close their food pantries.

Last Friday marked the end of the 80-member church’s food pantry, Manna Market. Audra Koel, an area resident who relied on the pantry to feed her six-member household, told the paper, “I wasn’t looking forward to tonight because I know this is it. I’m just going to have to go without unless another church steps in.”

Closing the market also is hard on the church, said Bonnie Randall, the church’s ministries coordinator, who helped organize the market. “It’s like a divorce or a death. We’re not sure what we’ll do on our Friday nights now.”

The article noted, “Lacking resources or volunteers, a growing number of small churches across the metro area are closing food shelves, leaving other nonprofits to pick up the hunger-relief slack.”

Since Good Shepherd opened the pantry in 2010, it had distributed 3.1 million pounds of food.