As more families slip into poverty, Minnesota town turns parking tickets into food donations

Stillwater, Minnesota is tackling a food shortage for those in need in a unique way:

Instead of paying the city $15 for a parking ticket in March, Minnesotans can instead opt to donate canned goods to the Valley Outreach food shelf.

“We’re asking residents to come forward with 10 non-perishable items,” said Tracy Maki, the executive director of Valley Outreach.

The program was developed after seeing an increase of families in need:

“Folks aren’t quite making it,” she said. “In our area, it’s called situation poverty.”

That means people are working and can’t quite make ends meet, they recently got laid off or have been struggling to pay costly medical bills.
 

Perhaps this could be a model for other communities experiencing a rise in families below the poverty level.