Basic Needs Inc of South Washington County

Our Missions is “to support the basic needs of those inour community such as housing, food, clothing, and coordinated services.” You will find more information about Stone Soup at https://www.basicneedsmn.org

Following the closing of our store, all of our remaining activities are aimed at helping those in need. We are now meeting with clients remotely over the phone.  We provide personal shopping for the basic needs they require and they come to the store to pick them up.

We started building food packages of non-perishable items that can be ordered online for pick up that we implemented on Thursday, March 26, 2020. Since then, we have provided 98 families and 404 individuals with food packages. If needed, we also provide hygiene kits, laundry kits, and other items that may be requested by the community.

We are providing free bakery items from Hy-Vee and Panera Tuesday-Friday from 12-4. We have anywhere from 4-48 cars of people per day that stop by our donation bay for the bakery items.  

For any of the pickups, we have our customers stay in their car and we place items in their vehicle while maintaining the recommended social distance. We implemented the use of Mask per the CDC recommendations on April 7th.

It's important that we remain available as a service to meet the community needs for as long as possible.   We have people that have come for the free bread crying because they have lost their jobs and don't know what they are going to do.  For some families, especially the elderly, free bread is required for their livelihood.   With all of the isolation, many families come with their kids in tow as a way to get their kids out of the house to see what goodies we may have to offer. We offer a little happiness in people's lives.