Organizations in Northern St. Louis County are Building Partnerships to Improve Food Access

In the spring of 2025, St. Louis County Public Health brought partners together to better understand how ready communities were to address healthy food access in northern St. Louis County. Recognizing this as a need across communities, the group committed to building a strong foundation for collaboration as an important first step. And so, the Northern St. Louis County Food Access Coalition (also known as the Iron Range Food Access Coalition) formed to work on strengthening relationships and building knowledge to address food access together.  

After months of relationship-building and learning, in June 2026, the food access group gathered in-person at the Essentia Hospital in Virginia for a strategic planning meeting. Members of the Northern St. Louis County Food Access Coalition developed the group’s mission, vision, and values; identified goals; and began brainstorming strategies to reach those goals in Northern St. Louis County communities.

Mission: Increase access to healthy, nutritious foods by shifting systems, building community power, and working collectively to reduce barriers while supporting local farmers and food retailers.

Vision: A resilient and sustainable food system built through local partnerships to ensure food security for all residents of Northern St. Louis County.

Values: Collaborative, Communicative, Inclusive, Responsive, Sustainable, Transparent

We also began identifying goals to reach to increase access to healthy foods in Northern St. Louis County. These are:

1.     Increase knowledge of local food resources,

2.     Increase food skills (preparing, producing, etc.), and

3.     Increase the capacity of food access organizations to be successful.

Strategy development to reach those goals is currently underway. The work is just beginning, and we are excited to see where it leads and what benefits are brought to communities across Northern St. Louis County because of it!

Northern St. Louis County Food Access Coalition Membership:

Many coalition members wear multiple hats, but the key organizations involved are

St. Louis County Public Health

Carlton-Cook-Lake-St. Louis Community Health Board

Arrowhead Economic Opportunity Agency

Iron Range Partnership for Sustainability

Fairview Range

Essentia Health

Second Harvest Northland

United Way of Northeast Minnesota

Arrowhead Regional Development Commission

If you are interested in joining the coalition, email Kyra at KjeldahlK1@stlouiscountymn.gov.

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