Duluth Food Shelves Pack Up Donations From ‘Duluth Cheerios Challenge’

DULUTH, Minn. — It was a successful “Duluth Cheerios Challenge” over the past week. The challenge was dreamed up by locals in response to billionaire Kathy Cargill’s crude remarks to the Wall Street Journal that said Mayor Roger Reinert “peed in his cheerios” when he questioned her intentions about a slew of park point land purchases.

Organized said the idea behind the challenge was to show that people in Duluth are big-minded and big-hearted, not “small minded,” as Cargill also told the WSJ.

In the end, more than 800 boxes of cereal and $50,000 were raised for local food shelves.

“I think when it first came to be, we were just kind of excited and that it was funny,” said Katie Hagglund Union Gospel Mission. “As it started to grow, it became really just a beautiful thing to watch the community rally behind something [like this.]

The Union Gospel Mission, the Salvation Army, Chum, and Damiano all are feeding or distributing more food this year. The organizers of the challenge were surprised and pleased with the outpouring of kindness.

“I think we expected to see maybe some boxes of Cheerios and some donations. To see $50,000 be donated in six days and over 800 boxes of Cheerios was not something that we thought was possible,” said Kate Van Daele an organizer of the Challenge.

The need for food and the cost of food have both significantly increased. “We’re seeing double the number of guests that we normally see at this time in 2023 we served 3,100. And in 2024, we served almost 5,900 meals.  And so to see double the amount of guests and the food costs being double. It’s hard to work with as an organization and it’s hard to figure out where that funding is going to come from,” Hagglund explained.

The funding and food came from a cross-section of people and groups both locally and nationally. “Firefighters showing up with boxes of cereal, you’re seeing retirees that wanted to come donate one box because that was impactful for them. You are seeing teachers donate $1,000 to certain organizations,” said Van Daele.

At the end of the news conference, when the four organizations decided that they had better take their 200 boxes with them. They packed their vehicles and were off to help feed the people who needed the food.