1. “The Minnesota Food Charter resulted from hundreds of listening sessions, online town forums, and interviews with a diverse, very broad group of people—thousands across the state.” Mindy Kurzer, Director, Healthy Foods, Healthy Lives Institute

2. “Many reservations have transportation issues. Grocery stores are small; convenience stores have a lot of pre-packaged, processed foods. While convenient, it’s not always the best food for you. That came out in the Minnesota Food Charter, which looks at how to create healthier choices in your community to increase access to better foods.” Joanne Mulbah, SNAP Education Program Manager, Minnesota Chippewa Tribe

3. Jenna Carter, MPH Sr. Project Manager at the Center for Prevention at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Jenna Carter, MPH Sr. Project Manager at the Center for Prevention at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota "Every person, organization, and community in Minnesota can pick up this document, determine what strategies are right for them, and start acting! The Food Charter gives us the collective vision that is needed to pull together and rally around so we can leverage our many assets and make a real difference in our state."

4. “Food is such an incredible part of us…. The Food Charter is a way for me, and I hope for all of us, to look more critically and carefully at food and its inter- relationship with our lives.” David Benson, Farmer, Nobles County David Benson, Farmer, Nobles County

5. “The Food Charter reflects how people see the food supply from their own perspective. It’s a wonderful document because it brings together all that input from different perspectives.” Phil Brooks, CEO, H. Brooks and Company

6. “There are community members trying to increase food access from purely an anti-poverty perspective. Others are suggesting the same thing from a health perspective, or from even a transportation perspective. We’ve been working in silos, and need to see the commonalities and leverage those common benefits.” Vayong Moua, Center for Prevention at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota

7. “ The Minnesota Food Charter is the civil rights movement of our state’s food system. Together, we have mobilized a base of people from across the food system to build a strong food and farm economy.” Don Wyse, Professor of Agronomy University of Minnesota Don Wyse, Professor of Agronomy University of Minnesota

8. “ The Minnesota Food Charter is a model for civic engagement and effective policy and systems change for local public health that can create health equity for all Minnesotans.” Maria Regan Gonzalez City of Bloomington Division of Public Health Maria Regan Gonzalez City of Bloomington Division of Public Health

9. Mustafa A. Sundiata, Snap-Ed Regional Educator Anoka County, University of Minnesota “It is important to Minnesota and to the example that it sets for the rest of our country and indeed the world in that it will help to ensure that healthy food and access to it will no longer be about where you live, but rather how one chooses to live. Helping to ensure a level playing field where food and health are concerned.”

10. “The Food Charter synthesizes efforts of many agencies in an understandable way. This is going to make everybody’s work in the nutrition and food distribution systems a lot more effective.” Dr. Ed Ehlinger, Minnesota Commissioner of Health

11. Katie Wahl, Senior Project Manager, Terra Soma Katie Wahl, Senior Project Manager, Terra Soma “The Minnesota Food Charter supports food skills for youth in our state, which will positively impact my daughter's education. Someday she'll be doing meal planning and dinner time prep thanks to the food skills she learns in school.”

12. “At The Food Group (formerly Emergency Foodshelf Network) we plan to use The Food Charter strategies to inform our efforts on increasing healthy food access in the community. We have a strong focus on increasing access to healthy and affordable foods as well as culturally familiar foods to those in need. The Food Charter will provide guidance on how to make the healthy choice the easy choice through system changes with lasting impact.” Emily Eddy White, Director of Development & Marketing, The Food Group

13. “The Food Charter brings together Minnesotans to think and speak out about the healthy food system they want to bring into being.” David Wallinga, MD, MPA, Director of Healthy Food Action