VEAP Service Center & Hennepin County South Suburban Hub

A Partnership that Serves the Community

The new headquarters for Minnesota’s largest food shelf, Volunteers Enlisted to Assist People (VEAP) and the Hennepin County South Suburban Hub Family Services Center came about as a desire two organizations to form a close partnership to better serve the needs of residents in the south metro area. The 50,000 SF building, formerly housed Vikings Foods, the vendor for the Metrodome, was completely renovated by VEAP to support their operations with additional 20,000 SF tenant space for the Hennepin County Family Service Center.

Many innovative planning and design solutions were employed to support the partnership:

• A shared lobby and intake/needs assessment allows VEAP and the county to efficiently and effectively serve clients. When a client shows up at the center in need of food assistance, Hennepin County can arrange for financial nutritional assistance while VEAP insures that person leaves the facility with food.
• VEAP constructed a combination teaching and commercial kitchen to facilitate NEAT (Nutrition, Education, and Teaching), a U of M sponsored program to teach healthy menu planning and cooking.
• A food prep and processing area within the VEAP warehouse area to repackage and freeze perishable fruits and vegetables to be distributed to clients, in lieu of having to dispose the food.
• Hennepin County office space employing a flexible workspace arrangement, where staff do not have designated offices, but rather choose to sit at unassigned workstations, desks, or offices on any given day. Collaboration workstations, meeting rooms, conference rooms, and staff amenities further support the flexible workspace model.