 Receiving necessities from one area food shelf will be a little easier this year. The Hubbard County Food Shelf has updated its intake process, eliminating a time-consuming step for those receiving their services. Melmeyer has more from Park Rapids. The Hubbard County Food Shelf will now provide on-site intake after learning that its former process did not meet regulations by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Clients will fill out their paperwork in here. According to the 2014 Emergency Food Assistance Program Policy Manual, distribution sites must maintain an intake process for walk-ins. It also does not allow the food shelves to discuss private information with other providers, which the clients used to do before their first visit. Instead of them having to go to social services and or Mojave to fill out this paperwork and bring over a voucher, they are going to be a one-stop shop here. Last year, the food shelf served about 350 households each month. For a smaller location, with at times just two volunteers on duty, the change may negatively affect the volunteers at first. Because we have not done the front-end paperwork in the past, we're concerned about the logistics and how many people are showing up and how we're going to handle that. So far, eight people have been trained on the new process. Hansen says the rest of the volunteers will eventually learn it as well. Although it's going to be difficult to get through the first month or so, once we get used to it, it's going to work fine. The food shelf says that it could use more volunteers in order to make the process run smoothly. In Park Rapids, I'm Mal Meyer, Lakeland News. More information on how you can help is available on our website at lptve.org slash news. If you've enjoyed this segment of Lakeland News, please consider making a tax-deductible contribution to Lakeland Public Television.