One Child Nutrition Nonprofit in Minneapolis Forced to Close Due to Fraud
September 25, 2026 The Minnesota Star Tribune newspaper reports that, subsequent to their investigative journalism, the state and federal governments have penalized the nonprofit Partners in Nutrition for fraudulently receiving $75 million for the purpose of feeding thousands of local, needy children, which is now forcing their closure.
The Tribune reports: “A nonprofit that steered nearly $100 million to fraudsters has agreed to hand over $18.5 million to the state of Minnesota to settle a lawsuit by Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. Under the settlement agreement, which was filed Thursday in Hennepin County District Court, Partners in Nutrition will dissolve and turn over its remaining money to the Minnesota Department of Education, which paid out the funds as part of a federal meals program for needy children. Ellison said the $18.5 million will be returned to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which finances the meals program and reimburses states for their related expenses.”
According to the Attorney General’s office, Partners in Nutrition has agreed to surrender all of its remaining funds, over $18.5 million, to settle allegations that it submitted false reimbursement claims for federally funded child-nutrition programs between 2020 and 2022.
and: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZHuwttvbbs
This comes four years after a similar crackdown for fraud of Feed Our Future. The Feeding Our Future scandal is one of the largest pandemic-relief fraud cases in U.S. history, involving the theft of more than $250 million meant to feed hungry children. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. federal government relaxed the rules for the USDA’s Federal Child Nutrition Program to make it easier to get meals to children while schools were closed. Feeding Our Future, a Minnesota-based nonprofit led by its founder Aimee Bock, exploited these relaxed rules in a massive, coordinated scheme. These sites claimed to be serving thousands of meals a day just weeks after opening. To back up these claims, they submitted fake attendance rosters. In one instance, they used a random name generator website to create a list of children. In another, they used an Excel formula to randomly assign ages between 7 and 17 to the names on their fake lists.
The latest settlement comes three months after the Star Tribune published a lengthy investigation into Partners in Nutrition, which revealed that the nonprofit’s leaders escaped criminal charges despite allegedly engaging in the same kind of schemes that resulted in a 41-year prison sentence for the leader of Feeding Our Future.
– Edited by WHES Board member Steven Hansch
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