IMPACT
IN KANDIYOHI COUNTY AND BEYOND ◆ 2024
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IMPACT 2024
impact
Definition of impact
1a: to have a direct effect or impact on Merriam-Webster Dictionary
2: to have a strong effect on someone or something.
Oxford Languages
Just as a forest is formed through the growth of many trees, a community is formed through the work of many people. The impact a single person can have on their community may be small or large, but it is nonetheless notable.
From volunteering to mentorship to starting a nonprofit to provide a helping hand or a larger reach, an investment in bettering one’s community is time wellspent.
The West Central Tribune has chosen to highlight a sampling of individuals and nonprofits seeking to make an impact on their communities.
Tom Cherveny / reporter
Levi
Jennifer
Shelby
/
Dale Morin / reporter
Macy Moore / photographer
EDITOR: Kelly Boldan
MAGAZINE EDITOR: Kit Grode
MAGAZINE DESIGNER: Jamie Holte
AD MANAGER: Christie Steffel
Contributed
/ Pablo Obregon
During his time working at PACT for Families Collaborative, Pablo Obregon worked to assist families seeking mental health services. That work has not stopped as director of community growth, where he helped Community Connectors Services organize a mental health youth soccer event.
Everyone’s invited to the table
Obregon aims to educate, bring together communities from all walks of life
WILLMAR — Willmar Director of Community
Growth Pablo Obregon has spent his adult life doing what he is passionate about — building a community that embraces everyone.
“It’s not only my work, it’s my lifestyle,” he said, noting his wife of 30 years, Erika, shares the same passion.
His new position with the city of Willmar, which he started in March of 2023, is a culmination of his life’s work. He is responsible for administering
BY JENNIFER KOTILA West Central Tribune
citywide coordination of programs, education and outreach in the areas of equity and inclusion.
Obregon grew up in Lima, Peru, the fifth of six children and the only son. He moved to Los Angeles, California, in 1986, where he spent four years attending Bible school.
“It was a dream come true of my parents to be able to go and get instruction and prepare myself for ministry,” Obregon said. “Then, once I was in Los Angeles, I started to realize that it wasn’t just their dream, but it was also my own dream to be able to learn more about ministry and to be
part of a church organization where I could share my gifts and talents.”
He eventually decided to attend Luther Seminary in St. Paul, which is what brought him to Minnesota in 1991 — just in time to be thrown into the Minnesota winter experience.
“It was a lovely fall, and, all of the sudden, winter came in 24 hours. So my first snow experience was in the Halloween storm in October of ‘91,” Obregon recalled.
The snowstorm didn’t deter him from staying in Minnesota; in fact, it is kind of a theme for him as he has made changes throughout his life.
Pablo Obregon
“ We invite people to pick the best things that we all bring together to the table and be able to have a nice meal together. That is what community growth is.
— Pablo Obregon
He recalled those experiences when speaking to the Willmar City Council upon being hired as the director of community growth — at a meeting that took place during a snowstorm.
“Every time I am experiencing a big snowstorm, something good is going to happen to me,” Obregon said at that time, telling councilors about his arrival in Minnesota just in time for the Halloween blizzard, and also of how he was introduced to Willmar in May 1992 during a late snowstorm. “So here we are, another event with the snow involved, which reminds me that it is a good evening for me.”
Obregon’s arrival in Willmar was for an internship with the local ELCA congregations. He was hosted at Calvary Lutheran Church and helped with youth ministry at Vinje Lutheran Church and Bethel Lutheran Church.
“I learned a lot during that time about the Midwest culture, but it was just kind of the surface of me starting to really want to spend more time in the Midwest, especially in the rural areas of Minnesota,” Obregon said.
While here, he met Erika, who was born in England and moved to New London as a child. They were married in 1994 and made their home in Willmar raising two children, Manny and Elisa. They now also have two grandchildren.
Erika is an English teacher at adult basic education working with level one English language learners, or those who are just getting introduced to the English language.
“I have experienced life from different lenses and different ways,” Oregon noted about his life path. “I
Contributed / Pablo Obregon
Pablo Obregon was born in Lima, Peru, to Genaro and Elita Obregon, who both followed him to California but did not move to Minnesota. Obregon said they liked visiting Minnesota, but not during winter.
Both of Obregon’s parents have since passed away.
think, first of all, I feel that I have a calling to be a community builder. It began, of course, in my journey of being at the church and working within the worlds of the church.”
However, he eventually realized there were more opportunities outside of the church to expand on his vision of growing and building communities, he added.
“For some reason or another, my passion has always been to bring people together, to try to be a peacemaker,” Obregon said. “I don’t like to be called a bridge person — I don’t like to be stepped on. But you have the idea of, you know, you bring people together, you invite people to come together and find out that there’s so much in common that we all have. The things that are different are for us to respect — that it is new information for us to learn how we can get along better.”
Obregon said he has learned that people have to be intentional about learning other people’s cultures and values, political views and experiences.
“If we’re not intentional, we start making assumptions, or we start making ideas in our in our brains that are not real, and we start using some kind of bias that we just read in the paper,” Obregon added. “Or we hear all these people talk about — instead of ask — the questions, becoming informed and living experiences with those people that we don’t agree with, or we just don’t know.”
In all of the areas that he has worked, Obregon said he has invited people to come together to create a
sense of understanding, a safe space, to be able to learn from one another.
While he was with PACT for Families Collaborative, he advanced mental health initiatives that created spaces to offer families special encouragement and assistance in navigating the different systems for parents to help their children with their needs.
Obregon has helped share information about the new demographics and the different values of the new communities moving into the area with organizations trying to do outreach and develop business connections with the immigrant community.
On the other hand, he also helped the new immigrant community learn to build trust in the systems they were leaning on for help to provide a sense of growth in their lives and to help them set down roots.
“Just taking the blinds off from both sides, because we just make assumptions,” Obregon said. “There was a lot of education and awareness that happened during that time.”
As director of community growth, he is starting to see that people are looking for safe spaces to come together and “share the fact that we are one big family.”
Obregon said he thinks the best way for people to experience growth is being able to identify the problems and negative things that everyone in the community experiences and hold on to them, face them and recognize them.
The Willmar community isn’t unfamiliar with the negative
experiences some of its members have faced, including racism.
“We don’t talk about it because I think we have moved ahead on the journey of this, but it is part of us. It is part of our community. It’s part of a human experience to identify and lean on those who look like you, eat the same foods as you, that think the same political views as you,” Obregon said.
He added that when the community brought up the issue of racism, his reaction was not to hush it and not to shelter himself in a bubble, but rather to step outside and find ways to educate people and help them learn and adapt to the new culture.
“We invite people to pick the best things that we all bring together to the table and be able to have a nice meal together,” Obregon said. “That is what community growth is. So from the experience of the race interactions that we have experienced, I think many of us have been able to take those opportunities to educate our community and to become more sensitive and to be anti-racist in this community.”
He explained that, in Willmar, there are people from all over the world — from the indigenous community that has been here for forever to people that came as immigrants in the late 1800s and early 1900s and people that just came within the last several years.
“I’m more hopeful, and I’m hoping that I can continue to spread the word that we can say, instead of ‘we are different,’ we can say ‘we are more alike than we think,’” Obregon said.
‘Not your mother’s
League
anymore League of Women Voters urges all to cast their votes during this and every election
BY SHELBY LINDRUD West Central Tribune
WILLMAR — For as long as women have had the right to vote, the League of Women Voters has made voter participation and education its twin missions, believing that voters should play a critical role in democracy.
The national organization was formed in March 1919, prior to the final passage of the 19th Amendment, which enshrined women’s suffrage in the United States Constitution. In October 1919, the Minnesota Suffrage Association dissolved and became the state chapter of the League. Today, there are 34 local chapters of the Minnesota League of Women Voters, including the League of Women Voters
of the Willmar Area.
“At the end of the day, it is about empowering voters to be active and informed and to know what is going on in their community,” said Dayling Munoz, League of Women Voters of the Willmar Area board member and cochair of the voter service committee. “And not just national elections; local elections are so important.”
Voter outreach, whether it is through registration drives or social media campaigns, is a linchpin in the League’s activities. In the Willmar area, the local chapter tries to attend and have a presence at as many local community events as possible. This
can include a table at the Rockin’ Robbins summer concerts, marching in parades or presenting at service club meetings.
“We go everywhere,” Munoz said. “If you invite us, we will go.”
An important piece of community outreach is voter registration. And when it comes to getting people signed up to vote, the League of Women Voters chapters in Minnesota have a home-field advantage.
“Minnesota has a great advocacy for voting,” said Karen Kraemer, president of the Willmar area chapter. “We’re one of the few states that allows sameday registration.”
Macy Moore / West Central Tribune
The events for which the League of Women Voters of the Willmar Area are best known are the candidate forums on local races prior to elections. Here, Willmar Public Schools board candidates participate in a forum hosted by the league at the Willmar Municipal Utilities auditorium on Thursday, Oct. 14, 2022.
The state has multiple ways for people to register. It can be done online on the Minnesota Secretary of State website, by mailing in a voter registration form or doing it the day of an election at the voter’s polling place. In 2023, the state passed the Democracy for the People bill, which allows automatic voter registration for any eligible Minnesotan who is issued a state ID card, such as a driver’s license.
“Registering to vote is so easy,” Munoz said.
The new law also allows 16- and 17-year-olds to register in advance before turning 18. The registration won’t become active until the teenager turns 18. The Willmar chapter plans to make high school outreach a priority this year to make sure students are aware of this opportunity.
“We will be visible in the schools and getting kids involved,” Kraemer said.
Once a person is registered to vote, League members want to make sure they can make an informed and
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Issues at the county and city level are not partisan. We need to keep them at the forefront of the discussion.
— Karen Kraemer
educated decision. For the Willmar chapter, this means holding candidate forums, providing information on local issues and hosting educational presentations.
“Issues at the county and city level are not partisan,” Kraemer said. “We need to keep them at the forefront of the discussion.”
For many years, the Willmar Area chapter has hosted candidate forums for the Kandiyohi County Board, Willmar City Council, Willmar School Board and the state House and Senate races in the area. They also hope to increase the number of forums for the
races in New London and Spicer.
This year, the forums started in September, as the League members want to make sure candidates have a chance to address their voters before early voting starts.
Candidates can also provide information about themselves and where they stand on certain policies to the League of Women Voters Education Fund’s Vote 411 website, which allows voters to look up all the races on their ballots for primary and general elections.
“Hopefully they’re taking part in that and answering the questionnaires,” Kraemer said.
A relatively new program for the Willmar chapter has been its Hot Topic discussion events.
Started in 2023, the League invites various individuals, business leaders, local government officials, and staff to discuss important community issues, from housing and public safety to economic development and how local government works. The program conducted over a lunch hour
In 2019, the League of Women Voters of the Willmar Area celebrated the 100th anniversary of the League. League of Women Voters of the Willmar Area members Betty Schneider, from left, Mary Jo Minter, Jo Ann Wright, Dorothy “Dody” Davies and Mary Lindstrom shared a laugh at the Kandiyohi County Historical Society in Willmar. The event welcomed the traveling exhibit marking the centennial of the League of Women Voters of Minnesota. The five women are the longest-standing members of the local chapter.
at the Willmar Public Library has been very successful, and has drawn large crowds to several presentations.
“We look at what’s new, what’s different, what’s happening, what’s current, what are people interested in,” said Jan Dahl, Willmar board member and co-chair of the voter service committee.
Sometimes all it takes is a League member being at a local event and a person coming up with a question to start a conversation. In a politically divisive time, for many, the League of Women Voters still represents a trusted place to obtain accurate information.
“We have the opportunity to talk to everyone,” Munoz said. “It gives permission to people to talk about politics with someone from their own community.”
The League is a nonpartisan organization and does not endorse candidates. However, it does take positions on issues the national and state bodies believe impact women’s lives. This includes the Equal Rights Amendment, voter suppression, environmental policy and health care.
“It started with the right to vote for women, that was the first big issue,” Munoz said. “Issues evolved. We got the right to vote, but then it was a lot of other issues about women. There still are.”
The Willmar chapter of the League of Women Voters has a membership of about 65 people, a good size for a chapter from greater Minnesota. It is an active membership, willing to show up at various events and programs.
At times, members will also attend local government meetings, such as the Kandiyohi County Board, to get a firsthand understanding of what is going on in the communities.
“We’re always looking at what new thing is coming along,” Dahl said. “It is amazing when you get together with smart women — the topics that come up.”
Like many service and volunteer organizations, the League of Women Voters of the Willmar Area would love to grow its membership, especially by bringing in younger women. Over the years, the league has changed how, when and where it meets to be more flexible for various schedules.
The board of the Willmar chapter wants a diverse membership, in not just race and age, but also socioeconomic standing, political leanings and culture.
“We would love a diverse crowd, and (one that is) diverse in ways of thinking,” Munoz said.
Why current members joined the League of Women Voters varies.
Kraemer joined because she felt the need to do something, while Dahl has always been interested in how local government works.
“I just want to know what makes people decide to run for office or how a policy applies to me or our local community,” Dahl said.
Munoz joined shortly after she became a citizen of the United States, feeling the urge to advocate for a free democracy. She was born and raised in Caracas, Venezuela, and knows what it means to live with a corrupt government.
“I am very passionate about democracy and having the opportunity to vote because of my background,” Munoz said. “I know what it’s like not to be able to have free elections. One of the things that are wonderful, wonderful about the U.S. is that we have free and fair elections. And the integrity of everyone that works around elections is amazing.”
The League of Women Voters at the national, state and local levels are as passionate about voter access and education as they were back in 1919. How it meets those goals has evolved, just as the major issues facing women have evolved. The Willmar Area chapter hopes more people feel moved to join and do their part to protect and promote democracy.
“Bottom line, we are not your mother’s League anymore,” Dahl said. “We’re gonna be out there, rattling the cage.”
Erica Dischino / West Central Tribune Voter participation is a major pillar of the League of Women Voters. Members of the League of Women Voters of the Willmar Area hold signs and wave to drivers on along First Street in Willmar to encourage them to confirm their voter registration on National Voter Registration Day in September 2020.
Erica Dischino / West Central Tribune
Advocacy at every stage
CURE director advocates for environment, rural voices in Minnesota political sphere
BY LEVI JONES West Central Tribune
WILLMAR — It can be hard to measure the impact people have on water, given how it moves and flows through rivers, and rarely winds up near where it began. Those living at the headwaters rarely take the river’s route to where it joins paths with other waterways, let alone follow the river to its confluence.
But as a river travels, it begins to change, picking up traces of every place along its way and bringing it along for the ride. The water can become polluted and murky as it flows, passing through cities and countryside and joining with with other rivers.
More than 30 years ago, the
Minnesota River was heavily polluted, leading to a call in 1992 from then-Gov. Arne Carlson for it to be cleaned up.
Multiple nonprofits were formed in response, including Clean Up the River Environment, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group based in Montevideo that is now formally known as CURE.
Originally from western Montana, Peg Furshong, CURE’s director of programs joined the group out of her passion for environmental causes. The flat landscape of Fargo, North Dakota, came as a bit of a shock.
“They used to say, ‘in Montana, if you don’t like the weather, wait 20 minutes,
‘cause it often changes and you didn’t know what it was going to be in the mountains.’ When I moved to Fargo, you could see the weather coming for four hours on the horizon,” Furshong said. “I used to escape to White Earth and spend time in the pines and it helped me be less homesick. I come from a love for nature and the outdoors naturally.”
Now based in Sacred Heart, Minnesota, Furshong has worked with CURE for more than a decade, making sure the waterways are protected at every stage of the river.
When she first joined, her goal was to grow the nonprofit’s outdoor
Contributed / Peg Furshong
Peg Furshong, left, has worked to promote political advocacy from rural voices. She has represented District 3 on the Greater Minnesota Regional Parks and Trails Commission, which helps provide funds for natural spaces in Minnesota.
“ We have to do the work together instead of having it done for us. … Minnesota is a diverse place, but a lot of times in rural communities that diversity isn’t always visible.
— Peg Furshong
programming. Over time, however, that role grew into both education and advocacy.
Political advocacy is one way to make sure that young, rural voices are heard and represented in Minnesota’s environmental policies.
“We encourage people to run for office at all levels. We really feel like in rural places there is not a lot of engagement with younger generations making decisions for our future,” Furshong said. “We look at what makes rural communities vital, and it is things like jobs and health care. If we don’t have those things in place to bring people to rural communities, they end up being dried up.”
Outside of her work as an advocate, Furshong lives with her husband, Steve Petrich, and their three children on their farm, Hawk Creek Prairie Farm, just outside Sacred Heart. Together, they raise grass-fed beef and chickens, grow a garden and have an orchard.
Furshong’s children are adopted Ojibwe siblings. It is important to Furshong that her children can connect with Ojibwe culture through crafts, song and through water walks, a practice during which water is taken from the headwaters of a river and brought to the end of it.
“The concept is when you gather the water at the headwaters, it is going to be cleaner than it is at the confluence. When you get to the confluence, we have a ceremony and we return the water to the river so that the river knows what it once was,” Furshong said. “You remind the river of what it once was and pray that you can get it back to what it once was.”
Furshong not only advocates for sustainable policies when it comes to the environment, but she helps others in rural communities do the same, from waterway cleanup efforts to working with rural power cooperatives to help keep the utility available in Minnesota in sustainable ways.
“We have to do the work together instead of having it done for us. We have a better handle on the culture of the area. Minnesota is a diverse place, but a lot of times in rural communities that diversity isn’t always visible,” Furshong said. “It is important to be here and know about the communities. Being place-based like this, you are a part of the fabric of the community.”
And that place-based advocacy shows in the Minnesota River itself after decades of careful work and attention.
“All of our work impacts Minnesotans across the state. The work we do at the head of a watershed impacts the people at the end of it,” Furshong said. “What we do here impacts people as far away as the Gulf of Mexico.”
One of the main things Peg Furshong does in her work as CURE director of programs is environmental education. She takes groups of all ages into nature to learn about the plants and animals around them, as well as the impact people have on their environment.
Contributed / Peg Furshong
Contributed / Peg Furshong
Peg Furshong, right, speaks with David Minge, former judge and congressman, at a water summit. Furshong has worked with the state government to help preserve Minnesota’s natural environment, from rivers and forests to tall grass prairies.
Building connections by talking in circles Program connects
juveniles, family members and community volunteers
BY DALE MORIN West Central Tribune
OLIVIA — Within the umbrella term of “restorative justice” is a philosophy that attempts at building relationships within the communities in order to solve problems and hold people accountable for those problems they may have caused or from which they have suffered.
offers additional support to juveniles, their parents and community members typically after someone has committed “wrongdoing” or some harm to another person, whether directly or indirectly.
What is Circles?
Andrew Peltz, restorative justice coordinator in Renville County, said that the county’s Circles program
It could be a child whose behavior is disruptive at school or a family with children dealing with an open case or assessment by a social services agency. The West Central Tribune spoke with Peltz in an interview, and also attended a presentation he gave in Olivia.
Used in conjunction with — or sometimes as an alternative to — traditional systems such as probation, the juvenile courts and delinquency system, family services, etc., the use of Circles is a way to build connections and healthy relationships, something Peltz said is the core to all healing and essential for personal growth.
Peltz first practiced the Circle process in 2014 while serving as an intern with Southwest Health and Human Services, a multi-county
Contributed / dragana991 / Getty Images / iStockphoto.com
Renville County’s Circles program aims to connect juveniles and their families with community volunteers to build support system outside the traditional services programs such as probation and family services.
Andrew Peltz
agency providing services ranging from public health to child care and foster care licensing to social services for children and families. He worked under a grant that integrated Circles within some of the public schools in the agency’s service area of Lincoln, Lyon, Murray, Pipestone, Redwood and Rock counties.
He was hired as restorative justice coordinator for Renville County in 2018, when the Renville County Board of Commissioners sought to establish a standalone restorative justice program within the county in order to combat out-of-home placements for youth and to reduce recidivism among juvenile offenders within the court system.
Peltz began building the foundations with 20 volunteers, and the first Circle came to fruition in July 2019, bringing together families from the community.
“We built the program, and when I say ‘we,’ I mean me and my community volunteers because without them this is counseling with Andrew,” he said.
Volunteers have given 6,435 hours of their time, saving Renville County more than $200,000 that otherwise would have been spent for traditional services, according to estimates from the Minnesota Department of Human Services.
The program itself is based upon a Native American tradition in which communities would literally meet in circles to discuss differences of opinion and come up with solutions in order to meet shared goals.
Participation is also completely voluntary. Once a person is accepted into a Circle, the process starts with meeting and getting acquainted with other members.
A Circle usually consists of a juvenile, their parents or other support people, several community volunteers, and the restorative justice coordinator. Victims may also participate if they wish or if applicable.
Peltz said he usually has 20 to 35 volunteers, averaging to about five volunteers per Circle, but there can
be as many as eight people including himself within one Circle. The program allows every participant to share their stories with each other, something Peltz believes is truly powerful.
How does the process work?
Each Circle adheres to its own rules in order to establish guidelines on how each individual is expected to conduct themselves, reflecting values such as respect, consensus, compassion and equality.
Within Circle, everyone is given the chance to speak without being interrupted. A talking piece is always used and passed around to signify when someone has the time to talk without interruption. Sometimes the talking piece is an item of significance for participants; other times items like fidget spinners are used for those who have to keep their hands occupied while speaking.
The Circle as a whole then opens dialogue with the youth to determine how or why they were referred to the program, and what they may do in
order to fix any potential harm done.
Peltz said Circle can be a time-consuming process, but it allows participants to truly speak their minds knowing that they won’t be interrupted, thus they are also heard.
Asking questions like “Who was harmed?”
“What are the victim’s needs?” “Has the offending party accounted for the damage they may have caused?” “What support may they need?” allows people to address more deep-rooted issues beyond the main reason for which they may have been referred.
Peltz said these questions give people an opportunity to open up and explain themselves, sometimes between the offender and the victim.
The Circle then comes up with a shared action plan as a group, allowing for decisions to go back into the hands of those affected the most.
According to numbers provided by Peltz, a total of 753 Circles — or meetings of one of the volunteer groups — have taken place between July 2019 and July 2024. Circles meet about twice a month, for roughly two hours at a time, and can have more than one referred client attending and talking within those meetings.
The amount of time a client spends in the process depends on each case. Peltz said typically a client spends about 12-16 months in the Circle process. Some even come back to participate after they have “graduated,” because they just like the support it brings, according to Peltz.
One example Peltz gave included one young man who had suffered abuse as a child and as a result spent much of his time in alternative learning settings, and began to exhibit some concerning behaviors as he moved from shelter to shelter. The young man was expected to permanently return to his home in 2019.
In order to ensure a smooth transition, the youth was referred to one of the first Circles in Renville County.
Peltz said the young man’s mother believes the Circle process helped save her son’s life.
The impact went much deeper, as the same young man eventually gave his own time back to the Circle as a volunteer, mentoring other young people. Peltz maintains contact with the man, now age 21, who is working and living independently in North Dakota.
The goal is to build community
Peltz stressed despite his training and experience, Circle is not therapy, stating volunteers don’t need to understand the nuances of mental health or treatment to join a Circle.
“This is an experience,” he said, adding that the experience really is the most useful training anyone can get.
“Most don’t have an idea that just sitting and listening, giving someone your time and sharing some of your own lessons learned, your own life story can make such an impact. It’s not therapy … but it certainly has some therapeutic value I’d say, and who couldn’t use that?”
Peltz said that, with so much time spent in the Circle program, people can’t help but build a sense of community. He’s seen it happen in just the five years Renville County adopted the program.
People step up. They offer rides, he said. They come to court as a show of support to somebody and they help someone find a job in the area.
He recalled an instance when a client in Circle had gone through in-patient drug treatment. After the client completed treatment and obtained their own stable housing, volunteers within their Circle had sent housewarming gifts.
Peltz said he never asks volunteers to go to such lengths, but those are the types of things that just happen after Circle members spend months, or even years, with each other.
“It is the meaning of community; that’s why I’m passionate about it … it builds better people,” Peltz said.
Shutterstock
Circles meet about twice a month, for roughly two hours at a time. Within Circle, everyone is given a chance to speak without interruption, and a talking piece — such as a fidget spinner or other significant item — is used to communicate who has the floor.
CAR WASH
Putting partisanship aside
Rep. Dean Urdahl leaves legacy of improving infrastructure statewide
ACTON TOWNSHIP — In his 22 years in the Minnesota House of Representatives, Dean Urdahl, R-Acton Township, has served as a leader who could reach across the aisle and get things done — not only for the people in his district, but for greater Minnesota.
Urdahl “made his mark” serving as a member of the Capital Investment Committee for 20 years. The committee decides which projects throughout Minnesota will receive financial assistance in the form of state bonding.
Urdahl credits persistence, working across the aisle and relationship
BY JENNIFER KOTILA
Central Tribune
building for his success in passing bonding bills that have impacted the quality of life for all Minnesotans.
“One of the most important parts of being successful in the Capitol is building relationships, building trust,” he said. “People believed that I was doing what I was doing because it was for the best. It was the best for the people that I wasn’t being political, I wasn’t being partisan.”
More than $14 billion in state bonding has been allocated to capital improvements during Urdahl’s time in the House. More than $12 billion was allocated while he served on
the Capital Investment Committee, of which more than $6.6 billion was allocated while he served as the chair or minority lead of the committee. As chair, he secured bonding of more than $2.1 billion for projects.
“Those are infrastructure needs projects — covering across the whole state of Minnesota. I mean, I can go to almost any town in the state, and people know who I am because of this, because of a long association with infrastructure and projects,” Urdahl said. “A lot of them deal with water. … When the towns across the state for the last 20 years have been doing
Tom Cherveny / West Central Tribune
Rep. Dean Urdahl, R-Acton Township, served 22 years in the Minnesota House of Representatives.
West
Putting partisanship aside
Urdahl, who as a Republican was in the minority the majority of his time in the House, explained that being the minority lead on the Capital Investment Committee was more important than any other chairman in the Minnesota House of Representatives due to the need for a supermajority, or two-thirds, vote to pass a capital investment bonding bill.
“At present, that meant 11 Republicans. If they didn’t get 11 Republicans, they could not pass a capital investment general obligation bond bill, and so it was my task to help them find 11 Republican votes to pass the bill,” Urdahl said. “Now that gives me a great deal of power because I tell them, ‘OK, you have to have reasonable things in this bill.’”
SUPPORTLOCALNONPROFITS WITHNON-CASHGIFTS
Don Davis / Forum News Service file photo
Minnesota Rep. Dean Urdahl of Grove City speaks in 2017 about a $600 million public works funding bill that he called a “starting point.” During 22 years serving as a representative, Urdahl left his mark throughout the state on capital improvement projects that he helped vet and fund with state dollars.
In other words, the projects presented by the Democratic-FarmerLabor Party couldn’t be “so outlandish” that he wouldn’t be able to find the votes amongst Republicans in the House, according to Urdahl, and he fought to include things Greater Minnesota and Republicans wanted.
“I developed good relationships with the Democrat leaders and capital investors, and I was successful in doing that,” Urdahl said.
He added that twice he went around House Republican leadership to get a bill passed that they opposed “because it was the right thing to do for the state of Minnesota and for districts we represent. I mean, they were asking Republicans to vote
against their own districts, which I believe was wrong.”
Urdahl explained that in recent years, Republicans used the supermajority provision to leverage the bonding bill. In other words, they would not vote for the bonding bill unless the DFL gave them something else they wanted outside of the bonding bill.
“Leveraging outside of the bill didn’t work. It just leads to us doing the bills inconsistently,” Urdahl commented.
“We’re supposed to be doing it in the second year of the biennium, but now we’re not.”
This year Urdahl said he had the Republican votes to pass a bonding bill, but it never made it to the House
floor due to the leveraging around other political factors.
The House was able to pass a cashonly capital investment bill, which needs only a simple majority to pass, and included $10 million for a much needed project for First District Association and the city of Litchfield. Unfortunately, it missed a vote in the Minnesota Senate by 15 seconds.
First District serves 650 family farm owners in 46 counties in Minnesota, marketing 8.4 million pounds of milk per day and processing 7.5 million pounds per day, according to an October 2023 Capital Investment Committee presentation given by Bob Huffman, First District president and CEO.
Carolyn Lange / West Central Tribune file photo
Then-Congressman Collin Peterson, left, chats with Rep. Dean Urdahl during the 2019 annual meeting of the First District Association in Litchfield. Urdahl tried to get funding for First District and the city of Litchfield to complete a much needed infrastructure project to help reduce the pollutants created by the milk processing plant that enter the wastewater treatment system.
“
People believed that I was doing what I was doing because it was for the best. It was the best for the people that I wasn’t being political, I wasn’t being partisan.
— Rep. Dean Urdahl
After undergoing a $200 million expansion, First District has been in chronic violation of industrial discharge limits for phosphorus and nitrogen. The nearly $57 million project would separate the business’ wastewater line from the city’s main line and construct a pretreatment and renewable energy facility.
“If this were all to fall apart, then First District would have to cut their production by about half. And when you have a state that already is short in terms of their processing, that is a serious, serious problem,” Urdahl said, noting that farmers would struggle to find somewhere to process their milk. “ … It’ll get taken care of eventually. It’s a big enough deal and I’ve raised the point enough with them, that, as (Gov. Tim Walz) said, ‘Everyone in state government knows about First District in Litchfield.’”
In the meantime, an agreement has been reached to allow First District Association to keep functioning at its latest capacity without being fined by the the city of Litchfield for industrial discharge violations.
Fighting for his district
Urdahl’s own constituents definitely benefited from his 22 years of service through the projects funded by bonding bills and other legislation he helped pass.
For instance, the restoration of the Litchfield Opera House was a beneficiary of small amounts of money several times throughout his tenure.
“The Litchfield Opera House … I didn’t try to get big amounts of money, but it’d be $50,000 here, $100,000 there, over five, six years,” Urdahl said. “They would joke about that. But you know, one of the things I tried to do was to restore old buildings, the Capitol being one, the (Grand Army of the Republic) Hall in Litchfield, the Opera House, those types of things.”
He has also garnered money to restore the building facades of historic downtown Litchfield, to assist in funding the new Litchfield Wellness Center that is currently being built and to finish the floor of the Dassel-Cokato Recreation Center.
Larger infrastructure projects Urdahl championed were the Willmar Wye railroad bypass and making Minnesota Highway 23 four lanes across Minnesota.
Urdahl could be a little sneaky at times. He giggled a bit when telling how he was able to get a state park designated in Meeker County for a short period of time. The state park is now Greenleaf State Recreation Area.
“In statute, it was put in as a state park, but I kind of snuck it in there at midnight before adjournment,” Urdahl explained. “Once the DNR and the governor figured out what I had done, they didn’t want that state park there, they wanted Vermilion.”
Lake Vermilion State Park in northeastern Minnesota was established in 2010, and in 2014 was officially joined with the adjacent Soudan Underground Mine State Park.
After some finagling, an agreement was reached that Greenleaf would be a state recreation area and the state would provide some funding to make improvements and it opened a few years ago.
Upon speaking with Urdahl for any amount of time, it is clear that he is a storyteller and it impacted his ability to get funding for projects in his district — one of which benefited the whole city of Cosmos.
Cosmos was having problem after problem, according to Urdahl. Arsenic had been found in its water and the state was mandating a new water tower be built, but Cosmos did not want to pay for it.
While dealing with that issue, the library burned down and mold was found throughout its senior center and it had to close. Once the new water tower was built and the water turned on, the city’s water main broke in 18 places under Minnesota Highway 4.
“When I gave this presentation to the committee … I gave a Kleenex to each of the members ‘in case you have to cry when you hear the story of the Job of cities,’ and the bill passed,” Urdahl said, recalling how he compared Cosmos to Job of the Bible. “Out of that, they got a water tower, they got Highway 4 redone through town and all the pipes underneath the highway replaced, they got a little
community center with the library and a senior center. So we helped Cosmos.”
State Capitol restoration
When Urdahl was first elected, he was shocked to find the deterioration that had taken place at the Minnesota State Capitol as he remembered driving by the Capitol as a child, looking at the beautiful building all lit up.
He considers the more than $300 million restoration of the Capitol as one his greatest accomplishments while serving as a representative.
“To get elected and be in there realizing, my gosh, it’s a beautiful building, but it’s starting to fall apart. There are cracks in the ceilings. The paintings are being damaged. There are blocks of marble falling off the exterior.
Something has to be done,” Urdahl said, recalling what he thought when he started working at the Capitol.
He noted that people had tried for years to move the restoration forward and there were various plans over more than a decade, but nothing could be done due to the Senate not wanting to give up the office space it had taken up at the Capitol.
Finally deciding the arguing had to end, Urdahl met with Senate leaders and others as he chaired the Legacy Funding Finance Committee, forming a Capitol Preservation Commission.
“It took a little bit of time, but once I got going on it, within a couple of sessions, we passed a bill to begin the financing of the reconstruction,” he said. “I think it’s certainly one of the most important projects I managed to get through.”
Along with the restoration of the Capitol, a $90 million Minnesota Senate Building was also constructed to house the Senate offices.
Realchallengesrequire realsolutions.
Tom Cherveny / West Central Tribune file photo
Erika Rivers, then the director of Parks and Trails for the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, and State Rep. Dean Urdahl, R-Acton Township, are shown Sept. 28, 2018, at the grand opening for the Greenleaf State Recreation Area. They applauded the effort to protect the undeveloped shoreline of Greenleaf Lake and the adjoining woodlands and prairie.
Overcoming challenges
Contreras helps newcomers build connections and community in Stevens, Swift counties
BY TOM CHERVENY West Central Tribune
MURDOCK — Alma Contreras found herself in a very different place from what she had expected when she arrived in west central Minnesota about 14 years ago.
It was rural, a place of small towns, not the urban America she expected. It was, in fact, very much like the small rural town where she had spent the first 26 years of her life in north central Mexico.
Her husband at the time had taken a job with a Riverview dairy farm near Pennock, where the couple and their children were provided with a house.
“The middle of nowhere,” a friend
advised her, Contreras said with a laugh.
Her new home was familiarly rural, but yet so different. In Mexico, she and her family only had to sit out in front of the house during the evening and suddenly, an aunt, maybe a neighbor, and almost certainly, the neighbor kids would be there, playing.
“More spontaneous,” said Contrera of the community connections.
In Minnesota, however, neighbors or friends could be miles away, and getting together usually meant a phone call or two and some advance planning.
“ We are more alike than we think we are. We have the same, similar strengths. (We) just want the best for our kids.
— Alma Contreras
Her English was limited, adding to the challenges she faced. “The adjustment was difficult,” she said. Today, she devotes herself to making that transition so much easier
Macy Moore / West Central Tribune
Alma Contreras smiles while serving as an interpreter for a family as they speak with KMS Elementary School principal Jeff Keil during a student/parent orientation meeting in Murdock on Wednesday, Aug. 21.
for others who have followed her footsteps from Mexico and Central America to the wide open spaces of central Minnesota. She works just as diligently at introducing her neighbors who grew up in the area to the newcomers, helping build friendships, understanding and community in the process.
Contreras is an associate director of Conexiones, a non-profit operating in Stevens and Swift counties to assist those new to the area. Conexiones, translated as connections, works to connect the region’s new immigrant population and the native population.
“I love working with Alma,” said Conexiones Director Autumn Marcias. “(She is a) very positive person. Her energy, her attitude, very much a go-getter.”
Marcias said the Morris-based organization was looking to hire someone to help it expand its services in Swift County. They recruited Contreras for the role when they learned she was already doing what they hoped to do.
After her move to west central Minnesota, Contreras enrolled in English classes in Willmar. She volunteered to help in the KMS Schools, which her three children attended. Within a few years, she was hired by the school as a paraprofessional. She works full
time in the district’s preschool program assisting the district’s youngest children, as well as their parents, newcomers and long-time residents alike.
On her own initiative and through her work with both KMS Schools and Conexiones, she has become the go-to
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Macy Moore / West Central Tribune
Alma Contreras smiles while welcoming a family to the student/parent orientation meeting at KMS Elementary School in Murdock on Wednesday, Aug. 21.
person for anyone trying to navigate life in a new land or for those looking to reach out to the new residents.
“When people talk about Alma, they don’t even have to say her last name. She’s gotten to be quite well known,” said Ted Almen, publisher of the Kerkhoven Banner. “You never see her without a smile on her face.”
To that can be added: You rarely see her at rest.
Besides her work for the school and Conexiones, Contreras works summer weekends for friends at their restaurant in Willmar. During her off hours, she plays on basketball and soccer teams comprised of Hispanic women, dances with a folk dance group, and is a volunteer first responder.
For more than a decade, she has been writing a weekly column printed in both Spanish and English in the Kerkhoven Banner. She focuses on telling of the customs and ways of life of her native Mexico.
The Banner’s owners, Ted and Keri Jo Almen, recruited Contreras to write the column. It happened after Ted happened to drive by a kid’s baseball game. He noticed three Hispanic youth sitting on apartment steps watching the local kids playing and realized: We’ve got to do a better job
of mixing, integrating, and becoming a community, “not two communities,” Ted Almen explained.
The Almens felt that adding the perspective of the new residents in the paper would be a step in that direction. When they asked who could help them do that, they were immediately directed to Contreras.
Many of the newcomers to Swift County are from Mexico and neighboring Central America countries who have taken jobs at the Riverview dairies, which in turn have expanded from Stevens into Swift, Chippewa, and Kandiyohi counties. Many of those workers arrive on work visas with intentions of working two or three years, Contreras said.
She and her husband intended the same, but her thoughts changed. She said she found the area welcoming and the people friendly. Contreras said she also discovered quickly that her longtime neighbors shared the same family values as her.
At age 40, she has become a U.S. citizen and celebrates finding what she came for — A better life. Her two oldest children have graduated from high school. Her daughter is getting married and is enrolled at Ridgewater Community College. A son joined the National Guard, proud to serve his
country, and is committing full time to the Guard, she said. Her youngest is attending KMS.
Newcomers face many challenges. Language and transportation are among the most obvious, as well as housing, but there are many others, according to Contreras. What is there to do for recreation? How do you get to know the parents of your children’s classmates and friends?
Her work with Conexiones allows her to help people address these and many other challenges, and she loves it. It can be lots of fun, she explained.
Conexiones hosts picnics and other events for families, and organizes activities — ranging from a summer trip to Glacial Lakes State Park to a fall outing to Country Blossom Farm near Alexandria.
At the heart of her work is a straightforward goal: Helping newcomers and long-time residents get to know and understand each other, and put away the fears they may have of one another.
After all, she said her experience has taught her: “We are more alike than we think we are. We have the same, similar strengths. (We) just want the best for our kids.”
Contreras said she came to this area for a better life, and it’s now her home for all the right reasons. She has a home in Murdock. “I’m really happy to be here. I like it here,” she said.
While her work has made it clear to her that it will take time to achieve all that we need to do, she said it also makes her very optimistic about the future.
Macy Moore / West Central Tribune
KMS Elementary School principal Jeff Keil shows Azael d Sapas Anaya, 5, his new kindergarten classroom during a student/parent orientation meeting at KMS Elementary School in Murdock on Wednesday, Aug. 21.
Macy Moore / West Central Tribune
Alma Contreras, center, who works for Conexiones, speaks with a family as they arrive for a student/parent orientation meeting at KMS Elementary School in Murdock on Wednesday, Aug. 21.
Community-based connections
Woodland Centers focuses on addressing rural mental health needs
BY DALE MORIN West Central Tribune
WILLMAR — Establishing effective access to mental health treatment is especially challenging in rural communities.
John Salgado Maldonado, a community impact specialist for Woodland Centers, said problems such as depression and anxiety in the general population are aggravated by the fact there are simply fewer mental health professionals in rural communities.
Maldonado’s work involves building community connections, and serving as the introductory face to people not familiar with Woodland Centers.
“I’m more like a community-based occupational therapist,” Maldonado said. “The work and vision that I
Shelby Lindrud / West Central Tribune Woodland Centers, a mental health services provider based in Willmar, serves the counties of Big Stone, Chippewa, Kandiyohi, Lac qui Parle, Meeker, Renville and Swift, with mental health services and education, treatment for substance use and crisis support services.
Moore / West Central Tribune
John Salgado Maldonado, shown talking with attendees of a drum circle gathering at the Willmar Community Center in this April 12, 2023, photo, is a community impact specialist for Woodland Centers. He said he serves as an introductory face. “I’m more like a communitybased occupational therapist,” he said.
“ When you think about your community, you need to think about connections and how everything is interconnected …
— John Salgado Maldonado
share with Woodland Centers is about connections.”
That word (connections) is something Maldonado described as being a “big word.”
“When we talk about clients, and doing therapy, psychotherapy or education, you need to be connected with yourself first. Then, you need to be connected with your family and friends. Then you need to be connected with your community. When we talk about belonging and purpose, it’s everything.”
Woodland Centers, a private nonprofit organization, was first established in 1958. The organization serves the counties of Big Stone, Chippewa, Kandiyohi, Lac qui Parle, Meeker, Renville and Swift, with mental health services and education, treatment for substance use and crisis support services.
The main office, located in Willmar, provides a total of 26 different programs to address mental health needs including an online 24/7 crisis line, a mobile crisis response team, and mental health urgent care.
A 24/7 Crisis Line — 1-800-4328781 — serves as a way for people in all seven counties to seek support for their mental health.
The mobile crisis response team is also available for urgent mental health crises or situations in a home or other location in the service area, which
Macy Moore / West Central Tribune
Damion Rodriguez, 8, right, smiles at his father John Rodriguez as they paint fall colors on trees during a Kids Connection Experience hosted by Woodland Centers and others at Uptown Willmar on Oct. 17, 2023.
Macy
allows people not only to call for support but allows us to go where they are, Maldonado said.
Maldonado also said Woodland Centers provides mental health urgent care.
“A lot of times for people that are struggling with a mental health situation, when they want to get an appointment, they may have to wait weeks or months for an appointment,” Maldonado said.
Mental health urgent care allows someone to go within one day, or simply walk into a Woodland Centers facility to meet with a licensed mental health professional, complete an assessment and develop a safety plan.
Part of what is difficult in addressing mental health issues is that the needs are not always visible.
“It’s hard to understand,” Maldonado said, adding that there are many “silent symptoms.”
He continued, “It’s not something that you can just say ‘feel better.’ It’s a process. You need to get an assessment, diagnosis, treatment plan and follow-up.”
Maldonado said community inclusion is paramount to that process.
“When you think about your community, you need to think about connections and how everything is interconnected … when individuals have that sense of belonging and purpose. Without that, it’s easy to get into a mental health situation.”
One of the ways Woodland Centers had reached out to the community has been through Kids Connection Experience events of family-friendly programming and activities. Hosted with other community organizations, Kids Connection provided all the partners a chance to connect with the community and spread the word about what each of them offers.
Maldonado said a lot of times the way traditional systems treat those with mental illness is to send them somewhere to learn or gain skills so they can integrate themselves within the community. “That’s the logic, but they don’t touch the community,” he said.
Perhaps one of the more tangible connections Woodland Centers has made with the community is the distribution of naloxone kits to reverse the effects of an opioid overdose. It is an anonymous process, and no questions are asked of people who request a kit.
Maldonado said he has helped train people in Litchfield and Kandiyohi on how to spot an overdose, and how to administer the drug. Maldonado said it’s one thing Woodland Centers does that has an observable impact within the community.
Maldonado said during his time at county fairs in the summer, people had directly told him that naloxone kits had helped them.
“They would say this is helping people in my house, or they would ask for a kit,” Maldonado said. “That’s a way I’ve seen an impact — people are telling you. It’s very powerful when they say it to you.”
Woodland Centers has also provided naloxone kits to police officers and staff members who work in hospitals or clinics.
Another community link Woodlands Centers has to west central Minnesota is by working with area school districts, including the Benson, Lac qui Parle Valley, Litchfield, Montevideo, New London-Spicer and Willmar, among others.
The School Linked Behavioral Health Program is designed to help students and families address any mental health or substance use needs within a school setting, thereby reducing any barriers or accessibility to care they may otherwise face. Intervention or treatment often occurs during the school day and is also continued into summer.
Maldonado said anyone wishing to get involved with Woodland Centers should reach out directly to the community impact team.
As far as knowing when to ask for help, Maldonado said, “what I’ve seen is when you start ‘failing,’ your work and your health are two big indicators that something is happening.”
However, he added that it’s important for people to check themselves before things escalate to a point that their personal lives are affected.
“Check yourself. We don’t do that usually. It’s part of the consciousness to just go with the machine. ... It’s hard for people to take pause,” he said. “Let’s talk about your life project. … Work is an important piece of that, your relationships at home and in social spaces are important to that, but it’s also important to have a sense of your own human development.”
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50 years of family nutritional support
Supplemental nutrition program has provided women and their children with healthy food options
OLIVIA — For 50 years, the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children has helped provide fresh and nutritional food to millions of mothers and children nationwide. Established in 1974, the program — better known as WIC — has also been key in teaching those families about nutritional and healthy eating.
As concern grew nationally around malnutrition among low-income families, WIC was established. The program is based on a prototype
BY SHELBY LINDRUD West Central Tribune
food distribution program created by Dr. David Paige of John Hopkins University. The first WIC clinic was opened in Pineville, Kentucky, and by 1980 every state was operating a program.
“Nutrition can play a huge role in just overall health,” said Polly Ahrens, Renville County WIC coordinator and Public Health nurse.
The focus of the program is, of course, mothers and children. Infants, both formula and breastfed, as well as children up to age 5 are eligible.
Pre- and postpartum women are also eligible, with their breastfeeding status determining how long.
“One thing that a lot of people don’t know is (that) if a woman miscarries, she is still eligible six months past that,” said Krista Schneider, Renville County Family Health administrative assistant. “Their body is still recovering after the pregnancy.”
Last year, on average, Kandiyohi and Renville counties served 1,952 WIC participants a month. Statewide, there were approximately 106,100
Macy Moore / West Central Tribune
The front entrance of Bihi’s Shop in downtown Willmar shows customers it accepts Minnesota WIC. WIC is a nutrition and breastfeeding program that helps eligible pregnant women, new mothers, babies and young children.
participants. Thirty-eight percent of all infants born in Minnesota are program participants, with 66% of eligible individuals enrolled in the program, according to United States Department of Agriculture data.
Minnesota ranks in the top five states of WIC participation by eligible families.
Partnerships with local groceries
Through vouchers provided by the program, participants can purchase, at no cost to them, approved foods including milk, juice, vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and more nutritious choices. In 2023, program participants purchased more than $91 million in WIC foods at local grocery stores, with $31 million going towards fruit and vegetables. Only WICapproved food can be purchased with the vouchers.
“It is very specific on what they can get,” Ahrens said.
The food choices are based on recommendations from the National Academies of Science, Engineering,
timewith yourloved onesand less time worryingaboutthe financialaspectsofself-directedcare.
forthecaregiversofindividuals withdisabilities and olderadultswho receive support in their own homesandcommunities.
Shelby Lindrud / West Central Tribune
The WIC staff at Renville County Public Health helps hundreds of mothers and children each month.
Pictured from left are Krista Schneider, Lacy Zeitz, Katie Slagter and Polly Ahrens.
“
(WIC) is giving them access to healthier foods along with nutrition education. It is supporting them and feeding their kids.
— Polly Ahrens
and Medicine along with the Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The foods are high in calcium, iron, vitamin C, fiber, protein and other important nutrients needed for healthy lives.
“We try to hit that food pyramid,” said Katie Slagter, Renville County Family Health supervisor. “They don’t get meats.”
During the COVID pandemic, the amount of fruits and vegetables a WIC household could purchase with program benefits increased. While that was supposed to be a temporary change, the decision was made to keep the increased amount.
“Legislation passed that they made
it permanent,” Slagter said. “They do get a good amount of fruits and vegetables for the families.”
Over the years, the government has made changes to the program, specifically around the approved food packages, to make the program more flexible for families. This includes opening the door for more culturally appropriate foods, allowing for changes due to dietary restrictions and updating the variety.
Since 2020, the paper vouchers, once ubiquitous, have been replaced by an easier-to-use electronic benefit transfer card. The cards have made use of the program more efficient for
the counties that administer it, the families who use it and the stores where the food is sold.
“Their foods up to three months are loaded onto their card,” Schneider said. “They are reloaded through us.”
WIC also now operates a smartphone app, which allows users to scan potential purchases for eligibility before checking out at the register. The app also keeps track of the families’ WIC appointment dates and other important information.
“That’s very handy for the clients,” said Slagter.
Staff with the counties also provide nutritional education to the
Shelby Lindrud / West Central Tribune
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, better known as WIC, has been helping families eat healthy for 50 years. Thousands of families have benefited across the state, including in Renville and Kandiyohi counties.
families. Topics include how to eat healthy during and after pregnancy and how to feed both infants and children to keep them healthy. Families are also given tips and recipes on how to use the food they can purchase through the program.
“There are all kinds of different topics,” Schneider said.
Keeping the youngest children fed
As part of its mission to make sure infants receive adequate nutrition, WIC also advises mothers to breastfeed. Program benefits include breastfeeding support for mothers. Mothers can learn how to breastfeed, assistance in overcoming challenges and advice on how to keep breastfeeding after going back to work.
“One of our nurses here is our designated expert,” Ahrens said.
Between 2010 and 2018 Minnesota saw the rate of mothers on WIC who were breastfeeding increase by 6%, and 34% of those women who started in 2018 continued to breastfeed their children past six months.
The nutritional and breastfeeding education are just a couple of ways WIC provides needed support to families, many of them who may not have extended families to lean on or the resources to receive this help from anywhere else.
“There are just tons of different supports,” Ahrens said.
More people qualify than participate
There are eligibility requirements to participate in WIC. Households already participating in state support programs — such as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, formerly known as food stamps; Medical Assistance, Minnesota’s Medicaid program; free or reduced school lunches and Head Start — are automatically income-eligible to participate in WIC.
There are also traditional income eligibility guidelines. For instance, a family of four with eligible individuals can make up to $57,720 a year and participate.
Households who are interested in seeing if they are eligible, but are perhaps nervous to talk to someone about it, can check their status online on the Minnesota Department of Health website.
“They can actually go through a screening process right online,” Schneider said.
To join the program and remain eligible, families are required to attend two in-person and two phone appointments with WIC staff. In the office, those staff will measure the height, weight and hemoglobins of the participating mother and children. All three of those data points can be nutrition indicators. During the appointments, staff will talk about nutrition, healthy eating, breastfeeding and other health concerns.
“We try to help and include the parents. Identifying what is going well, what can they approve on, setting some nutritional goals,” Ahrens said.
Staff will also discuss and refer families to other health or community programs for which they may be eligible. WIC can often be the first step for families to receive needed help. It can also work hand in hand with some of those other programs, like family home visits from public health nurses.
“We’re a connection to community resources,” Slagter said.
WIC is a program families are urged to join if eligible because of how important good nutrition is for new mothers and growing children. The state will send out notifications to eligible families, hoping to increase the number of families enrolled.
“It is a nice way to show moms that it can be done and be more of an advocate to eat healthy,” Slagter said, “which will then hopefully ward off all the other chronic conditions that can happen.”
Renville County has seen a significant jump in the number of families on the WIC program, and staff members do not see that as a negative. Instead, they see it as families getting the nutritional help they need, which in turn could stop bad eating habits and health concerns from taking root as the child grows.
“It is giving them access to healthier foods along with nutrition education,” Ahrens said. “It is supporting them and feeding their kids.”
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The amount of fruits and vegetables a WIC household can purchase with program benefits increased during COVID, and that increase is now permanent.
Moving all the way home
Madison native returns to her roots and discovers a passion for helping build its future
BY TOM CHERVENY West Central Tribune
MADISON — Thirty-one years of service in the National Guard led Kris Shelstad to Wisconsin, Washington D.C., Georgia, Kansas, Germany and finally Texas, where Shelstad and her husband of 10 years retired in 2013.
His unexpected death in 2018 got her thinking about returning to Minnesota. Maybe a college town. Maybe the Twin Cities. Or maybe, the small community she had left in the rear view mirror after her high school graduation in 1981.
“If I’m going to come home, might as well come all the way home,” Shelstad said of her decision.
She moved to Madison in 2020, and purchased the house she always wanted with intentions “of being that crazy old lady in that big ‘ol house.”
“She was going to do nothing. Not volunteer for anything. Not going to join anything,” said her sister, Lisa Shelstad Renglien, while laughing at the memory.
Instead of doing nothing, Shelstad purchased an empty, 15,000-squarefoot building at the south end of Madison’s commercial district. She has kept a breakneck pace of activity ever since, like the Roadrunner of cartoon fame. Once a combined
hardware and auto store, and well before that a lumber yard, Shelstad transformed the building and opened it up as the Madison Mercantile in early 2022.
“It is not just a building,” said Scott Marquardt, executive director of the Southwest Initiative Foundation, of the Mercantile. “It is how real estate can drive community and belonging.”
First of all, Shelstad made that empty storefront into a lively gathering place where the key message is “everyone is welcome.”
Many are lured inside by the aromas of fresh-brewed coffee and
Macy Moore / West Central Tribune
Kris Shelstad opened the Madison Mercantile in a spacious, 15,000-square-foot building, offering room for a diverse mix of endeavors.
treats. The Mercantile features a coffee house with plenty of room to visit or relax; a stage for music and other live performances; and a cooler stocked with the craft beers of two hometown guys who opened their own breweries elsewhere.
The Mercantile is also a community center and business incubator. There’s the “Men’s Shed,” fully equipped with tools, where woodworkers are invited to work and create.
There’s a sewing room where local sewing and quilting groups enjoy their craft and the company of one another.
Another room and area is set aside with a pool table. Youth and adults are always welcome to play.
There is an art gallery hosting the works of different, featured local artists and another room set aside to display the works of the late Franz Richter, a local artist.
There is a also fitness center with exercise equipment, and space for dance and other classes.
There are also tenants with their own offices within a few steps of the fresh-brewed coffee.
There is plenty of space set aside for promoting local foods. The Mercantile serves as a local food hub with weekly deliveries of local produce and a selection of local meats.
Having so large a space for so many different things is essential to what the Mercantile is about, but what makes it a “million times more special” is what goes on inside, Marquardt said. Arts and civic organizations — and many groups of friends — meet here to work on projects ranging from helping newcomers and immigrants feel welcome in the community to planning the community’s summer celebration.
All Shelstad originally planned to do when she purchased the building was open up the coffee house, and set aside some space to display the art of a friend who had died and bequeathed her collection to her.
Shelstad said her plans — and goals — changed after reading the book “Alienated America Why Some
Places Thrive While
Others
Collapse” by Timothy P. Carney. It speaks to the social breakdown we see in many areas, and how the ties of family, church and other institutions important to a sense of community are stressed across the country.
With all this space available, Shelstad said she was inspired to make the Mercantile a place to foster a sense of community.
But how? That’s for the community to determine, she decided. She hosted an ongoing series of listening sessions to hear what people felt the community needed.
“It’s really been communityinformed,” said Shelstad of what the Mercantile now offers.
“It’s fun to do this. We just said yes to everything for a year,” she said with a laugh.
Residents pitched right in. Shelstad said one of Madison’s strongest assets is the ability of residents in the community to work together. “It feels like Madison has always been a town that gets along and gets it done,” she said.
It’s all made her very optimistic about the community and its future. Since returning to her home town, she’s watched many others do the same.
Some of those she terms “rebounders” are coming home to move into the homes their parents or
grandparents are vacating due to age or death. The returnees are taking advantage of more affordable housing in a rural community, she said.
Importantly, she said, many of them are also returning for the safety rural life offers and their desire to raise their children in the small-town environment they enjoyed.
She said her biggest hope is to help foster a rural renaissance as people return and newcomers arrive to make this home and launch new economic endeavors in the community.
Longer term, she’s hoping to make the nonprofit she created, the Madison Arts and Innovation Center, self-sustaining to carry on the work. “The goal is to work myself out of a job,” she said.
Through all of this, she has put aside her own passion for art and creating. She’d like someday to sit back in her studio and devote her days to quietly creating art.
Until then, she has one answer to those who have asked her why she moves so fast. “Because I’m not 20,” she answered. She recently turned 61, and has so much she wants to see accomplished.
“She’s always on to the next dream, and she makes it happen,” Marquardt said. “She represents the courage and the guts and the passion that people have in our region.”
Macy Moore / West Central Tribune
Kris Shelstad, owner of Madison Mercantile, sorts through local items in she has a vision to one day implement into her business on Wednesday, July 31.
Stepping up for community
Julie Asmus gives back to Willmar through service, support
WILLMAR — Julie Asmus believes you are taught the value of helping others and giving back to your communities and neighbors. Asmus learned this from her mother, who no matter how busy she was, would find time to volunteer with the March of Dimes, Boy Scouts and the Auxiliaries of the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars.
“You don’t have to be rich or have a lot of resources to share. You give your time and your talent to help others,” Asmus said.
It is a lesson Asmus has lived by her entire life. She found her own
BY SHELBY LINDRUD West Central Tribune
ways to give back, including serving in the National Guard, as a Willmar police officer and as a member of the Willmar City Council. She has also participated and volunteered with various boards, organizations and community projects.
“I do think it’s important that you do give back because that is what makes your community a good place to live,” Asmus said. “That is what makes your community healthy.”
Born and raised in Madison, Minnesota, Asmus moved to Willmar to attend college, intending to become a police officer.
“I just knew, like when I was in junior high, that that is what I wanted to do,” Asmus said. “Which is odd, because there weren’t a lot of female role models that inspired me to go into law enforcement; nobody else in my family was law enforcement.”
Asmus would be a police officer for 33 years, all with the Willmar Police Department. She was the first woman to ever be promoted at the department and one of the first women ever hired.
During her career, Asmus served as a uniformed patrol officer, detective and then sergeant. As
Macy Moore / West Central Tribune
Julie Asmus has served in the National Guard, as a Willmar police officer and as a member of the Willmar City Council.
a detective she would specialize in child abuse and domestic abuse cases, even helping surrounding cities and counties in their investigations.
She would also find herself being extremely involved in the department’s community-oriented policing efforts. She was the department’s first Drug Abuse Resistance Education officer, more commonly called DARE, started the community service officer program, worked with the bike patrol, and went out into the communities, giving talks and meeting with people.
“As a police officer, you’re not just a guy behind the wheel of a squad car,” Asmus said. “You need to connect with the people you serve.”
In her role as the DARE officer in the schools and her other community service positions, Asmus also became aware of how important it is for children to see someone like them in uniform or in a leadership position.
“You definitely feel the weight of some of that responsibility,
that you are representing more than just yourself,” Asmus said. “It really became obvious to me how important it was to have a woman in uniform in the schools for them to look up to and see the possibility, to see themselves.”
Her police career also led Asmus to other ways to assist the community,
especially families and children.
Over the years, she was part of the core group that brought the YMCA to Willmar; served on the United Way Board; and helped raise funds as part of the Southwest Minnesota Peacepipe Girl Scout Council Board.
“Thirty-three years in law enforcement gave me the opportunity
West Central Tribune file photo
Over her 33 years with the Willmar Police Department, Julie Amsus won many different awards for her work with the community.
Macy Moore / West Central Tribune Julie Asmus has worked with many different groups and organizations such as Junior Achievement. Pictured, Asmus talked with the students about community and the importance of businesses and other institutions in a community.
to see and recognize how we could help families and kids in the community,” Asmus said. “That led me to become very involved in organizations and committees that I thought would make a difference.”
Asmus also found herself as a mentor figure as she worked with various organizations. She helped educate young girls and businesses about the risks of human trafficking while fundraising for the Willmar Area Women’s Fund, and helped develop future leaders with the Vision 2040 Leadership program.
An organization that has been close to Asmus’ heart since her early years in Willmar is Women Inspiring and Networking, formerly known as Business and Professional Women. Asmus first joined the group as a way for her to meet and build networks with other women professionals, business leaders and entrepreneurs.
Her work with the group included mentoring young girls and putting on Wonder Camps. The goal of the camps was to get more girls interested in science, technology, engineering and math.
“One of the developmental assets that helps kids be successful is having an adult other than their parent that they trust and can talk to,” Asmus said.
Asmus is also a major supporter of military families and veterans. She served seven years in the National Guard following high school, and her father and brothers served as well.
That led to serving on the Yellow Ribbon Community Task Force and volunteering with HomeFront Connection. HomeFront helps families of deployed service members and veterans when things come up at home, such as a broken furnace or assisting in mowing a lawn.
“I just have a very strong connection with people who fight for our freedom. There is just a need to
“ Sometimes you get involved in things because you have friends that are passionate about something and you help them out.
— Julie Asmus
help those families,” Asmus said. “And it’s just good to help veterans.”
For the past eight years, Asmus has been serving as a Willmar City Council member. Asmus, who was elected in 2016, felt like her experience as a police officer and city employee would be valuable assets on the council. She also felt like things were happening in the city with which she didn’t agree.
“I just thought we needed people that had common sense and were making decisions for the city for the right reasons,” Asmus.
While Asmus has decided not to run for a third term, she is proud of what she and the rest of the council have been able to achieve over the years, even while dealing with some challenging issues.
“I just really care about this city,” Asmus said.
And in her free time, Asmus has also volunteered with Spicefest for Vets, the Rice Hospital Gala, and Friends of the Willmar Public Library, along with her church.
“Sometimes you get involved in things because you have friends that are passionate about something and you help them out,” Asmus said.
Asmus has called Willmar home for more than 45 years and has loved living and raising her family in the community. It provided great opportunities for her kids and work for Asmus and her husband.
“I think it’s the perfect size city. You are still small enough that you really know people, and you have connections and can make an impact,” Asmus said. “You’re comfortable and you’re safe.”
One of the reasons why Willmar is
West Central Tribune file photo
Julie Asmus has volunteered with HomeFront Connection, which helps military families when loved ones are deployed and also assists veterans. Asmus served seven years in the National Guard and has always been drawn to helping military families.
such a great place, in Asmus’ opinion, is its people and their willingness to put in the
So many organizations and their members make it possible to provide such events and activities such as Rockin’ Robbins, Willmar Fests and Spicer Winterfest. The community itself often comes together to help each other or make something big possible, like the Destination Playground at Robbins Island.
“We are blessed to be in a community of generous, caring people,” Asmus said. “There are so many philanthropic people that really care about giving back and making life better for families in our area.”
Asmus urges people to give back to their community, even if it is in small ways. The impact can be large, not just for the community but for the volunteer as well.
“We all have the capability of helping others. It doesn’t cost anything to smile, to be nice, polite or kind,” Asmus said. “It isn’t all about what you’re giving to others. You get back for being part of something.”
West Central Tribune file photo
Julie Asmus, in white, has served almost two terms on the Willmar City Council. She ran because she loves the city.
A helping hand for homeowners Community Action programs help residents maintain, repair rural homes
BY DALE MORIN West Central Tribune
MONTEVIDEO — Home maintenance and repair can be a daunting task for any property owner. Helping lowincome homeowners afford these needed improvements is one of many services provided by community action agencies.
Prairie Five Community Action Council is one of 24 such community action agencies in Minnesota, all of which offer custom programs to meet the needs of the communities in their designated regions. Prairie Five serves residents of communities in Big Stone, Chippewa, Lac qui Parle, Swift and Yellow Medicine counties.
Community action programs aim to provide assistance with employment,
health and well-being, education and early child development, income management and housing support, including home repair and rehabilitation loan programs for lowincome residents.
Who can apply for housing financial assistance?
Prairie Five’s rehabilitation loan program assists low-income homeowners with financing home improvements that affect the safety, habitability, accessibility or energy efficiency of their homes.
Eligible homeowners must also be occupants of the home in need
of rehabilitation, be current on their property taxes and mortgages, and not have assets exceeding $25,000, according to Laura Milbrandt, the housing and weatherization director for Prairie Five Community Action.
Milbrandt said income limits do determine who can qualify for the home repair loans, as the program is meant for low-income households. Those who qualify can get as much $37,500 in a single loan. Maximum loan terms are 15 years for homes taxed as real property, and 10 years for mobile/manufactured homes taxed as personal property.
Those who make 30% of the median household income in the Minneapolis/
Contributed / Laura Milbrandt
The front facade of a home after repairs are done through the home repair loan program offered by Prairie Five Community Action Council, which serves residents in Big Stone, Chippewa, Lac qui Parle, Swift and Yellow Medicine counties.
St. Paul area, based on estimates from Housing and Urban Development, qualify in all rehabilitation program areas in the state, according to Minnesota Housing.
For example, the income limit for a household of three people would be $33,600. Income limits are adjusted on a yearly basis. Minnesota Housing also allows applicants to reduce their household income by $1,000 per household member to qualify.
Loans are forgiven if the homeowner does not sell, transfer title, or stop living on the property during the loan term.
What kinds of repairs qualify for assistance?
Home improvements eligible under the loan program include replacing windows, roof repair/ replacement, siding, well or septic repair/replacement, or addressing lead paint hazards among other home improvements.
“It looks at basic things like fixing up siding, roofing, or the structure of
your house… it’s not going to remodel your kitchen, put on a nice fancy deck or anything like that,” Milbrandt said. “It’s pretty basic things that people need in their homes.”
The most common repairs needed are roofing and siding. “Sometimes they’ll put a match in,” Milbrand said of homeowners’ contributions, “but for the most part they don’t have that ability for a match on a personal level.”
Milbrandt said some who seek home repairs are sometimes in an immediate crisis, such as having a leaking roof. “Other people I think are just looking to get new windows, that’s one we hear a million times … they’re looking to upgrade things in their house and they’re calling to see what we can do.”
The impact of repairing individual houses may not be a notable one, given that the home repair project is more of a “spot program,” in Milbrandt’s words, but it makes a big difference to the people who live in those homes.
“We’ve had calls and letters over the years thanking us, that the house looks so nice and it’s warmer … it’s more comfortable, things like that,” she said.
Keeping a hand on the wheel from start to finish
Milbrandt said Prairie Five works as the field administrator when it comes to their involvement in the process of repairing houses or commercial buildings.
“We do the applications. We do the inspections, we get all the work done, all the bids, everything like that,” she said.
According to Milbrandt, Prairie Five currently works with four or five contractors, but said there used to be as many as 15 contractors that worked with them.
“We are reaching out beyond our five counties — we’re looking in (Alexandria) we’re looking in Marshall, we’re looking in Willmar. We’re looking all over,” Milbrandt said.
She noted that while Prairie Five
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• Help streamline your finances — Especially when you are distracted by other events going on in your
has plenty of work, contractors also have more obstacles to overcome when signing up for the job.
“We have so much paperwork,” she said. “If you had to choose between a private job and our job, I know what I would choose.”
That said, Milbrandt noted that Prairie Five also puts in competitive bids. She said the pitch she gives to contractors — other than that they’ll be guaranteed payment — is that the home repair projects and Small Cities Development Program projects are “feel good” jobs.
“I know they buy into that,” she said. “When we come back and they put a bid in and we say ‘You know, they just don’t have that much money. Is there any way we can lower a part of the project?’ And some of them will work with us on that.”
Higher repair costs require matching funds
The Small Cities Development Program, which has higher levels of income restrictions, allows Prairie Five to assist in rehabilitating small towns by repairing and updating commercial businesses.
However, those seeking Small Cities loans have to make a match. According to the Prairie Five website, most grants are written using 70-80% of grant funds and requiring a 20-30% match from property owners.
For example, a family of four with a household income under $73,300 could qualify for basic home repairs or improvements, according to Milbrandt.
The program is funded to local governments through the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development. Cities with fewer than 50,000 residents and counties with fewer than 200,000 residents are eligible to apply for the funds they can then lend for rehabilitation of housing.
Making an impact, no matter how small
Prairie Five has also worked with organizations such as the Upper Minnesota Valley Regional Development Commission to complete projects.
In 2022, spurred on by the COVID-19 pandemic, a grant for 12 commercial businesses in Appleton helped improve air quality upgrades within those businesses. Through 39 grants awarded throughout the years in its service area, Prairie Five Community Action’s repair and rehabilitation efforts have directly helped between 550 and 600 people.
“It doesn’t seem like a lot,” Milbrandt said. “When I look at energy assistance — and they help thousands of people every winter — and we come around with ‘oh well, we did 22 projects this year,’ it doesn’t sound like a lot but you have an impact.”
Contributed / Laura Milbrandt Contractors begin work on repairing an exterior wall of a commercial building as part of a repair loan program through Prairie Five Community Action Council, based in Montevideo.
Breaking down barriers
New organization in Willmar dedicated to fostering unity, affecting positive change
BY JENNIFER KOTILA West Central Tribune
WILLMAR — After seeing a need in the community for a leader to guide and connect community members to various services, Abdifatah Mohamed, who said he has a passion for helping people, took it upon himself to start a nonprofit organization in the city of Willmar. Mohamed, who came to Willmar from Kenya after finishing high school in 2015, attended Ridgewater College for computer programming and cybersecurity. He started Community Connectors Services in October of 2023. Its offices are located at 436 Litchfield Ave. SW.
The mission of Community Connectors Services is five-fold: fostering vibrant and inclusive
communities by actively promoting community integration, raising public awareness, mitigating drug abuse, educating on basic needs and empowering youth and women. It is committed to creating a positive and sustainable impact through collaborative initiatives that enhance the well-being of individuals and strengthen the fabric of society.
Answering questions leads to office hours
While working in his father’s store, Mubarek Food and Grocery in Willmar, Mohamed was often asked by patrons to help fill out paperwork for various things like job applications
Services.
Jennifer Kotila / West Central Tribune
After seeing a need in the community for a leader to guide and connect community members to various services, Abdifatah Mohamed, who said he has a passion for helping people, took it upon himself to start a nonprofit organization in the city of Willmar called Community Connectors
“ … If our youth are dying for nothing, why don’t I help them? Then that’s when I started doing more research.
— Abdifatah Mohamed
or applications for assistance or housing. He was also often asked to translate messages people had received, or to help translate during meetings.
“A lot of people, you know, ask for help — questions — like paperwork filled out, they need help to get translators, something like that,” Mohamed said. “Then that’s when I start saying, ‘Why don’t I help people in the right way?’”
For him, that meant having an official office where people could depend on someone being there to help with all the things with which they needed help, and the idea for Community Connectors Services was born.
Mohamed still works full-time as a quality assurance supervisor at Jennie-O Turkey Store and put his own money into starting the nonprofit as well as receiving assistance from a friend.
The Willmar Community Foundation and Southwest Initiative Foundation have also provided funds to help pay for the office space in downtown Willmar. For more information about the nonprofit, visit www. communityconnectorsservices.org.
Engagement with and connection to resources
One of the first initiatives Mohamed took on with the help of Woodland Centers was monthly community engagement sessions regarding mental health and drug use that are hosted in his office space.
Jennifer Kotila / West Central Tribune
Issak Ibrahim dances on the stage while holding a Somali flag during the Somali Independence Day celebration in downtown Willmar, Minnesota on Saturday, June 29.
Jennifer Kotila / West Central Tribune
From left, Hamei, Khadra, Abshiro and Kali Arte enjoying the music and filming the dancing during the Somali Independence Day celebration in downtown Willmar, Minnesota on Saturday, June 29.
“There were two gentlemen that passed away, one from suicide and then the other one that I heard about is drug abuse,” Mohamed said about starting the community engagement session. “ … If our youth are dying for nothing, why don’t I help them? Then that’s when I started doing more research.”
Prior to his research, Mohamed did not know that Woodland Centers existed to help community members with mental health. He’s also discovered that there are a lot of other community resources in Willmar that his community does not know about.
Mohamed approached Woodland Centers with an idea to provide information to the Willmar Somali community so they would know where to go if they needed help with mental health or drug use.
Other organizations have also been introduced to the Somali community during those meetings, such as Head Start, the Kandiyohi County Food Shelf and CentraCare, to teach them about different community resources and what they have to offer.
Offering safe spaces, recreation opportunities
Building off of that, Mohamed also hosted a threeday soccer tournament at which Woodland Centers representatives spoke to the youth involved. Willmar Director of Community Growth Pablo Obregon provided guidance to Mohamed for that event.
Mohamed plans to continue creating soccer opportunities, as well as basketball opportunities, for the youth of the community to help keep them occupied and feel connected with other youth and trusted adults, which, in turn, will be better for their long-term mental health.
Mohamed explained that youth between the ages of 18 to about 26 are the most likely to start showing signs of mental health or drug abuse issues.
“When their eyes are open, they are supposed to see the beautiful world where they can do a lot of things,” Mohamed said. “ … It is something that we struggle with. It is not only for the Somali community, but for all communities, they’re struggling with this mental health and drug abuse.”
He noted that his goal is to include youth from all backgrounds and cultures in order to provide them with a sense of connectedness and to provide for their health and well being.
Some Somali youth have complained to him that they feel like they do not belong because they are not allowed to use the fields to play soccer.
Another event Mohamed helped organize this year was a Somali Independence Day celebration, which took place in downtown Willmar in July, and he helped to plan the 2024 Willmar Welcoming Week celebration.
Partnership with citywide initiatives
He is also partnering with Willmar Planning and Development Director Christopher Corbett to host a meeting to talk about the With Willmar Comprehensive Plan, on which the city is currently working.
One of the issues the comprehensive plan will address includes housing, which is a multi-pronged effort.
Islamic law prohibits the collection or payment of interest on loans or deposits, which makes it difficult for Somali immigrants to purchase a home. Since most Somali immigrants rent, they can easily find themselves being treated unfairly by landlords and told they have to move if they complain about anything within their rental.
Noting that many Somali youth move out of Willmar when they are finished with high school to go to a university or seek better employment opportunities, Mohamed said their parents often move with their children as part of their culture. He would like to find a way to keep more Somali youth in Willmar by creating better opportunities for them after they graduate high school.
League play for the youth will allow them to “wash their head,” Mohamed said, noting that free time sometimes leads to youth using bad things. “But if you make yourself busy — you come from school and go work. If you’re not working Saturday or Sunday, if there’s no school, or if the schools are closed, then we have a league that you can play as a tournament and make you busy.”
Mohamed hopes to work with the city in securing locations in which to host games. He noted that a lot of low-income families in Willmar cannot afford to participate in the leagues sponsored by the Willmar Parks and Recreation Department.
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Bridging the gap
Cansayapi Cultural Department at Lower Sioux Agency keeping Dakota traditions vibrant
BY SHELBY LINDRUD West Central Tribune
MORTON — Without art, music and storytelling, the cultural history of the Dakota people may have been lost over the last few centuries. The importance of not only preserving and protecting that history but also sharing it with the younger generations is one of the main reasons the Cansayapi Cultural Department was formed with the Lower Sioux Indian Community.
“There is no separation between culture, art and language,” said
Cheyanne St. John, tribal historical preservation officer for the Lower Sioux.
The cultural department was established after the Lower Sioux decided to go through a strategic planning process to identify the important issues in the community. Cultural education was identified as a need.
“We were in this era of revitalization and reestablishing so many components of our heritage,” St. John said. “The community recognized where some of those deficits were; our programs were
kind of falling through the cracks.”
The cultural department was established in 2017 as a result of that strategic planning findings. New specialist staff were hired, and financing was obtained through grants from various organizations, all with the goal to highlight the rich cultural history of the tribe.
“Our department focused heavily on the revitalization of three areas. One was the traditional arts. The second was the Dakota language and the third was historic and cultural education,” St. John said.
Contributed / Lower Sioux Indian Community Cultural Department
The Lower Sioux Cultural Incubator at the Lower Sioux Indian Community provides a dedicated space for community members to learn and share traditional arts and crafts, food and more. The incubator was one of the many projects and programs that came out of the Cultural Department, whose main mission is to preserve, protect and share the the cultural traditions of the Dakota.
Cheyanne St. John
Programs and projects that came out of the cultural department included the Lower Sioux Early Head Start and Head Start and the Lower Sioux Cultural Incubator. Those programs ended up being so successful they now operate independently from the department.
“The cultural department really served as the first incubator for all these programs,” St. John said.
The Head Start programs not only provide wraparound services for enrolled children and families — which include education, physical health, nutrition and mental health — but they also increase cultural connections. This includes teaching and spreading the Dakota language. A goal of the program is to raise new generations of Dakota speakers.
The Cultural Incubator is a multiuse space that provides artisans, teachers and others a place to learn and share. Classes cover a wide range of topics such as beadwork, pottery and elders sharing traditional recipes with the younger generations. Artists can also rent out studio space.
“The focus of the space is to transmit knowledge, whether that happening from artist to artist or elder to youth,” St. John said. “There is a lot of demonstration, and it is a very multi-tactile program structure, so hands-on and in person.”
Once the preschool and cultural incubator became their own independent department, the cultural department turned all of its attention to the third focus area — preservation and cultural education.
“We identified four pillars that
Contributed / Lower Sioux Indian Community Cultural Department
The Lower Sioux Agency Historical Site, which the Lower Sioux Indian Community manages on behalf of the Minnesota Historical Society, includes a museum that tells some of the tribe’s history.
Contributed
/ Lower Sioux Indian Community Cultural Department The Lower Sioux Cultural Incubator has
would guide our work in the future. That was to protect, nurture, share and preserve,” St. John said.
One of the responsibilities of the cultural department is to look after and manage the historical sites on the reservation. This includes the Lower Sioux Agency, the Birch Cooley Mission School and other traditional cultural properties such as the ceremonial grounds, gathering areas and burial sites. The department keeps a map of the sites on hand and a goal to share these sites with the community, “so they can start reconnecting to these places,” St. John said.
And the department doesn’t just focus on the areas within the Lower Sioux. The Dakota’s history stretches across the Midwest, and the Lower Sioux works with others to protect areas across the region. This may include attending trainings and helping to identify important sites.
“The protection of sacred and significant sites, not just in the community, but across our ancestral territory,” St. John said. “That is the entire state of Minnesota; that is part of Wisconsin, South Dakota, North Dakota, Nebraska and Iowa. Our bandwidth goes much farther than what I think a lot of people assume.”
Over the years, the Cultural Department has also worked with other state agencies and organizations such as the Minnesota Historical Society and the Department of Natural Resources to share the history of these important sites with the state as a whole.
“We have so many partnerships, and I think the outreach and the cultural education exchange has really enhanced within the last five years,” St. John said.
An area St. John would love to expand on is cultural resource management, such as preserving and protecting artifacts. Right now the community really doesn’t have a whole
“ The focus of the space is to transmit knowledge, whether that happening from artist to artist or elder to youth.
— Cheyanne St. John
lot of dedicated space for such an effort. St. John would like to be able to display such treasures in a museumlike setting for the community to enjoy and learn from.
“My goal is to enhance the collection area, whether that is through a new facility or an adjacent facility,” St. John said. “I think it is really important that we start focusing on that as a goal.”
None of the work the Cultural Department has done and continues to do would be possible without the passionate and dedicated staff. St. John is very grateful for all their help and knowledge.
“They have been committed to sharing and learning how to interpret our narrative and get that story out,” St. John said. “Their commitment to that has just been wonderful.”
St. John said she is hesitant to say that the traditional arts, language and places were lost in the Lower Sioux or that it needed a revitalization. Instead, she sees it as more of a disconnect — a disconnect the community felt and wanted mended.
“I feel like not just for my department, but the government as a whole, it was invaluable to have the community step up and vocalize their feedback and input,” St. John said.
There have always been people who practiced the traditional way, made traditional art and spoke the Dakota language. The issue was making the larger community aware of it. The Cultural Department wants to bridge that gap.
“It is trying to nurture and foster it in a way that could be shared and accessed by other people who were coming back into the community from other places or the younger generations,” St. John said.
Macy Moore / West Central Tribune
The Lower Sioux Agency Historical Site does have a museum with exhibit space, but Cheyanne St. John would love to expand the space the cultural department has to preserve more collections and artifacts.
Macy Moore / West Central Tribune
The Cansayapi Cultural Department for the Lower Sioux is now focusing on taking care of the community’s historic and sacred sites. One such area is the Lower Sioux Agency Historical Site, where the U.S. Dakota War of 1862 began.
Wearing all the hats
ECHO Charter School director on a mission to help students succeed
BY TOM CHERVENY West Central Tribune
ECHO — Helen Blue Redner not only goes the extra mile, “she sprints it,” in the words of Eric Kester-Mahon.
Kester-Mahon is the chair and a parent representative to the board of directors for the Every Child Has Opportunity charter school in the tiny community of Echo in Yellow Medicine County. Like many others, he credits Blue Redner with helping keeping the school afloat through some very challenging times as its director.
“On more than one occasion she righted the ship,” Kester-Mahon said.
She also keeps it true to its
mission: “People are coming here because they’ve heard we can help,” said Blue Redner.
Many of its students are here because they have had negative experiences and did not succeed at other schools, Blue Redner said. Ninety percent of the students — numbering about 70 in grades K-12 — are eligible for free or reduced lunches. Many come from families where a parent or guardian is missing.
The focus at this school is on the individual students and their families, supporting them in the classroom,
and sometimes, in the home.
The school has held fundraisers for families who’ve experienced difficult times.
With a small enrollment, the help is one-on-one. Blue Redner once got stuck in a snowbank chasing after a student who did not want to go to class.
“You make good relationships with kids,” said Blue Redner of her approach to education. “Education is really kind of relationship-based now,” explaining that the days when you went to school and just obeyed your
Macy Moore / West Central Tribune
ECHO Charter School director and English Language Arts teacher Helen Blue Redner laughs while teaching her seventh-grade classroom in Echo on Tuesday, Aug. 27.
Macy Moore / West Central Tribune
ECHO Charter School director and English Language Arts teacher Helen Blue Redner talks to seventh-grade student Abdi Ali during class on Tuesday, Aug. 27.
“ People are coming here because they’ve heard we can help.
teacher (or not) are no longer.
Blue Redner serves as both the director of the school and its grades 7-12 English Language Arts instructor. She is beginning her 10th year with the school.
She started as a full-time substitute teacher after she and her family moved back to Echo. She was preparing to homeschool her daughter, Julia, but the then-ninthgrader told Blue Redner that she’d like to check out the small school a few blocks from their home, where some of Julia’s friends attended.
“I loved it. I immediately loved it,” said Blue Redner of what she discovered when she joined the staff. The same apparently can be said for her daughter. Julia is now an arts instructor with the school.
Helen Blue Redner’s journey to the
— Helen Blue Redner
school required many more miles than her daughter’s did.
Helen Blue Redner is a member of the Upper Sioux Community, but most of her younger years were spent in northern Minnesota on the Leech Lake reservation. Her father, Dean Blue, worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The family had little money, she said.
As a young teenager, Blue Redner started a newspaper on the reservation. No surprise where the inspiration came. Her mother, Betty Blue, was a journalist of some renown, having started her career with a Milwaukee, Wisconsin, newspaper and writing during World War II. She interviewed and knew the likes of Eleanor Roosevelt, Katherine Hepburn, and Generals Douglas MacArthur and George Patten.
The journalist’s daughter was an
avid reader and loved school. Her lifechanging opportunity came at age 15, when she received a scholarship to attend the Northfield Mount Hermon Prep School in Gill, Massachusetts.
“I got there and felt like I could breathe,” said Blue Redner. The New England school had a diverse student body from all over the world. “Open minded and welcoming,” she said of the campus environment.
She initially aspired to be an opera singer, but switched gears after twice declining admission to the New England Conservancy. She earned a degree in political anthropology at Princeton, and later completed graduate studies at Harvard.
She met her husband, Frank, a California native with roots in two western tribal nations, in Boston. He was a graduate student at the
Macy Moore / West Central Tribune ECHO Charter School director and English Language Arts teacher Helen Blue Redner speaks to her seventh-grade class on Tuesday, Aug. 27.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology and working for the Boston Indian Council. Now married nearly 39 years, they are parents to three grown children.
The couple and their children have lived on the East Coast and in the West. The family was living in Reno, Nevada when the decision was made to return to Minnesota. Blue Redner’s father was chair of the Upper Sioux Community and instrumental in the founding of Firefly Creek Casino, the predecessor to the Prairie’s Edge Casino Resort. Helen Blue Redner served for four years as tribal chair for the Upper Sioux Community.
Now 63, the return to Minnesota led to her role in education and her discovery that her true passion was for education and working with young people. She initially worked for 10 years with the Yellow Medicine East school district.
As a classroom instructor at Echo, she sets high expectations. Some of her students will be reading Franz Kafka this semester in Spanish.
Her students are introduced to the classics of literature, including Jane Eyre. After the initial groans, she’s had students actually tell her later how they much appreciated the Victorian-era work.
Like so many in education, Blue Redner said the rewards of teaching — seeing that moment when the light comes on for a student — is what motivates her.
Yet, it’s also clear. What matters most to her is seeing the students who arrive at the charter school having
absolutely hated school, and coming around to liking it and succeeding. She admits she cried her eyes out after one such student made the A honor roll and and told her after graduation it was because of her that he made it.
“No,” she said she told him, “it is because you gave yourself permission to do well in school.”
“These are the kids who are my sacred mission, they really are,” she said.
None of this would happen, she said, were it not for a dedicated team of staff members at the school. It takes a special person to teach and work in a small, financially strapped charter school, she said.
“It does really feel like the village raising the child here,” she said.
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“
We try not to limit what we fund or who we fund, as long as it is in the world of art. We’re
here to give you a few bricks to build your foundation.
— Nicole DeBoer
The
Enriching lives through art
Southwest Minnesota Arts Council supports arts and artists across the region
MARSHALL — Southwest Minnesota is an arts-rich country, full of talented artists and imaginative and innovative creations. The area is also full of art supporters, and back in 1968, they formed a regional arts organization, one of the first such groups in the state. They raised money and granted it to artists and art projects.
Six years later, in 1974, the state took notice and formed a system of regional arts councils, 11 in all. The Southwest Minnesota Arts Council was one of those councils, covering 18 counties, the Upper Sioux Community, and the Lower Sioux Community. The original southwest organization was
BY SHELBY LINDRUD West Central Tribune
merged into SMAC.
“We were like the catalyst for the state legislature to recognize that arts funding is a great idea and that it enriches lives and that it makes a difference to get money out and allow people to have small town theater and dance classes, and encouraging artists to grow their skills,” said Nicole DeBoer, SMAC executive director.
Over the last 50 years, SMAC has granted millions of dollars to artists, arts organizations, schools and more, with the mission to promote and encourage arts development in its coverage area.
“We’re just the foundation that can
help you build, and you decide what you want to build,” DeBoer said. “We try not to limit what we fund or who we fund, as long as it is in the world of art. We’re here to give you a few bricks to build your foundation.”
Individual artists can apply for growth grants, equity grants, quick support grants and established artist grants. Each category provides funds to help an artist grow their skills and artistic careers. So far in fiscal year 2024 awarded $105,812 in grant funds to individual artists.
“It’s not necessarily how they can make money, but how can they grow their exposure, or how can they grow
Macy Moore / West Central Tribune
Southwest Minnesota Arts Council provides needed funding and support for the arts across an 18-county area. It has helped fund things from murals, concerts, statues, theaters and events like SQUIDFest in Granite Falls. Charlene Stone, 5, finger paints on a large mural during SQUIDFest / RIBFest on Saturday, Sept. 17, 2022, in Granite Falls.
their technical skill, or how can they grow their vision of art and move forward in their art practice,” DeBoer said.
Individual grant recipients also have the opportunity to exhibit their art at the SMAC gallery in Marshall. DeBoer said in many cases the artists have not had the chance to put on a solo show, and SMAC wants to show its support in this way. As part of the exhibits, there is usually an artist reception when a musician or writer who has been awarded a grant will also be invited to perform.
“We try to support not only the visual artists, but the poets, the writers and the musicians that have gotten grants from us,” DeBoer said.
Organizations can also apply for SMAC grants. The establishments just need to be a non-profit or a local unit of government such as a city or county.
“A church is welcome to apply, or a nonprofit that normally doesn’t do art stuff but wants to hold art classes,” DeBoer said. “Art museums can apply to us as well; it often involves hiring an artist to do something live in the space.”
SMAC also awards grants for equipment and facilities improvements and large public art projects. Year to date, SMAC awarded $545,013 to organizations in 2024.
“Our biggest grant is for public art,” DeBoer said. “For us, public art is a physical thing, murals, sculptures, mosaics. Art things that have a sustainable and lasting impact.”
The third grant focus area at SMAC is for schools. While SMAC won’t pay the salary for a full-time art teacher, the organization will provide funds for a wide range of
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school-based art activities. Many schools have used SMAC grants to bring in an artist in residence, hold special concerts and take students on an arts-themed field trip. In 2024, SMAC provided $41,485 in school grants.
“For kids, I think art helps them learn to be a good human, it helps them feel like they can produce something themselves without having to over manage them. It helps them feel valuable,” DeBoer said.
During fiscal year 2024, SMAC awarded $692,580 in grants for individuals, organizations and schools.
“We’re pretty open to what can help an individual or a whole community,” DeBoer said.
SMAC wouldn’t be able to grant a single dollar if it wasn’t for funds it gets from various sources. The arts council receives money from individuals, foundations such as the McKnight Foundation and contributions from both the state and other local governments.
“For the most part, almost all 18 county commissions commit some funds every year in their budget to supporting the arts, which is very appreciated,” DeBoer said. “The counties acknowledge art is important too.”
Probably the most important funding source is the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, better known as the Legacy Fund. The fund was established in 2008, after voters approved the Clean Water, Land and Legacy Amendment, which increased the state sales tax by three-eighths of 1%. The additional revenue was earmarked for a wide range of environmental, recreational and cultural areas. Arts and
www.relco.net
“
Our biggest grant is for public art. For us, public art is a physical thing, murals, sculptures, mosaics. Art things that have a sustainable and lasting impact.
— Nicole DeBoer
culture was earmarked to receive 19.75% of the sales tax revenue.
“That is a big part of our budget,” DeBoer said.
The Legacy Amendment is set to expire 2034, and already SMAC is starting the work to remind voters how transformational it has been. The hope is that if and when the fund is set to be renewed, voters will approve it.
“There is some grassroots advocacy going,” DeBoer said. “We like to keep reminding not only our legislators, but reminding the general public of the impact of those dollars and how important they are.”
DeBoer also believes that the pandemic showed how important the arts are. Since the pandemic began, SMAC has seen a marked increase in grant applications.
“We found during the pandemic that we could not give out enough individual artist grants, because everybody was at home and they literally had the time,” DeBoer said.
Institutions and businesses have also seemed to be more interested in bringing art to their operations. The could be murals on the walls or inviting a band to perform at a restaurant.
“Because of the pandemic, the public missed the art so much,” DeBoer said.
Art is important for the health and well-being of the communities SMAC serves. Studies have shown the positive impact art can have on a person’s mental health. DeBoer said there is space enough for both the arts and sports, especially for the youth.
“I never pit sports against art, because it is two different things,” DeBoer said. “It’s two different parts of our brain and both are equally important. Move your body, move your mind.”
SMAC plans to be there to support the spread of art throughout its coverage area and to be a cheerleader for artists of all kinds.
“We are going to be around, this organization that now has (a) 56-year history,” DeBoer said. “We are going to be around, we are going to be a funder and we are going to keep doing the good work that we’ve always done.”
Shelby Lindrud / West Central Tribune
SMAC helps cities put up public art pieces with grant opportunities. This included the Streets of Honor Portraits public art project at the intersection of Hering Street, Reuss Avenue and Highways 7 and 59 in Appleton. The portraits represent the local military men who fought and died for the United States and whom the streets of Appleton are named after.
West Central Tribune file photo Arts organizations, like the Bird Island Cultural Centre, have been able to offer unique arts opportunities to the public thanks to grants from the Southwest Minnesota Arts Council.
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