🤝 Neighborhood support swells in response to ICE activity
How neighborhood residents, businesses, and institutions are responding to novel challenges with little precedent.
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Introducing our collaborative Longfellow Breakfast Burrito Checklist last year, food writer and Heavy Table proprietor James Norton wrote of his neighborhood: “More than any other place I’ve lived, Longfellow seems defined by residents who make service to other people the guiding light of their lives.”
That impulse to help has been brought into full relief this month.
The increasing presence of federal immigration agents has created novel challenges with little precedent. People at risk of being targeted are stuck at home, unable to go to work or the grocery store — or even take out the trash. Others venture out at their own risk, under the specter of unexpected capture. Schools are missing students and scrambling to provide distance learning options. Businesses are short on employees, or customers, or both.
Residents, businesses, and institutions have scrambled to do what they can. As was the case in 2020, the solutions are often homespun and unpolished. Volunteers shuttle groceries to people stuck at home. People with whistles and phones patrol sensitive areas like schools and daycares. Restaurants, some of which now keep their door locked during business hours, operate ad hoc food shelves. Workplaces help their employees with legal fees. Parents drive their neighbor's kids to school.
Below is a speed run through some of those recent efforts, surely incomplete and in no particular order.
Hiawatha-Howe Elementary PTO is collecting groceries and household goods and distributing them to school families who can't safely venture out. You can donate funds online or drop off items inside the 42nd Street door at Hiawatha Elementary. (Leave inside the first door — no need to ring the bell.) Diapers and formula are the most commonly requested items.
The PTO is also coordinating volunteers to watch the school at pickup and dropoff times, among other safety efforts. If you're interested in helping out, you can email the group.
Longfellow Alternative High School, which serves teen parents in the MPS system, is asking for monetary donations to distribute to students in need. You can donate online or drop off Visa gift cards at the school.
A group of parents at a neighborhood daycare, which has been a recurring target of ICE activity, is raising money to support staff at the center. You can contribute via Venmo.
The LoNo Fund, short for Longfellow North, closed its fundraiser on Saturday after raising $52,965 for a handful of neighborhood families. “You have supported paying their rent, utility/internet bills, groceries, legal fees, and hospital bills, for now and in the months to come,” the announcement read.
Soup For You continues to provide daily free meals to those in need. It also operates an extensive food shelf.
One resident on the 3400 block of 38th Avenue maintains sidewalk bins stocked with whistles, safety vests, warm clothes, and handwarmers.
The neighbor group Lake Street Meals continues to coordinate outings to immigrant-owned restaurants. Next up is tonight (Wednesday), 6 p.m., at India Kutir on 36th and Lake.
Lynette continues to accept and distribute food and household goods. The restaurant, which reported that one of its staff was taken by ICE last weekend, has reduced its hours and is now open Wednesday-Sunday.
Bungalow Club is hosting a free pasta dinner for the neighborhood on Tuesday from 4-8. The restaurant has also been distributing "Community Packs" of pasta and bread to people in need. Message or email them if you or someone you know would like one.
Asian Duck is also collecting and distributing donations. They remain open for regular hours but are keeping their door locked.
Moon Palace Books is collecting diapers, pull-ups, and menstrual products. Drop off any time during business hours. They're distributing free "ICE Out" posters — the one that riffs on the Snow Emergency Route design — in the store. Wildflyer Coffee is also offering free ICE Out posters, with a different design.
Arbeiter Brewing is collecting prepaid gas and debit cards for South High families.
Over the weekend, Time Bomb Vintage donated all the proceeds from selling its logo t-shirts to families in need, raising more than $5,000 in three days. Corazon Gifts donated weekend sales of its merchandise to the Immigrant Law Center. Savory Bakehouse donated half of its total weekend sales to mutual aid causes. Audrey Rose Vintage donated 30 percent of its Sunday sales to mutual aid causes. And Toolbox Collective raised $900 and a carload of food donations for the Hiawatha-Howe PTO at their inaugural monthly Open Studio and Craft Night, held on the third Thursday of each month from 6-8.
Epworth United Methodist is hosting a bake sale on Friday to support rent relief for people who can't work due to ICE operations.
Numerous neighborhood businesses plan to be closed Friday for what organizers are calling the "Day of Truth and Freedom," previously referred to as the "General Strike." That includes: All Square, Arbeiter Brewing, Asian Duck Cafe, Blue Door Pub, Bungalow Club, Corazon Gifts, D&J Glove Repair, Dripping Root, Gilda, Himalayan Restaurant, Laune Bread, Lynette, Merlins Rest, Midori’s Floating World, Mother Earth Gardens, Okome House, Red Coral Coffee, Repair Lair, Shepherd's Table, Solcana Fitness, Sonora Grill, Time Bomb Vintage, Turtle Bread, and Trylon Cinema. MPS students already have the day off for teacher record-keeping.
Groups of neighbors continue to coordinate observation and reporting of ICE activity. If you'd like more information on that work, respond to this e-mail.