A Brighter Future for Communities Everywhere
You can learn a lot by listening to the community.
That’s what we did at the East Phillips Urban Farm — Harvest Moon Block Party: Celebrating Community Solutions festival on Sept. 21 at Cedar Field Park in the East Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis.
The Strong Mind Strong Body Foundation co-hosted the event with the East Phillips Neighborhood Institute (EPNI), HOPE Community, Little Earth Protectors, and Danza Ketzal.
The Harvest Moon Block Party was a celebration of community victories, voices, and solutions, including the incoming collective stewardship of the contested Roof Depot site.
For a decade, a broad coalition of East Phillips neighbors and supporters have fought tirelessly for the right to convert the vacant Roof Depot warehouse in Minneapolis into a solar-powered, community-owned, indoor urban farm and community hub.
The event invited the community to see community solutions in motion and learn about the upcoming renovation of the Roof Depot warehouse, as EPNI and community partners continue building toward the long-fostered East Phillips Urban Farm vision.
All were welcome to this free event, put on by and for the community. There was food, presentations, live art and performances, and plenty of activities for kids and adults.
Our Youth Community Journalism Institute led a community journalism activity table. We asked the community to create a community newspaper.
We used a giant Post-It easel pad with 25-inch by 30-inch sheets of paper for the newspaper pages. Community members used 8.5-inch by 11-inch paper to create their stories. We had scissors so they could customize the size of their paper to fit on the newspaper.
Our instructions were simple.
- Grab a piece of paper.
- Share valuable news or information.
- Glue your story to the newspaper page.
People could share any news and information they wanted. It could be something from their life, a resource, an experience. Anything that could help the community, make people’s lives better, and create solutions.
Christian Flores, a 14-year-old ninth grader at South High School in Minneapolis, helped lead the community journalism project as a member of our youth community journalism team.
The goal of this community newspaper is to strengthen the community with news and information.
Community members of all generations shared stories, pictures, information, and messages. We had a total of 29 stories for the newspaper. Our youngest community journalism participant was 9 years old.
Little Earth News was born.
These are the community’s written contributions.
They have been lightly edited, but in most cases, the words are an exact transcription from the source to preserve the diverse voices of the community. A few words were illegible on the newspaper pages due to water damage from rain.
Little Earth News, Vol. 1, No. 1 — Saturday, Sept. 21, 2024
Stop shooting.
Give people shelter.
Stop the fighting among our own Native people.
Help with the tents. They are good and bad.
****
—Issues—
Drug n alcohol addiction.
Everywhere I go n Almost
Every time I see another Indigenous
Brother n Sister. I can see they’re
Struggling too
—Resolution—
Have more support for each other.
Actively try to be there for
Someone you know is struggling.
Instead of turning your back n
Giving up on them, try to be more
Supportive regardless of someones lifestyle.
***
Community-owned and
community-benefitting
community solar
at
East Phillps Roof Depot
Cooperative Energy Futures, a local
energy cooperative, will build a
community solar garden on the
roof of the Roof Depot.
But East Phillips community
members can join a community
solar garden right now.
***
We need love. No hate. Love makes the world go around. Be kind always. You never know what the person next to you is going through. So always be kind and love one another.
****
Kids can be activists too.
***
Urban farm
***
Deadpool and Wolverine
Breaks the
box office over
a million dollars
in less than
a month
***
Urban environmentalism
***
En mi comunidad les gusta jugar
Free Fire
Free Fire juego es como disparar
y es como un personaje y es un
compate y te pueden revivir porque
eres bot
[Translation: In my community they like to play
Free Fire
Free Fire game is like shooting
and it’s like a character and it’s a
share and they can revive you because
you are a bot]
***
Listen to the
community members
directly living in the
community always.
They are not an option!
***
Go to the Aliveness
Project for free Narcan
+ Narcan training!
***
Andersen United
Middle School wrote letters
to government officials to
shut down Smith Foundry.
Youth are helping to find
solutions too!
***
Go to school.
Never stop.
***
Don’t be afraid to talk to strangers!
You meet the nicest people that way.
***
Sports/Clubs
If you don’t do a sport or club. I
would suggest joining one. It gives you
a community outside of school. It can
help you make friends and build relationships.
It is also a fun, valuable experience
that I would recommend to anyone.
***
A mi me gusta jugar
Free Fire y a veces
me gusta ver partidos
Free Fire es un
juego que se mata
a personas con armas
y te pueden revivir y
a veces son bot.
[Translation: I like to play
Free Fire and sometimes
I like to watch games.
Free Fire is a
game that kills
people with weapons
and they can revive you and
sometimes they are a bot.]
***
I made a [dog] treat box for
my 8th birthday. My
granpa came and surprised
me. He had all the tools.
We started to bild.
And we were done by the
end of the day. The next
day we painted. The
treat box was going to
be pink and blue. It had
a water bowl and
a place to put the treat
and many dogs came to
it every day.
***
This just in, the stronger
have gotten wiser and
the [illegible] and underfed
have found plenty in
their stride to enjoy life
any way. After the last time
the pulse of our love life
decided to step into sleep
we went home whether to
the [illegible] or heaven’s
gates. Now we’ll restore and
plant [illegible] in broad
daylight to shine in her
[illegible]. Mercy on we said,
her lessons, her sweep,
her protection. [Illegible] I
can’t break. Please know.
I can’t break.
***
Open your heart to the
world and you will find
every reason to keep living
in it.
***
A college student moved to
Minneapolis 2 weeks ago and
has since been moved by the
community and compassion in
this fine city.
On Wednesday students stood
up in protest of the new UMN
president’s policies of ignoring
the genocide in Gaza.
On Saturday, a community
came together in Phillips to
celebrate and communicate the
East Phillips Urban Farm Project.
***
Canoeing
One day earlier this summer
my dad and I took my mom fishing in a
canoe. First my dad and I took the canoe down
which was hard because the canoe was hung up
on four ropes. The ropes were under a lot of
tension, so it took quite an amount of time
to take it down. After we took it down we
tied up the canoe on top of the car
and left for a place on Phalen Lake where
we could launch the canoe. At first me
and my dad were paddling against the wind
but once we took a right into a shallow
channel, it was calm. We continued through
that channel until we came to Round Lake.
There we tried to fish but it was
too weedy. So me and my dad paddled
through a lot of lily pads to the next
channel which would take us to the next
lake.
The second channel was much
longer than the first one. We paddled
until we came to a short portage. Me
and my dad easily picked up the canoe
and made our way to the launch. We all
got back in the canoe and paddled to
Keller Lake but I thought we should stop
at this clearing right before Keller Lake.
So we stopped hauled the canoe out of the water
and started fishing with a worm and bobber.
That day we caught some blue gills and
a black bullhead. Ever since that spot has
become our favorite fishing spot in Saint Paul.
***
Don’t give up on
yourself or the
community.
***
UMN Extension Master Gardeners
are helping to plant + landscape
at Bii Di Gain [a senior community
in Minneapolis]. It is a
great way to support +
connect with elders in the
community + help them cultivate
traditional medicines.
***
We need more people
to work with with community.
We need more gardens
***
I’m not sure I can capture
this community with [illegible]
amazing energy and [illegible]
learning —>
***
My goal is to visit every
national park! I want to
see all the beautiful parts
of our land + water.
—New to hiking writer
This DIY, pop-up community newspaper was more than just a fun, hands-on experiential way to learn about community journalism and newspapering. It was a way to activate the community around community solutions.
Anyone who created something for the community newspaper that day was entered into a raffle to win a gift card from Target, Erik’s Bike Shop, Inc., or Raising Cane’s Chicken Fingers. We announced prize winners at the end of the Harvest Moon event.
During the raffle prize announcement, it started raining (after heavy rain in the morning during setup before the event). The afternoon rain turned into a heavy downpour. People from neighboring tables to the community newspaper station saved the Little Earth News pages from getting ruined. They moved all of the papers under a canopy. A few words became illegible from the water, but the fast actions of neighbors prevented the papers from total destruction.
A New Day for Community Journalism
The people at that neighborhood table who saved Little Earth News were The Alley community. The Alley is a community newspaper that has been providing news and views of the Phillips neighborhood since 1976. For the last 40-plus years, The Alley has been reporting on the lead poisoning, arsenic hazards, and environmental justice issues of the Phillips neighborhood.
Phillips neighborhood was named after Wendell Phillips, a 19th-century abolitionist, and is where the American Indian Movement (AIM) started in 1968. The neighborhood historically has had high levels of poverty and injustice. East Phillips is home to Little Earth, the first Indigenous public housing program in the United States. Little Earth has 38 tribes and 1,000 residents. Many of those residents are under the age of 21.
The American Indian Movement’s original goal was to curb racial profiling in Minneapolis and give a voice to Native Americans living in the city. It is fitting that Little Earth is leading the current movement. This community is not waiting for anyone to change its future and the future of future generations. The community is taking control of its future.
And more people need to know about this transformation.
Information is a human need. Information is power. But millions of people in the United States don’t have access to quality local news and information about their communities.
Little Earth and the East Phillips community continue to show what is possible. They can be a model for community power around the world.
That is what the East Phillips Urban Farm is all about. This is what the Harvest Moon Block Party was all about. This is what future community solutions are all about.
Everyone focused on community solutions can envision a better future for every community.
The Little Earth Protectors are an example of that. Formed as a public safety patrol in 2020 after the civil unrest following the killing of George Floyd, the Little Earth Protectors keep growing stronger in how they serve the community.
Sisters Camelot, which provided free food for the Harvest Moon community solutions festival, is an example of that. They have turned an old bus into a mobile, licensed commercial kitchen and have been providing free food and meals for underserved communities in Minneapolis since 1997.
Nathaniel Harris provided live music throughout the day with KRSM DJ Mixie. We had Indigenous drum circles and performances from Danza Ketzal, Minnesota’s premier Aztec dance group.
Artist, designer, and curator Con Rice with Power of Vision artists Jordan Hamilton, Joy Pain, and Katrina Knutson led the Power of Vision Mural Project with a community paint day, and people expressed themselves through live painting.
We need more of this kind of teamwork everywhere.
A View From the Future
The whole East Phillips Urban Farm project is an example of people working together to preserve and strengthen a community. It is bigger than an urban farm. It is a movement to build a better future where everyone has the opportunity to be grow and thrive. It is a movement for a fairer, healthier, and better world. A world that works for everyone.
The East Phillips Urban Farm is a view from the future. It is a food forest where no one goes hungry, no one goes without shelter, and everyone’s basic human needs are met. It’s a future where we invest in our children, where all future generations have the opportunity to prosper, and where we can live in peace with justice for all. This view of the future is not an impossible dream.
It is the vision of a world where the community decides what kind of community they want.
A few years ago, the city received 1,063 comments from individuals and organizations opposed to expanding the public works facility into the Roof Depot site at Hiawatha and 24th. Only two were in favor of it.
The struggle to win full control of the Roof Depot site continues. EPNI still needs more money to purchase the Roof Depot site and close the deal to make the East Phillips Urban Farm happen.
Power structures and systems do not like to give up their power. But the power of the community is growing. And community journalism has the power to turn community solutions into reality.
The diverse community voices that appeared in the first edition of Little Earth News are the voices that need to be heard. They are the voices that can drive the greatest change and will continue to be heard.
Their stories from Little Earth News will be published in The Alley.
They can be published in MinnPost to get more diverse voices in their Community Voices section, and we can connect the MinnPost newsroom with the Little Earth community for more coverage of issues, challenges, and opportunities that impact the community’s well-being and quality of life. MinnPost is an independent nonprofit news organization that covers the state of Minnesota and is a founding member of the Institute for Nonprofit News. Elizabeth Dunbar, the editor of MinnPost, helped run the community newspaper for part of the day as a local media partner and also brought her two kids to participate.
The Little Earth News stories will be broadcast and shared in our next “Youth Community Journalism” show at SPEAK MPLS on Oct. 4, on the topic of making public health work better for everyone, after episode 1 focused on problems and solutions in Minneapolis and episode 2 explored solutions for the opioid crisis.
More community voices will be welcomed at our next community solutions festival on Oct. 19 at Cedar Field Park as we create volume 2 of Little Earth News with the community.
They will be transmitted to all corners of the globe soon.
This is the start of a new dawn for community solutions through community journalism. The reality for the future can be as wonderful as it was at the Harvest Moon Block Party.
The rain that day was Mother Nature crying tears of joy.
She knows the community is ready to exercise all their power.
And change the narrative.
For good.
This article was first published on LinkedIn in The Community Builder.
