July 21, 2021 • 29 mins
Today we have Jonathan Palmer joining us. Jonathan is the Executive Director of the Hallie Q. Brown Community Center, a 92-year old African American nonprofit social service agency in Saint Paul, MN. Tune in to hear Jonathan talk about the extended need for food, Hallie Q’s response to that growing need, and how they maintained customization of food items to meet dietary/cultural preferences and needs in the community.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:01):
Hello, friends, Welcome to reada Finding Volunteerism, a podcast by hands
On Twin Cities. I'm Tracy Nielsen, the executive director of hands On Twin
Cities, and i'm your host.I don't know how many of you know
(00:35):
this, but in Minnesota, overfour hundred and sixty thousand people are struggling
with hunger, and of that number, over one hundred and sixty thousand of
them are children. That's one outof every twelve people and one and eight
children. Well, many of usmight not see these disparities directly. I
just want you to consider that theseare our neighbors, students in our kids'
(00:57):
classes, they're working class family andseniors, and above all, our fellow
community members. All this being said, there's a lot of work to do
and the community can you use yourhelp. There's nobody better to share information
about these issues than my friend JonathanPalmer. Jonathan is the executive director for
Halle Key Brown Community Center, aninety two year old African American nonprofit social
(01:21):
service agency in Saint Paul. Jonathanholds a wealth of experience in community activism,
leadership, and volunteer work throughout hislife in Minnesota and across the country.
Let's dig into this important discussion withJonathan. Hi Jonathan, thank you
(01:41):
so much for being with us today. Hi Tracy, I'm very glad to
be with you today, so thrilledto be talking with you. Let's kick
things off by just getting an overviewof who you are, and from there
we'll talk a little bit about halleKey Brown Community Center. Wonderful. So
I'm Jonathan Palmer. I am thesixth executive director of Hallique Brown Community Center,
(02:07):
so ninety two year old African Americansocial service agency open to everyone,
located in the heart of the historicRondo community here in St. Paul.
Excellent. So, I know thatthe two of us could talk for hours
about all of the things that HALLEQdoes, but for today, we're going
to focus on the area of basicneeds, specifically around food. Can you
(02:31):
tell us about the services that Helliqueprovides related to food security in the community,
both certainly and so basic needs isone of our six core areas here
where we're providing food and services aroundthat to families and individuals and pre pandemic.
(02:53):
We would be your typical food shelfand clothing closet, focusing in on
people's needs. We would have aclient choice model, allow people to come
in and shop for the food andthings like that that they need, we
connect them into services and work alongthose lines. Post pandemic. We're coming
(03:15):
up on a year now, ayear in which we've been in this pandemic.
It's always interesting to hear people talkingabout the year because they talk about,
for a year we've been trapped insideand it's been really hard to be
home making sour dough breads and stufflike that, and I'm like, well,
you know, for a year,we haven't been trapped inside. We've
(03:38):
actually been doing a lot more.So. Our food shelf actually had to
expand dramatically at the start of thepandemic. One we've never closed, so
the governor asked a lot of basicneeds organizations like ourselves to stay open continue
to provide help to people out there. We didn't have a lot of resources
(04:00):
initially, and so it was alot of our team pulling together. But
we expanded the amount of food wewere serving out from being just primarily Saint
Paul to all over the state ofMinnesota. And one of the reasons for
that is most food shows have togo to a prepacked box, we maintained
a client choice model. We wentahead and implemented an online ordering form as
(04:27):
well as a telephone based ordering system, so people would still order what specifically
they needed, and then our teamwould go ahead and pack the boxes and
either provide them for pickup or deliverthem out. So it's a big thing
for us. We saw a fourthousand percent increase in new clients. Oh
my gosh, four thousand percent andstill offering that client choice, so just
(04:50):
for people that aren't familiar. Sothinking about the complexity of client choice,
what does that entail I mean?Obviously we have different food preferences, but
how does that play out in afood shelf? Well, and that's one
of the key pieces that we tryto maintain. So with somebody's going to
the food shelf, they're already inneed. There is no reason to make
(05:14):
somebody feel shame or feel bad aboutthat. So client choice allows people to
pick what they need for their household. If you're a vegetarian, you don't
need three pounds of hamburger in aprepacked box. You're able to then pick
out more rice and beans, let'ssay, or soups or things like that
that fit your specific needs. Weespecially find people who have food sensitivities or
(05:38):
allergies, people with religious rules aroundfood things like that are the ones that
most look to us for support,and most look to us to go ahead
and help them feel that need.So it's a client choice allows people to
select what they need. You goto our ordering form. It's kind of
like instacart where they can just checkoff the different things and then one of
(06:00):
our team calls them and confirmed,so they go actually through the list,
make sure it's what they need,and we can go ahead and pack the
box. So it's like having apersonal shocker for you. If you utilize
in our food shelf. That's amazingand I just love the dignity that it
provides to people to be getting thefood that is really right for them.
(06:21):
You mentioned this tremendous increase. Imean, so the pandemic affected people in
a variety of different ways. Likehow did these people learn about you?
How did you suddenly scale up tomeet this need? Like I can't imagine,
Yeah, what did you learn?So it is it's a very interesting
(06:44):
story, and it really really comesdown to is I have a phenomenal team
over here. We've lost about ninetypercent of our volunteers because of COVID restrictions.
So when this started, it wasn'tsafe for people to come out.
A lot of our tiers our seniors, and so we didn't want them to
be putting themselves at risk. Wedidn't want to have lots of people coming
(07:08):
into the building at that time.So our team actually literally me and my
leadership team were packing food boxes deliveringthem out. And as we began to
do that, there would be differentwebsites that would go off social media talking
about if you need help, ifyou need resources, here's where you can
(07:28):
check out. I did a lotof promoting that out through networks and telling
people just if you need help,reach out to us. Where the geographic
boundaries have gone out the window.We had one hundred and eight new clients
enroll in March of Last Tire,we had eighteen hundred and eight new clients
enroll in June of Last Tier,and for context, in June or twenty
(07:51):
nineteen, we had sixty nine newclients enroll. Oh my gosh, and
a big factor with this was alsothe aftermath after the murder of George Floyd
that coming in you know there wasa lot of disruption in that community.
There was a lot of increased needs, So that's part of the reason for
that spike in June. But everymonth throughout the year, we get more
(08:13):
and more clients coming in needing theresources, and we have people from Rochester,
from Lakeville, from Saint Louis Parkcoming over to pick up food.
It's really been just addressing that needand making sure we're there to help people
right. Just for clarification for ourlisteners, can you who are probably imagining
(08:35):
that your team is made up ofhundreds of people, how many people?
We have about twenty six on staff. Half of those are in our education
programs. So when we're talking aboutthe team for the food shelf specifically,
we actually have one and a halfstaff that are food shelf. We detailed
(09:01):
over a couple of administrative staff,and we also have a community Resource navigator
that helps connect people. So that'sone of the people that calls back checks
on the order, but then alsotalks with them is about anything else they
need so that we can connect themin the other resources. If they're having
housing trouble, if they're having cardtrouble. Those are things we do,
(09:24):
but we know somebody who does themand we connect them into that. That's
excellent. So you mentioned the pandemic, you mentioned everything that occurred in the
community following the murder of George Floyd. How have things changed for your organization
and actually how have things changed forthe clients that you serve during this time.
Well, the food shuff as wesaid, you know, dramatic increase
(09:48):
in need. Being able to beone of those stabilizing forces has really helped
for the people we serve. Withour education programs, we had expand those
as well. So most of ourother programs all got shuttered just because of
the COVID restrictions. We kept thebasic needs, We kept the education programs.
(10:11):
We have an early learning center thatgoes from six weeks on up to
five years, and we have ayouth in Richmond which was before and after
school care for K through six Kthrough by K through six. We started
aft providing childcare for children of essentialworkers and daycare, but we soon expanded
into families who just couldn't afford tostay home. And now that program actually
(10:33):
has social distance classrooms, so weput those in place last year because a
lot of times our families can't affordto stay home and can't afford to keep
up with the kids. So byputting these in place, they have a
safe place that their kids can come. Our teachers work with their homeschool teachers
to make sure they're getting the lessons, We give them the extra support.
(10:56):
And so those are the two mainprograms. The area that has expanded a
lot as well has been through ourcommunity archive and our public affairs efforts.
So there's a lot of people thatsuddenly discovered in twenty twenty that racism still
existed. We thought, oh,Barack Obama was president, and you know,
(11:20):
we're past the civil rights movement,so everything must be okay. Turns
out not so much. And sowhat we've had is a lot more times
of me talking with organizations, boards, with corporations, leadership teams, with
public events about racism, systemic racism, the origins of that. Why we've
(11:43):
been in the situations that we arein. What is happening with the outgrowing
movement of Black Lives Matter, comingfrom the death of George Floyd, of
Brianna Taylor, of am On Arbory, all of these things that the world
is now paying a lot of attentionto, an understanding and that has created
(12:05):
a dramatic shift in the world andin how we're dealing with things. And
for our clients, it's it's somethingthat's very dear and very personal because it
affects their lives, and especially ourseniors. Our seniors are reliving events that
they thought we were passed right right. And for those who don't know,
(12:26):
you mentioned that Halle Kee Brown CommunityCenter is in the Rondo neighborhood. Can
you provide a little just a briefhistory again, we could go into this
for a long time about about theRondo neighborhood. So Rondo is historically diverse
but primarily African American neighborhood in SaintPaul. It is the center point of
(12:46):
a lot of history. And inthe sixties the highway was put right through
the middle of it. It usedeminent domain to steal people's homes, to
demolish businesses and communities. It wasnot the route that it should have gone
on. There was more than oneroute for the highway and the one city
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county planner at the time said,don't do this, it will decimate the
community, and the powers that besaid, we don't care. We said,
they said, we're going to cleanup these quote unquote slums. It
wasn't slums, it was thriving communityorganizations, thriving businesses. And Chris Coleman,
in one of those final years asmayor, issued an apology on behalf
(13:28):
of the city and on behalf ofhis office and named it as racism.
And you can see the outgrowth inthe impact. So Rondo is on the
west side of Saint Paul. It'swe're just west of downtown, but it's
a central gathering point as we arefor the African American community. Right,
(13:50):
So you're serving a community that hashistorical trauma. How do you how does
that change the way that you approacheven providing basic needs to the community or
or educating other community members as well. There's a lot of different lens that
needs to be put on the approachthat we take for us as an African
(14:11):
American organization, as an African Americanleader, it is very well known what
the approach I need to take isbeing sensitive to the communities we serve,
working with the different bipod communities tomake sure that we're addressing the needs.
We're sourcing food that is good forthem, but we do spend a lot
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of time educating people who want tobe involved or people who don't understand this
community and don't understand you know,why can't we just do the same things
that we do out need Dina orother places like that. And it's like,
well, because there's a lot ofdifferent pieces that go into place when
you start talking about the lens thathas been used and you start talking about
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the overlay of systemic racism that impactsthe way we've approached problems from a public
affairs standpoint, impacts the distribution ofresources and the impact of government policy that
has led to a lot of thesegmentation and the poverty that we have in
the community. So having that lens, approaching it from a standpoint of anti
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racism, approaching it from a standpointof equitable distribution and diversity, make sure
that we're doing the right thing,but we're also helping to uplift the community
while we're providing services and supports thecommunity. Right. I know that at
Hands on Twin Cities, we've hearda lot of people who are definitely energized
(15:41):
around the topic of social justice.As you know, George Floyd sort of
ignited that across the world. Essentiallyhow do you think the issue of social
justice, You know, it's acomplex issue. How do you think that
basic needs and those things sort oftie when people are talking about volunteering for
(16:02):
social justice initiatives very well, verywell, they tie together very well.
But they have a great origin point. So when you start talking about systemic
racism, you can see the patternsthat have led to the disparity that exist
and the need that's in the community. So when you're talking about racism,
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when you're talking about segmentation, whenyou're talking about the segregation that has occurred
and the health disparities that have comeup, you can do a direct line
back to slavery. You can doa direct line back to what has been
done to the native communities in termsof stealing the land that we're on,
the disparities that have gone through thevarious communities of color. You can tie
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that right back to the lack ofresources, the lack of investment, and
the lack of ability to accumulate wealthfrom redlining on into jobs and economic development.
So the situation that we have interms of food and hunger, all
of that ties back to that,and all of it is a straight line
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back and So what we encourage peopleto understand when they're coming into volunteer they're
coming in to get engaged. Thisisn't about haves and have not. This
isn't about that group over there whoare the poor destitute that you are a
hero coming in. This is aboutthe human condition and thinking about that person
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is your neighbor, that person ispart of your community, and we have
to make sure that there's an equitabledistribution of resources and leveling that playing field
so that everybody is able to comein and do the things that they need
to and has the support that theyneed. Absolutely, you just touched on
My very next question was which wasyou know, as people you know maybe
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come from e Dinet or Minnetaka ordifferent places around our community with the amazing
intent to assist people in various neighborhoods, how do you you know, what
kinds of education or what kind ofwork can we be doing to think about,
you know, how it is thatwe show up to not create the
sort of white savior complex that sometimescan be a reality in volunteerism. That
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is a great question, and whatyou have to understand with all of this
is that first and foremost, ifyou're going to go into an organization,
or if you're a part of theorganization, having people come in is helping
them to understand the context and helpingthem to understand the piece. Idina was
a sundowntown and the sundowntown have beennot familiar with it. For the listeners
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were places that it was illegal foryou to be after dark if you were
brown. There are covenants in DNAand in others, says even Minneapolis,
and there's a project working on thatthat had racial covenants said you could not
own a property in this area.So when people are coming in, they've
got to understand that context and thatthey're going to run into diverse communities.
(19:08):
And you can't approach it from thewhite savior approach. You can't come in
as those people there. You can'tcome in to get your picture taken for
the photo op because then you weregoing ahead and only segmatizing. But you're
in a sense of fetishizing these peopleand using them as props. Whereas if
you're really out to do good works, it's not about the credit. You
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know, if you've got resources,if you've got ability, with great power
comes great responsibility, and you've gotto go ahead and utilize that if your
whole mission is to help make adifference. And so we try to tell
people when you're here, you're hereto help. You're not here to be
on the camera or to be thestar. And treat anybody you encounter as
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if they are your neighbor, yourrelative, your friend. Be friendly,
be nice. You don't know whatkind of a day that person is having,
You don't know what kind of asituation that they're coming out of.
So we don't judge, we don'tdiscriminate, we don't go ahead and make
anybody feel bad. We welcome theminto our center. A good lesson that
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we should all be practicing everywhere wego, right absolutely so, speaking of
volunteers, so if people are wantingto volunteer with, how like you tell
us about some of the roles youknow that people can play in helping you
achieve this very important mission that youhave. Well, right now, due
to COVID, we're limiting what kindof volunteerism we're doing, but there are
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still opportunities. So a couple ofthe things is one we're looking for drivers
people to help take food out tothose most in need in the community.
You know, we put together theboxes and then we put together routes take
those out. We're also doing ourevents all side, so we do food
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drives, we do some of ourpopular events. We've got one coming up
in April called Hunger Con where it'sgoing to be a drive through food distribution
event, and so things like thatare external and people can come in and
help out. We're set up inour parking lot. They can be part
of the crew that puts together thattens hands out the food, helps collect
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the food, different kinds of approacheslike that, and they can reach out
to you our team over here,and we can connect them into what we've
got available on that. Absolutely,it never hurts to also make a donation,
right oh. A donation is oneof the things that helps us the
most. And a lot of timespeople you know, think about should they
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do food or should they do money, And here's what I'll say, everything
helps money cash or online or checks, those actually do the most good because
we have partnerships with Second Harvest,the Food Group and other places like that
that allow us to get food ata lower cost than you can do.
(22:10):
If you're going to the store,you're going to you know your local grocery
place. So if you make adonation to us financially, we can stretch
that. And right now we've gota ten thousand dollars match coming up during
this month for the March campaign,So we participate in the March campaign,
which Minnesota Foods here does goes acrossthe state, and the more we raised
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during this month, there will bea percentage match from Minnesota Foods here,
so it strects your dollars even further, and then we can turn around the
utilize those dollars to purchase more andincrease that absolutely. So I know that
we don't have a crystal ball,but all of us are getting this question
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about as vaccines get rolled out,how do you continue to see the needs
shifting and changing, both from aclient standpoint and then maybe also from a
volunteer standpoint. Well, from botha client and a volunteer standpoint, I
think one our operations are going tostay kind of where they are for probably
(23:17):
the majority of this year, ifnot the whole year. Right now,
we're not having people into the building, we're not doing meetings and things like
that. It is the safest thingthat we can do, and the way
we're set up the food shelf withus doing the shopping, us doing the
online and the telephone ordering, that'sgoing to be kind of the best piece.
(23:38):
So I think you're going to seesome broadening and lessening of the restrictions.
But it's not going to be aquick overnight thing. We won't be
having, you know, fifty peoplecome to a meeting in April. It's
it's more still doing things externally,and that's part of the mindset that has
to shift if you're going to volunteeris understanding that the way that you've been
(24:02):
volunteering in the past twenty twenty it'schanged and you've got to look at it
as this is what we're doing now, this is the way the landscape is,
instead of I'm just waiting until thingsturn back, and to know they're
not going back to normal. There'sa new normal, and so more you
can get used to social distancing asa part of your volunteering, getting involved
(24:26):
in those events where they're outside,where they've got space that they're safe.
That's the best approach and I thinkwe're going to see this at least for
the next years as things get startto get better. Well, well,
keep our fingers crossed and just keepstrying to be adaptable as volunteers and supporters
of the organization. What are otherthings that our listeners might need to know
(24:52):
about halle Q before we let yougo. I would say that one for
everybody, if you need help oryou know somebody who needs help, reach
out to us. Our primary missionis to serve people, and if we
don't do it, we know somebodywho does, so we can connect you
into the resources. I want peoplenot to be out there struggling trying to
(25:15):
figure out where to go. Two, We've got a very rich history with
the African American community, and ourcommunity archive showcases that and tells the story
of RONDO, tells the story ofAfrican Americans within the community and the history
here, so you can check usout online. We're expanding a lot of
(25:38):
our archive work now online because ofCOVID restrictions, and so there's things that
you can learn about the history andcheck in. And then the last thing
I would say is understanding the importanceof addressing systemic racism. We're putting out
a lot more information. We're puttingout reading list, videos and documentaries that
(26:00):
you're going you can find out aboutand read and watch, but you've got
to educate yourself. You've got tounderstand that this is not something that just
popped up last year because of GeorgeFloyd's murder. This is something that's been
in this country since sixteen nineteen andit's just coming to light now. It's
coming to revelation, and you've gotto understand what the problem is if you
(26:23):
want to navigate this world successfully andyou want to be able to help make
a difference and eliminate this problem.I think it's fantastic that you have so
many resources. What is your website, Jonathan, for people to check it
out, it is www dot hallieh A L l I e Q around
like the color dot org. We'realso on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter,
(26:49):
so you can check us out onall our social media places Facebook,
it's halle q for the Instagram,and it's hqb com ctr perfect, lots
of places to follow all a goodwork that you're doing, Jonathan. I
just can't say enough about your partnershipat Hands On Twin Cities. We just
(27:11):
love working with you and your teamto make an impact here in the community
and we're so grateful for all thatyou and your team have done to transform
this year to meet this increased needand just can't speak highly enough about all
the work that you do. Wethank you so much for sharing it with
us. I am very glad tobe here. A quick correction, the
(27:34):
instagram is Halle q Brown CTR,not the other thing. I think that
was an old one that I justhad. But that's Instagram and Twitter.
It's all the same, and soyou can just check us out or if
you go to our website, it'sgot the links to all the places.
But thank you for having us handson. Has been a phenomenal, phenomenal
partner of ours and always they're alwaysready to bring us great volunteers and do
(27:59):
some great pride, and so thankyou for having us here. Thank you,
Jonathan. Isn't Jonathan just the best? I hope that you learned as
much as I did in the episodenotes. There are links to find out
more information about Halle Key Brown CommunityCenter. I definitely encourage you to check
out the community archive project online andeventually in person to explore the deep history
(28:25):
that we talked about related to theRondo neighborhood. For more information about how
to volunteer with other partners, whowork in the areas of hunger and food
instability. You can, of coursepop over to the hands on Twin Cities
dot org website and you can doa tailored search. A world with zero
hunger can positively impact our economy,health, education, equality, and so
(28:45):
much more. This is a problemthat can be solved, and together we
can ensure everyone has access to healthyfood so that we can all thrive.
Thank you so much for listening.For more information about hands on Twin Cities
and to follow us on social media, heads to our website. Redefining Volunteerism
(29:07):
is a production of Matriarch Digital Mediaexecutive producer Twila Day and producer and editor
Beth Gibbs, and special thanks toSarah Edwards, Grace McAvoy and Ella Cochrane.
From some great people, Let's getout there and be the change.
Together we can build a more equitableand thriving community.
Hello, friends, Welcome to reada Finding Volunteerism, a podcast by hands
On Twin Cities. I'm Tracy Nielsen, the executive director of hands On Twin
Cities, and i'm your host.I don't know how many of you know
(00:35):
this, but in Minnesota, overfour hundred and sixty thousand people are struggling
with hunger, and of that number, over one hundred and sixty thousand of
them are children. That's one outof every twelve people and one and eight
children. Well, many of usmight not see these disparities directly. I
just want you to consider that theseare our neighbors, students in our kids'
(00:57):
classes, they're working class family andseniors, and above all, our fellow
community members. All this being said, there's a lot of work to do
and the community can you use yourhelp. There's nobody better to share information
about these issues than my friend JonathanPalmer. Jonathan is the executive director for
Halle Key Brown Community Center, aninety two year old African American nonprofit social
(01:21):
service agency in Saint Paul. Jonathanholds a wealth of experience in community activism,
leadership, and volunteer work throughout hislife in Minnesota and across the country.
Let's dig into this important discussion withJonathan. Hi Jonathan, thank you
(01:41):
so much for being with us today. Hi Tracy, I'm very glad to
be with you today, so thrilledto be talking with you. Let's kick
things off by just getting an overviewof who you are, and from there
we'll talk a little bit about halleKey Brown Community Center. Wonderful. So
I'm Jonathan Palmer. I am thesixth executive director of Hallique Brown Community Center,
(02:07):
so ninety two year old African Americansocial service agency open to everyone,
located in the heart of the historicRondo community here in St. Paul.
Excellent. So, I know thatthe two of us could talk for hours
about all of the things that HALLEQdoes, but for today, we're going
to focus on the area of basicneeds, specifically around food. Can you
(02:31):
tell us about the services that Helliqueprovides related to food security in the community,
both certainly and so basic needs isone of our six core areas here
where we're providing food and services aroundthat to families and individuals and pre pandemic.
(02:53):
We would be your typical food shelfand clothing closet, focusing in on
people's needs. We would have aclient choice model, allow people to come
in and shop for the food andthings like that that they need, we
connect them into services and work alongthose lines. Post pandemic. We're coming
(03:15):
up on a year now, ayear in which we've been in this pandemic.
It's always interesting to hear people talkingabout the year because they talk about,
for a year we've been trapped insideand it's been really hard to be
home making sour dough breads and stufflike that, and I'm like, well,
you know, for a year,we haven't been trapped inside. We've
(03:38):
actually been doing a lot more.So. Our food shelf actually had to
expand dramatically at the start of thepandemic. One we've never closed, so
the governor asked a lot of basicneeds organizations like ourselves to stay open continue
to provide help to people out there. We didn't have a lot of resources
(04:00):
initially, and so it was alot of our team pulling together. But
we expanded the amount of food wewere serving out from being just primarily Saint
Paul to all over the state ofMinnesota. And one of the reasons for
that is most food shows have togo to a prepacked box, we maintained
a client choice model. We wentahead and implemented an online ordering form as
(04:27):
well as a telephone based ordering system, so people would still order what specifically
they needed, and then our teamwould go ahead and pack the boxes and
either provide them for pickup or deliverthem out. So it's a big thing
for us. We saw a fourthousand percent increase in new clients. Oh
my gosh, four thousand percent andstill offering that client choice, so just
(04:50):
for people that aren't familiar. Sothinking about the complexity of client choice,
what does that entail I mean?Obviously we have different food preferences, but
how does that play out in afood shelf? Well, and that's one
of the key pieces that we tryto maintain. So with somebody's going to
the food shelf, they're already inneed. There is no reason to make
(05:14):
somebody feel shame or feel bad aboutthat. So client choice allows people to
pick what they need for their household. If you're a vegetarian, you don't
need three pounds of hamburger in aprepacked box. You're able to then pick
out more rice and beans, let'ssay, or soups or things like that
that fit your specific needs. Weespecially find people who have food sensitivities or
(05:38):
allergies, people with religious rules aroundfood things like that are the ones that
most look to us for support,and most look to us to go ahead
and help them feel that need.So it's a client choice allows people to
select what they need. You goto our ordering form. It's kind of
like instacart where they can just checkoff the different things and then one of
(06:00):
our team calls them and confirmed,so they go actually through the list,
make sure it's what they need,and we can go ahead and pack the
box. So it's like having apersonal shocker for you. If you utilize
in our food shelf. That's amazingand I just love the dignity that it
provides to people to be getting thefood that is really right for them.
(06:21):
You mentioned this tremendous increase. Imean, so the pandemic affected people in
a variety of different ways. Likehow did these people learn about you?
How did you suddenly scale up tomeet this need? Like I can't imagine,
Yeah, what did you learn?So it is it's a very interesting
(06:44):
story, and it really really comesdown to is I have a phenomenal team
over here. We've lost about ninetypercent of our volunteers because of COVID restrictions.
So when this started, it wasn'tsafe for people to come out.
A lot of our tiers our seniors, and so we didn't want them to
be putting themselves at risk. Wedidn't want to have lots of people coming
(07:08):
into the building at that time.So our team actually literally me and my
leadership team were packing food boxes deliveringthem out. And as we began to
do that, there would be differentwebsites that would go off social media talking
about if you need help, ifyou need resources, here's where you can
(07:28):
check out. I did a lotof promoting that out through networks and telling
people just if you need help,reach out to us. Where the geographic
boundaries have gone out the window.We had one hundred and eight new clients
enroll in March of Last Tire,we had eighteen hundred and eight new clients
enroll in June of Last Tier,and for context, in June or twenty
(07:51):
nineteen, we had sixty nine newclients enroll. Oh my gosh, and
a big factor with this was alsothe aftermath after the murder of George Floyd
that coming in you know there wasa lot of disruption in that community.
There was a lot of increased needs, So that's part of the reason for
that spike in June. But everymonth throughout the year, we get more
(08:13):
and more clients coming in needing theresources, and we have people from Rochester,
from Lakeville, from Saint Louis Parkcoming over to pick up food.
It's really been just addressing that needand making sure we're there to help people
right. Just for clarification for ourlisteners, can you who are probably imagining
(08:35):
that your team is made up ofhundreds of people, how many people?
We have about twenty six on staff. Half of those are in our education
programs. So when we're talking aboutthe team for the food shelf specifically,
we actually have one and a halfstaff that are food shelf. We detailed
(09:01):
over a couple of administrative staff,and we also have a community Resource navigator
that helps connect people. So that'sone of the people that calls back checks
on the order, but then alsotalks with them is about anything else they
need so that we can connect themin the other resources. If they're having
housing trouble, if they're having cardtrouble. Those are things we do,
(09:24):
but we know somebody who does themand we connect them into that. That's
excellent. So you mentioned the pandemic, you mentioned everything that occurred in the
community following the murder of George Floyd. How have things changed for your organization
and actually how have things changed forthe clients that you serve during this time.
Well, the food shuff as wesaid, you know, dramatic increase
(09:48):
in need. Being able to beone of those stabilizing forces has really helped
for the people we serve. Withour education programs, we had expand those
as well. So most of ourother programs all got shuttered just because of
the COVID restrictions. We kept thebasic needs, We kept the education programs.
(10:11):
We have an early learning center thatgoes from six weeks on up to
five years, and we have ayouth in Richmond which was before and after
school care for K through six Kthrough by K through six. We started
aft providing childcare for children of essentialworkers and daycare, but we soon expanded
into families who just couldn't afford tostay home. And now that program actually
(10:33):
has social distance classrooms, so weput those in place last year because a
lot of times our families can't affordto stay home and can't afford to keep
up with the kids. So byputting these in place, they have a
safe place that their kids can come. Our teachers work with their homeschool teachers
to make sure they're getting the lessons, We give them the extra support.
(10:56):
And so those are the two mainprograms. The area that has expanded a
lot as well has been through ourcommunity archive and our public affairs efforts.
So there's a lot of people thatsuddenly discovered in twenty twenty that racism still
existed. We thought, oh,Barack Obama was president, and you know,
(11:20):
we're past the civil rights movement,so everything must be okay. Turns
out not so much. And sowhat we've had is a lot more times
of me talking with organizations, boards, with corporations, leadership teams, with
public events about racism, systemic racism, the origins of that. Why we've
(11:43):
been in the situations that we arein. What is happening with the outgrowing
movement of Black Lives Matter, comingfrom the death of George Floyd, of
Brianna Taylor, of am On Arbory, all of these things that the world
is now paying a lot of attentionto, an understanding and that has created
(12:05):
a dramatic shift in the world andin how we're dealing with things. And
for our clients, it's it's somethingthat's very dear and very personal because it
affects their lives, and especially ourseniors. Our seniors are reliving events that
they thought we were passed right right. And for those who don't know,
(12:26):
you mentioned that Halle Kee Brown CommunityCenter is in the Rondo neighborhood. Can
you provide a little just a briefhistory again, we could go into this
for a long time about about theRondo neighborhood. So Rondo is historically diverse
but primarily African American neighborhood in SaintPaul. It is the center point of
(12:46):
a lot of history. And inthe sixties the highway was put right through
the middle of it. It usedeminent domain to steal people's homes, to
demolish businesses and communities. It wasnot the route that it should have gone
on. There was more than oneroute for the highway and the one city
(13:07):
county planner at the time said,don't do this, it will decimate the
community, and the powers that besaid, we don't care. We said,
they said, we're going to cleanup these quote unquote slums. It
wasn't slums, it was thriving communityorganizations, thriving businesses. And Chris Coleman,
in one of those final years asmayor, issued an apology on behalf
(13:28):
of the city and on behalf ofhis office and named it as racism.
And you can see the outgrowth inthe impact. So Rondo is on the
west side of Saint Paul. It'swe're just west of downtown, but it's
a central gathering point as we arefor the African American community. Right,
(13:50):
So you're serving a community that hashistorical trauma. How do you how does
that change the way that you approacheven providing basic needs to the community or
or educating other community members as well. There's a lot of different lens that
needs to be put on the approachthat we take for us as an African
(14:11):
American organization, as an African Americanleader, it is very well known what
the approach I need to take isbeing sensitive to the communities we serve,
working with the different bipod communities tomake sure that we're addressing the needs.
We're sourcing food that is good forthem, but we do spend a lot
(14:33):
of time educating people who want tobe involved or people who don't understand this
community and don't understand you know,why can't we just do the same things
that we do out need Dina orother places like that. And it's like,
well, because there's a lot ofdifferent pieces that go into place when
you start talking about the lens thathas been used and you start talking about
(14:56):
the overlay of systemic racism that impactsthe way we've approached problems from a public
affairs standpoint, impacts the distribution ofresources and the impact of government policy that
has led to a lot of thesegmentation and the poverty that we have in
the community. So having that lens, approaching it from a standpoint of anti
(15:20):
racism, approaching it from a standpointof equitable distribution and diversity, make sure
that we're doing the right thing,but we're also helping to uplift the community
while we're providing services and supports thecommunity. Right. I know that at
Hands on Twin Cities, we've hearda lot of people who are definitely energized
(15:41):
around the topic of social justice.As you know, George Floyd sort of
ignited that across the world. Essentiallyhow do you think the issue of social
justice, You know, it's acomplex issue. How do you think that
basic needs and those things sort oftie when people are talking about volunteering for
(16:02):
social justice initiatives very well, verywell, they tie together very well.
But they have a great origin point. So when you start talking about systemic
racism, you can see the patternsthat have led to the disparity that exist
and the need that's in the community. So when you're talking about racism,
(16:25):
when you're talking about segmentation, whenyou're talking about the segregation that has occurred
and the health disparities that have comeup, you can do a direct line
back to slavery. You can doa direct line back to what has been
done to the native communities in termsof stealing the land that we're on,
the disparities that have gone through thevarious communities of color. You can tie
(16:48):
that right back to the lack ofresources, the lack of investment, and
the lack of ability to accumulate wealthfrom redlining on into jobs and economic development.
So the situation that we have interms of food and hunger, all
of that ties back to that,and all of it is a straight line
(17:11):
back and So what we encourage peopleto understand when they're coming into volunteer they're
coming in to get engaged. Thisisn't about haves and have not. This
isn't about that group over there whoare the poor destitute that you are a
hero coming in. This is aboutthe human condition and thinking about that person
(17:32):
is your neighbor, that person ispart of your community, and we have
to make sure that there's an equitabledistribution of resources and leveling that playing field
so that everybody is able to comein and do the things that they need
to and has the support that theyneed. Absolutely, you just touched on
My very next question was which wasyou know, as people you know maybe
(17:56):
come from e Dinet or Minnetaka ordifferent places around our community with the amazing
intent to assist people in various neighborhoods, how do you you know, what
kinds of education or what kind ofwork can we be doing to think about,
you know, how it is thatwe show up to not create the
sort of white savior complex that sometimescan be a reality in volunteerism. That
(18:22):
is a great question, and whatyou have to understand with all of this
is that first and foremost, ifyou're going to go into an organization,
or if you're a part of theorganization, having people come in is helping
them to understand the context and helpingthem to understand the piece. Idina was
a sundowntown and the sundowntown have beennot familiar with it. For the listeners
(18:45):
were places that it was illegal foryou to be after dark if you were
brown. There are covenants in DNAand in others, says even Minneapolis,
and there's a project working on thatthat had racial covenants said you could not
own a property in this area.So when people are coming in, they've
got to understand that context and thatthey're going to run into diverse communities.
(19:08):
And you can't approach it from thewhite savior approach. You can't come in
as those people there. You can'tcome in to get your picture taken for
the photo op because then you weregoing ahead and only segmatizing. But you're
in a sense of fetishizing these peopleand using them as props. Whereas if
you're really out to do good works, it's not about the credit. You
(19:33):
know, if you've got resources,if you've got ability, with great power
comes great responsibility, and you've gotto go ahead and utilize that if your
whole mission is to help make adifference. And so we try to tell
people when you're here, you're hereto help. You're not here to be
on the camera or to be thestar. And treat anybody you encounter as
(19:56):
if they are your neighbor, yourrelative, your friend. Be friendly,
be nice. You don't know whatkind of a day that person is having,
You don't know what kind of asituation that they're coming out of.
So we don't judge, we don'tdiscriminate, we don't go ahead and make
anybody feel bad. We welcome theminto our center. A good lesson that
(20:17):
we should all be practicing everywhere wego, right absolutely so, speaking of
volunteers, so if people are wantingto volunteer with, how like you tell
us about some of the roles youknow that people can play in helping you
achieve this very important mission that youhave. Well, right now, due
to COVID, we're limiting what kindof volunteerism we're doing, but there are
(20:40):
still opportunities. So a couple ofthe things is one we're looking for drivers
people to help take food out tothose most in need in the community.
You know, we put together theboxes and then we put together routes take
those out. We're also doing ourevents all side, so we do food
(21:02):
drives, we do some of ourpopular events. We've got one coming up
in April called Hunger Con where it'sgoing to be a drive through food distribution
event, and so things like thatare external and people can come in and
help out. We're set up inour parking lot. They can be part
of the crew that puts together thattens hands out the food, helps collect
(21:25):
the food, different kinds of approacheslike that, and they can reach out
to you our team over here,and we can connect them into what we've
got available on that. Absolutely,it never hurts to also make a donation,
right oh. A donation is oneof the things that helps us the
most. And a lot of timespeople you know, think about should they
(21:47):
do food or should they do money, And here's what I'll say, everything
helps money cash or online or checks, those actually do the most good because
we have partnerships with Second Harvest,the Food Group and other places like that
that allow us to get food ata lower cost than you can do.
(22:10):
If you're going to the store,you're going to you know your local grocery
place. So if you make adonation to us financially, we can stretch
that. And right now we've gota ten thousand dollars match coming up during
this month for the March campaign,So we participate in the March campaign,
which Minnesota Foods here does goes acrossthe state, and the more we raised
(22:33):
during this month, there will bea percentage match from Minnesota Foods here,
so it strects your dollars even further, and then we can turn around the
utilize those dollars to purchase more andincrease that absolutely. So I know that
we don't have a crystal ball,but all of us are getting this question
(22:53):
about as vaccines get rolled out,how do you continue to see the needs
shifting and changing, both from aclient standpoint and then maybe also from a
volunteer standpoint. Well, from botha client and a volunteer standpoint, I
think one our operations are going tostay kind of where they are for probably
(23:17):
the majority of this year, ifnot the whole year. Right now,
we're not having people into the building, we're not doing meetings and things like
that. It is the safest thingthat we can do, and the way
we're set up the food shelf withus doing the shopping, us doing the
online and the telephone ordering, that'sgoing to be kind of the best piece.
(23:38):
So I think you're going to seesome broadening and lessening of the restrictions.
But it's not going to be aquick overnight thing. We won't be
having, you know, fifty peoplecome to a meeting in April. It's
it's more still doing things externally,and that's part of the mindset that has
to shift if you're going to volunteeris understanding that the way that you've been
(24:02):
volunteering in the past twenty twenty it'schanged and you've got to look at it
as this is what we're doing now, this is the way the landscape is,
instead of I'm just waiting until thingsturn back, and to know they're
not going back to normal. There'sa new normal, and so more you
can get used to social distancing asa part of your volunteering, getting involved
(24:26):
in those events where they're outside,where they've got space that they're safe.
That's the best approach and I thinkwe're going to see this at least for
the next years as things get startto get better. Well, well,
keep our fingers crossed and just keepstrying to be adaptable as volunteers and supporters
of the organization. What are otherthings that our listeners might need to know
(24:52):
about halle Q before we let yougo. I would say that one for
everybody, if you need help oryou know somebody who needs help, reach
out to us. Our primary missionis to serve people, and if we
don't do it, we know somebodywho does, so we can connect you
into the resources. I want peoplenot to be out there struggling trying to
(25:15):
figure out where to go. Two, We've got a very rich history with
the African American community, and ourcommunity archive showcases that and tells the story
of RONDO, tells the story ofAfrican Americans within the community and the history
here, so you can check usout online. We're expanding a lot of
(25:38):
our archive work now online because ofCOVID restrictions, and so there's things that
you can learn about the history andcheck in. And then the last thing
I would say is understanding the importanceof addressing systemic racism. We're putting out
a lot more information. We're puttingout reading list, videos and documentaries that
(26:00):
you're going you can find out aboutand read and watch, but you've got
to educate yourself. You've got tounderstand that this is not something that just
popped up last year because of GeorgeFloyd's murder. This is something that's been
in this country since sixteen nineteen andit's just coming to light now. It's
coming to revelation, and you've gotto understand what the problem is if you
(26:23):
want to navigate this world successfully andyou want to be able to help make
a difference and eliminate this problem.I think it's fantastic that you have so
many resources. What is your website, Jonathan, for people to check it
out, it is www dot hallieh A L l I e Q around
like the color dot org. We'realso on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter,
(26:49):
so you can check us out onall our social media places Facebook,
it's halle q for the Instagram,and it's hqb com ctr perfect, lots
of places to follow all a goodwork that you're doing, Jonathan. I
just can't say enough about your partnershipat Hands On Twin Cities. We just
(27:11):
love working with you and your teamto make an impact here in the community
and we're so grateful for all thatyou and your team have done to transform
this year to meet this increased needand just can't speak highly enough about all
the work that you do. Wethank you so much for sharing it with
us. I am very glad tobe here. A quick correction, the
(27:34):
instagram is Halle q Brown CTR,not the other thing. I think that
was an old one that I justhad. But that's Instagram and Twitter.
It's all the same, and soyou can just check us out or if
you go to our website, it'sgot the links to all the places.
But thank you for having us handson. Has been a phenomenal, phenomenal
partner of ours and always they're alwaysready to bring us great volunteers and do
(27:59):
some great pride, and so thankyou for having us here. Thank you,
Jonathan. Isn't Jonathan just the best? I hope that you learned as
much as I did in the episodenotes. There are links to find out
more information about Halle Key Brown CommunityCenter. I definitely encourage you to check
out the community archive project online andeventually in person to explore the deep history
(28:25):
that we talked about related to theRondo neighborhood. For more information about how
to volunteer with other partners, whowork in the areas of hunger and food
instability. You can, of coursepop over to the hands on Twin Cities
dot org website and you can doa tailored search. A world with zero
hunger can positively impact our economy,health, education, equality, and so
(28:45):
much more. This is a problemthat can be solved, and together we
can ensure everyone has access to healthyfood so that we can all thrive.
Thank you so much for listening.For more information about hands on Twin Cities
and to follow us on social media, heads to our website. Redefining Volunteerism
(29:07):
is a production of Matriarch Digital Mediaexecutive producer Twila Day and producer and editor
Beth Gibbs, and special thanks toSarah Edwards, Grace McAvoy and Ella Cochrane.
From some great people, Let's getout there and be the change.
Together we can build a more equitableand thriving community.
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