SSCO Aid Drive Summary
By Jo Herrera, Safety Coordinator
September 2020
Overview
The Stevens Square Community Organization Aid Drive was a summer-long initiative to support the Groveland Emergency Food Shelf and neighbors in the Stevens Square-Loring Heights neighborhood through donations of food, hygiene products and household products.
Photos by Dee Tvedt
History & context
The SSCO Aid Drive began as SSCO staff members brainstormed ways the organization could support area residents and their direct needs during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the start of the pandemic and the statewide shutdown there were shortages in many essential items, grocery stores were shortening their hours and it became harder for people, especially those who are older and/or are immunocompromised, to shop for basic necessities. Many workplaces began shutting down and people were being laid off or having their hours cut, especially those in service industries. Mutual aid sites began popping up around the Twin Cities, which inspired this idea to be considered. When the former interim executive director of SSCO reached out to Groveland, they expressed they were serving more than 100 people everyday and that there was growing demand. During the initial planning stages, another historic event took place barely 10 minutes away from the neighborhood; on May 25, George Floyd was killed by Minneapolis police after being pinned down on the ground. This sparked protests and unrest for days, during which multiple area buildings were burned down or otherwise damaged, including in Stevens Square. Suddenly many local grocery stores and pharmacies were out of commission worsening the shortage for essential items. However, in the wake of unrest, more and more mutual aid and donation initiatives began as neighbors found ways to help each other. This is when staff decided to move forward with the drive. About four months after we began the aid drive events, we’re seen many food justice initiatives pop-up around the Twin Cities, both temporarily and some more long-term. This includes the Twin Cities Mutual Aid Map, Elliot Park Neighborhood Inc’s pop-up affordable food sales and free markets, and Lowry Hill East Neighborhood Association’s Food Share.
By the numbers
Individual volunteers: 42 (some one time, others recurring, this does not include people simply dropping off supplies). Majority are from Stevens Square. A few from surrounding areas like Whittier, Lowry Hill and Southwest. The first weekend there were some coming to volunteer from Hopkins, Minnetonka, and St. Paul. There were about 7 core volunteers who came to every, or almost every, aid drive to assist with part of the operation.
Donation impact: We've donated 12 large car loads full of food and household supplies to Groveland Food Shelf from the aid drives. Items were an estimated 3,115 pounds.
Additionally, SSCO staff, a board member, and a volunteer delivered 30 carloads of food and household supplies (estimated at 7,800 pounds) to the Groveland Food Shelf from Urban Ventures, a local nonprofit working to end poverty who had collected more supplies than they could distribute.
Masks: 600 reusable cloth masks and 1000 disposable masks. We partnered with a local group of volunteer mask makers around the metro area who provide masks to distribution sites, volunteers, job sites, nonprofits. etc. We have distributed 450 of their donated masks (adult and child size) to local residents at the aid drives. We have about 50 left over from the drives that are stored in the Block Patrol office for SSCO volunteers. Local individuals donated about 100 reusable cloth masks and 1000 disposable masks (2 cases of 50-mask packs). The majority of the cloth masks were given to neighbors who stopped by the drive. The majority of donated disposable masks went directly to the Groveland Food Shelf.
Produce: 12 cases of produce. Fresh produce was available on three of the distribution days thanks to donations from neighbors.
Neighbors served on-site: 509 estimated. We estimate that on a “slow” day we had about 39-50 people stop by looking for aid for their household. Busy days had 100+. Between the 7 events, we estimated 509 people served directly. The aid drive, which focused on Groveland Food Shelf, was not meant to be a distribution site and was not advertised as such. Because we were by the high traffic corner of Nicollet and Franklin Avenues, many people simply stopped by asking for supplies that have been hard to find. We interacted with a mix of housed and unhoused neighbors during this time. It's incredibly difficult to keep track of this number as we talk with folks and keep the space organized. We've provided information on SSCO initiatives, like Red Hot Art, rental rebates, Ward 6 voter guide, 2020 Census information, and more. We've also helped folks in smaller ways, like helping them make phone calls, giving directions to the bus stops and sharing information on Groveland Food Shelf's regular operating hours.
Comments & feedback
At the last aid drive, volunteers worked to poll neighbors who stopped by looking for items. 39 people stopped by that day and volunteers talked to 15 about their experience.
Of those 15 people:
15 of them spent the majority of their time in Stevens Square-Loring Heights
9 of them said they had heard of the Stevens Square Community Organization before
14 had heard of the Groveland Food Shelf
5 had been to the food shelf before
All 15 said they could make it to the food shelf during regular hours if they needed assistance.
All 15 said pop-up donation collection and distribution events are helpful to the community. One neighbor gave an enthusiastic “hell yes.”
Here are a few direct quotes of the people we polled:
“You’re doing good work.”
“Very helpful to the community”
“I like what you’re doing in the community. There are a lot of people who need help like this.”
“Thank you.”
“Don’t stop. If you guys need help, look towards the community.”
“Interpreters and translated information...Spanish, Somali, Hmong, etc… would be helpful.”
Challenges
Planning the multiple events of the aid drive had a learning curve, especially when not knowing much about the resources SSCO has in the Block Patrol office. This was quickly remedied after the first two events. The project would run smoother if there were two or more staff/volunteers sharing the load as far as logistics.
Advertising the drive and soliciting donations through flyering, social media, newsletters and other means can be time consuming and donations did slow down over time especially as neighbors were tapped out financially and emotionally/physically burnt out from citywide unrest.
There were sometimes language barriers and rarely more than one volunteer on hand that spoke multiple languages.
There is some general distrust of direct mutual aid among some volunteer leaders in SSCO, which can be difficult to navigate at times. Overall, this has been overcome with more dialogue around hunger and insecurity as a public safety issue.
Takeaways
The SSCO Aid Drive was a powerful, summer-long initiative of seven in-person events to collect and distribute food and household items to neighbors, both on-site and through the Groveland Food Shelf. This project was a response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the unrest in Minneapolis following George Floyd’s murder. The events were not perfect and there was a lot of learning along the way by staff and volunteers. Even with tight resources and safety concerns, the series had a large impact on neighbors both those looking for assistance and those looking to serve locally.The aid drive’s location not only made it a convenient drop-off location for donations, but also provided a physical presence of caring neighbors and resources on Nicollet Avenue (and close to Franklin Avenue) which has seen an increase in violence this year. It provided the opportunity to talk about the neighborhood organization, voting and the 2020 Census to many neighbors who are underrepresented in all those areas. The initiative also brought in new volunteers who had not participated in SSCO programming previously. Overall, if SSCO were to do future events like this one, there is no shortage of need and there are many lessons to be learned from how this series was organized.
