When one of MGEC’s members, Hannah Pritchard, saw the tremendous need in her North Minneapolis neighborhood after the looting and fires a few weeks ago, she decided to act. Her neighborhood was already struggling, even before any of the looting/fires, but the problem became even more pronounced after.
Almost all of the food stores in the area are boarded up. Some may never reopen. Hannah went to help with clean up efforts and saw volunteers helping with drop off donations carrying items in their arms and having to make multiple trips. She also looked at the sites where people were volunteering and noticed that most sites are parking lots or vacant fields with no shade. Many sites also have a limited number of volunteers, so she wanted to find a way to help them be as efficient as possible to provide the most help.
Here are some numbers for what Hannah has accomplished so far:
- raised (and spent) about $10,000
- $2,500 on carts
- . Feedback on these was, “These carts change everything. You have no idea how much faster we can unload and how much energy it saves us. THANK YOU.”
- $5,000 on tents
- Two of the tents are going to a woman who is providing hot meals from her porch every day, it’ll give people somewhere to stand out of the sun while they eat.
- One of the pop-up canopies went to these kids. They want to help, but one of them is immunocompromised, so they can’t go to the big sites. They set up a table to hand out cold water and snacks on their front lawn. It’s been a huge hit!
- $1,500 on direct cash donations to some of the sites
- $1000 on tables and other miscellaneous supplies
- Monday’s donation haul included over 6000 granola bars from a friend at General Mills, about 200 homemade masks from friends from out of state, and a carload of groceries, water, and diapers from somebody down the street.
- $2,500 on carts
If you would like to help, there are several ways:
- Donations-money:
Hannah is still raising funds to buy more equipment/supplies for these sites. Anything that she cannot spend on things to make the process more efficient, she’ll spend on goods to be handed out at the sites, for example diapers, formula, macaroni and cheese. People can donate directly to her:
Venmo – @hapritch82
CashApp – $hapritch82
PayPal – cecile468@gmail.com
Or, contact her for her mailing address to send a check.
- Donations – supplies:
- Dry goods – Cereal, easy meals (mac & cheese, ramen), cooking oil, canned meat
- Hygiene – shampoo/conditioner, toothpaste, soap, menstrual products
- Baby – FORMULA, diapers, wipes, pullups
- COVID – sanitizer, masks, gloves, cleaners of all kinds
You can bring these items to the intersection of West Broadway and N Bryant Ave in Minneapolis during the following times: Thurs-Sun 9-1pm.
If these times don’t work for you, you can contact Hannah for her address and bring things to her house and she will distribute for you.
Finally, if you would like to give money directly to a non-profit to use how they see fit, here is the donation page for one of the groups Hannah is working with:
Photos are of:
- one of the food pantries – this one is at the Native American Clinic in South Minneapolis.
- 6 of the wagons being deployed.
- The larger carts required some assembly, so Hannah had to borrow a socket wrench from a MAPE member and assemble them on site.
