Minnesotans provide a surge of help to immigrant neighbors

(upbeat music) - Good morning, I'm Katherine Richard, I'm Philly and Prangela Davis, and you're listening to MPR News. We're so glad you could join us today. As federal immigration enforcement surged here in Minnesota, so has helped for immigrants. Across the state, people are supporting immigrant neighbors who are too afraid to leave their homes. Volunteers are delivering groceries. They're giving rides to work, school, doctors appointments, they're helping with rent, pitching in with everything from dog walking to legal services, and the support is really grassroots. It's been organized through local neighborhood groups, congregations, school communities, and online. So this morning, we're talking about what that support looks like, how it gets organized, and what its impact has been. We want you to join this conversation. Are you providing food? Are you offering rides or helping with rent? What are you doing and what motivated you to get involved? The phone lines are open. You can call us at 651-227-6000 or 800-242-2828. I want to bring in our guests. We have Karen Robinson. She's the director of Direct Support Service for Immigrant Defense Network. This is a project of copal. That is a Minneapolis non-profit, serving Minnesota's Latino communities. Good morning, Karen, thank you for joining us. - Good morning, thank you for having me this morning. - And we have Anna Stamborski. She is the co-creator of the grassroots neighbors, helping neighbors group. It arranges for volunteers to provide rides, groceries, and other help to their neighbors in the metro area. She's also a trainer for the national organization, Crossroads, Anti-Racism, Organizing and Training. Anna, it's good to have you with us this morning. - Good morning, thanks so much. - All right, I want to start just by getting your reaction to some of the headlines, which just keep coming, we know this morning that border chief Greg Bavino is leaving the state today, and has been sort of set aside from his role as chief of border control in general. And also may or Minneapolis may or Jacob Fry's announcement yesterday afternoon that some federal agents are going to leave Minnesota. Karen, I'll start with you. What's your reaction to that? - I think the first reaction I have here is that this might be a partial victory, but it doesn't yet keep our streets safe. It's not a overall win. We still have ice on our streets, and people are still at risk. - And Anna, what about you? - Yeah, I definitely resonate. I think it really it will be stated or shown in the effect of how our neighbors are feeling, and if they feel safe enough, it also doesn't support in the fact that neighbors have not been able to work and rent is still due on the first. - Mm-hmm, yeah. Okay, so let's talk now more about what your organizations do. Karen, can you help us better understand what sort of situations immigrants might find themselves in or even just people who are afraid to be detained, in general, like what are you seeing? - So, we're seeing a lot, right? In example, right, we had a call in a woman hiding in a hospital bathroom because she was terrified to leave. She was not an immigrant. She was a U.S. citizen woman, Latina, that couldn't even leave the bathroom because people were saying that ice was outside, right? So, for that, we are here to support and help and find volunteers to help people drive her home, but how can you drive someone home when they can't even leave a bathroom, right? - Yeah, and go ahead, sorry. - No, you're good. So, we walked, we just talked to her throughout the phone, we walked through kind of calming her down, right, letting her know that we will have support there, we will have our constitutional observers there, we'll have someone that can, you know, talk to the nurse to help her get out, but that's just one example out of many, right? There's people living in fear that haven't left their homes for more than two months now that haven't even been able to go grocery shopping. So, that's just two quick examples of what we're seeing here. I know Annie has probably more if you want to add that. - Yeah, I just want to point out to you that our reporting and many other media outlets here in Minnesota have reported that people who are US citizens are being stopped, questioned, and sometimes detained too. So, that fear is, I think, very, very real. Anna, what about you, what are you seeing? - Yeah, I mean, neighbors helping neighbors was started somewhat accidentally. It was started because we had Latina-led organizing entity that was like, hey, you are people of faith. Can you start getting us grocery runs and rides? And just to see the neighbors requests kaboom. Like, it went from seven every other day to averaging around seven D every day across the metro area. And consistently, neighbors are sharing that they cannot leave their house, they want to work, they cannot do so safely. Neighbors that are still working are pretty terrified and are requesting rides. And so, this has absolutely affected so many people's lives, including as someone, so I live in the Lindale neighborhood in two blocks off of Lake Street. This is just normal for our neighbors. This is normal to hear of citizens being tackled at bus stops. It's normal to hear of patrollers having their windows smashed when ice doesn't like that they're being followed. This is daily life for people. And it is affecting not just Minneapolis, but Metro-wide. OK, we already have a lot of calls coming in. I kind of predicted that. We have Karen and South Minneapolis. Karen, what do you want to share? Hi, good morning. I want to say a couple things. So I am in South Minneapolis, like you mentioned. And you know, learning from theater and books to stand up to bullies is our collective responsibility. And it has truly been both a privilege and humbling to be able to take young kids to school, bring them home safely to their families. I've been shopping and delivering groceries to families and hiding. And the responsibility, our collective responsibility, of taking care of one another, is what Minneapolis does. And we are the country's best kept secret. And now we're out on the map and to be able to show that we will not allow bullies to control us is my biggest thrill. Karen, I want to follow up with a couple of questions. Is this the first time you've ever done anything like this before? Yes, I protested after George Floyd was murdered and delivered food to a food bank. But I've never done something so feeling underground organized and doing it that way. Yeah. And tell me a little bit more about the interactions you're having with the students. You're driving if you don't mind sharing. I don't. I have met really great kids, which is also completely humbling. I drove Latino boys from Central America, home who are eager to be in school and to go to school dances and to learn. And they were just like the boys in my neighborhood who have grown up here. They were funny and bright and full of energy. But nervous as hell. And thank you so much, Karen. I appreciate that. I want to continue to get to our calls here. But Anna, I mean, your organization helps organize rides, right? I mean, this seems like a big thing that many people might not initially think of. We take advantage of the fact that we can just get in our cars and drive to work. Is that something you're seeing a lot of demand for? Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I would say that's probably our highest demand. I think it's inconvenient. We have neighbors who are doing the hard work that no one else wants to do. And they need rides at 5.40 AM that crosses city lines. And so one of our biggest needs is for rides for people still trying to get to work. People getting to appointments are two biggest needs. And it's inconvenient. And I think that's something we've had to normalize with folks who want to volunteer is you will be inconvenienced. And that is what it means to be a neighbor and what it means to show up for others. Yeah. I want to take another call from Julia in St. Paul, Julia. What do you want to share with us? Hi. Well, I'm in my car driving to work. So I hope you can hear me. And I just a couple minutes ago dropped off a couple of people at their jobs at a restaurant here in St. Paul. I picked them up about an hour ago way on the other side of town and brought them here to this restaurant because they don't feel comfortable driving themselves. And I got connected with this group through Signal. I made a signal post about something and a parent that I worked with as a volunteer at our kids' school many years ago saw it and reached out to me and somebody that he knew and trusted it and connected me with this group. And I think it's an example of how Signal, and we hear a lot about Signal right now and all the organizing that happens, is a really great means for communicating and networking, but it's not a substitute for real human connection and the kinds of things that connections we make with schools or in churches. And what I've seen, not everybody has a kid in school, not everybody goes to a church, but what we're doing right now in our neighborhood and in our communities with Signal or with other mediums is creating new spaces where we can connect and get to know each other. And in my neighborhood, there are weekly meetings, there are big groups, there are small groups, like ours that are really focused on a single thing. And I think the thing that gives me hope, no matter what happens, is that I know my neighborhood at least is so much more connected. We're going to be so much stronger and better able to take care of ourselves and our neighbor is going forward. And that makes me feel good. - Yeah, thank you, Julia. I mean, a new sense of community here in a place where it sounds like Julia's lived for some time. So, Karen, I'm wondering what do you sort of see as the future of some of these connections that are being made right now? - Yeah, I think it really shows us what the future looks like as we are resilient, right? What it looks like is that neighbors really stopping and community really taking a pause to help one another Minnesota, like truly we show Minnesota is a family united as a whole. And it's also going to be, right, in our history books, right? We've had to have really interesting conversations and uncomfortable conversations with three-year-olds, four-year-olds, five-year-olds, of why their mom and dad can't leave their house, why some strangers picking them up from school to drop them off at home, right? Why they can't even go to school for weeks and weeks? So, I definitely think that we're going to be coming out of this a lot more stronger, a lot more together. And then also, we're going to come out of this that this is not the end of it. We have so many immigrant families. Why can't we talk about, you know, what does it look like for an immigration reform? What does it look like for moving forward? Because we can't live under this constant fear over and over again. Yeah, and Anna, what about you? I mean, like, are you seeing sort of new community networks and organizations crop up and how do you see them functioning, you know, years down the road? Yeah, it was beautiful to see that, neighbors helping neighbors really just started as a South Minneapolis response to need and to see both the balloon in requests from neighbors across the Metro, but also the balloon in people wanting to be carers, as we call them, volunteers, also ballooned across the Metro. And so it has been wild to almost see that visual of a balloon going wide, but really the ultimate goal is that neighbors are buddied with neighbors. Like the ultimate goal is that they have found their person that they are checking in on, and that family that they're checking in on. And the goal is that this is what it had meant to be a neighbor. And I think it brings me a little bit of sadness to see if like, we needed neighbors helping neighbors to help other neighbors know their own neighbors genuinely. And the ultimate goal is that people actually are no longer doing multiple grocery drop-offs for tons of families that they don't know, but that they have that one family that they're checking in on. And that is their family. And so I think it is, it's filling in this need of, we should have been knowing our neighbors. And the problem is is when we live in such deeply, racially and class-wise segregated neighborhoods in cities, it's difficult. And I think this is really the fruit of that of what does it look like for us to, especially as Karen said, we need to address these long-term issues. This shouldn't have been a problem. And this is really just the fruit of some systemic problems. Yeah. OK. If you're just joining our conversation, we want you to call in. Are you providing food, offering rides or helping with rent for people who might be afraid to leave their homes right now due to the increased ice enforcement in the Twin Cities? What are you doing? What motivated you to get involved? Call us. The phone lines are open at 651-227-6000 or 800-242-2828. Elizabeth and Chan Hassan is on the line. Elizabeth, what do you want to share? Yeah, just yesterday, or a friend and I, we helped to drive a new mother to take her new baby to the pediatrician. Her baby is a little over a week old, and she was afraid to leave her home. But what really struck me, visit at the hospital went really well. We asked her, could we get her anything and he groceries like that. And the one thing she really wanted was if we could go to her place of employment, because she's a new mother, she's stopped working for now, she wanted us to go to her place of employment to pick up her W2, because she's really concerned with paying her taxes on time. So new mother taxpayer, this is the kind of person who's afraid to leave. And it's really a privilege to be able to help out. Yeah, thank you so much, Elizabeth. I want to get next to Ali in Southeastern Minnesota, Ali, what do you want to share? Hi, I have been working with some folks arranging mutual aid kind of in our more rural areas. And what we're encountering is we might have some, in the spirit of first dino harm, some safety considerations that maybe aren't as relevant in a more densely populated area. So I'm curious if the guests have any advice that way. And then additionally, I'm also seeing some groups who are very well-intended, but aren't connecting with already established Latino and East African support groups. And so I'm wondering if the guests have any advice that they could give to, especially well-intended white people in these more rural areas that want to help, but to make sure we're doing it in the safest way possible for the people that we're helping. Ali, thank you so much for calling. That's a great question. This isn't just happening in the Twin Cities. I'm broadcasting out of our Rochester Bureau today, and I can say that there are similar efforts of foot, both in this city, which is pretty big, but also in some of the outlying communities as well. Anna, what advice do you have for Ali? I would say, I think, yeah. Your intuition is right is to check in. I mean, there are immigrant places of worship that definitely exist in rural communities. I would check in on, like, I would go to, like, the Super McKaddle. Like, I would go to markets. I would start introducing yourself and your name. I think that is why even in my own neighborhood in response to ICE activity is knowing my, like, the local takedia and knowing their names and introducing myself months prior to this and being in relationship. And so I would say being in relationship is key even across language barrier and just putting yourself out there and consistently showing up, I think, is really important. I also think connecting with obviously organizations and places of worship that are trying to do this well. And also, like, truly, just starting to get to know your neighbors around you and seeing what next steps and what asks are from the community, I think, is huge. And many times it is just, it's introducing and saying, hey, this is my name, I live here and want to check in and hear how y'all are doing. - I would love to add on to that. Please, yeah, quickly here. So the immigrant defense network, what was in December, we knew that we needed to do something for our greater Minnesota, right, and real Minnesota folks. So we started what is our bus tour. Right now, our valiente bus is on their way to Moorhead. And these bus tours, right, I really encourage people to look at organizations, as Annie said, but also look into the immigrant defense network, our website, because we are going around Minnesota, we are doing trainings for the folks around that community. And like giving them resources, right? Know your rights card, know what to do. Who do you talk to, where can you visit these things? Our hotline number is available. So I truly encourage people to go and look at our website, look where we are going towards, right now we're in Moorhead. I know, you know, last week we were in Rochester. So that really helps because that starts building community within that, like, neighborhood and within that city. And you can share that knowledge, right? If you're not able to go to our training, our website has all the know your rights. We have our constitutional book on there. We have all the tools that you need to be able to, like, move with that training and just connect with others and, you know, share that knowledge. - Yeah, I want to back up just a little bit, Karen, and learn a little bit more about the immigrant defense network. What does this actually do, and how was it created? - Yeah, so the immigrant defense network is a project of Gopal, and this was created early in 2025 with a steering committee of seven different organizations, right? Obviously, there was a feeling coming, right? When you know that, you know, we're going to go into a different administration, you know that, you know, you have to protect yourself, you have to protect our community. And Gopal started this project and knew that it needed different organizations to support it. That looks like legal, faith, community, different networks throughout to really keep the immigrant defense network growing. I would say we started really seeing activity and using the immigrant defense network in December of 2025. And what we do is a little like two different things, right? But a little bit of everything now, 'cause we're just in weird times. But we train, we train the community, what we call constitutional observers as everyone has like heard legal observers to go out there on the ground when there's an activity happening. But also, a lot of folks say, oh, I don't want to go out there on the ground, don't worry. We have so many things that we put people to work, right? If you want to take, if you want to take phone calls, if you want to volunteer, drop off food, if you want to, you know, if you're a lawyer, not specifically in immigration law, like we're really asking for help in very different ways. Not only that, but we also are helping our community members with rent support, with food support, and connecting them with legal support as well. - What, I mean, let's just stay on the legal question for our second Karen, like, you know, can you give us an example of what sort of legal advice someone who is stuck at home right now might be seeking? - I think a lot of the questions that we get is, you know, everyone, not everyone that is stuck at home is an immigrant, right? - Right. - They have work permits. You might be a US citizen, and the big question is, is just because if I get in my car because of the color of my skin, color of my hair, can they detain me, right? That's a big question that we get. Obviously I'm not a lawyer, I cannot answer those advice, but it is scary, right? We have to now tell people you have to carry your US passport. And be cautious if you don't have it, right? Be cautious if that's not the case. And then we connect them with our immigration help group with our advocacy for human rights group with USLA. That can give them more of that legal advice and give them more directions. - Yeah. We have Pam and Minneapolis on the line. Pam, what do you want to share with us? - Just been helping neighbor who has not left his house since January 9th. He did not call and ask for any help. Just had to cancel an appointment with us. So we asked what he needed and he was using InstaCurt. And we said, "Well, let us know if there's anything else you need." So we've done, I've got a couple of meals for them and my husband has picked up some health and beauty, you know, poetry and last weekend we went and got prescription. He's got his elderly parents living with him. And just within the neighborhood, if you're familiar with the by nothing group on Facebook, one of the people in my group knows a caterer and she has been collecting food from the caterer. And then we've been distributing it to people that we know are not comfortable living at home. A lot of it has gone to the high water house schools that have families that aren't comfortable living at home. Thank you. Thank you so much, Pam, for sharing all of that. I want to get next to Daniel and Shasago Lake. Daniel, what do you want to share with us? Oh, hi. Sorry. I thought I was going to report. Yeah, no, I wanted to just shout out and I appreciate you. The earlier carolers, just all the work that rural communities are doing, I'm part of MetroCBA Indivisible, which services the southern part of CB8. And we have groups that have popped up all over this region in Forest Lake and Shasago Lakes and Cambridge and up in Pine City that are doing a lot of mutual aid work and a lot of rapid response work. You see a big impact from ice in our areas. We know people that have been impacted already. And Daniel, when you say impact, are you seeing a lot of ice officers there or are you saying it is causing, like, there's a lot of fear that something could happen or more could happen? Yeah, it's actually both. So this morning, I'm actually a part of a group that are helping escort one of our workers, who's a documented worker to her job at a Mexican restaurant because they've been harassed. We had a Mexican restaurant in Forest Lake that was closed for several days because they kept being harassed by ice agents and she's terrified. And we're helping her get to and from work now, just to this chair. Because she and everyone in that restaurant is terrified now. All of our restaurants are locking their doors to the minority you're owned. And we're seeing that throughout our region. The same thing happened in Cambridge and Pine City in Forest Lake. Yeah, thank you so much, Daniel. Daniel, I appreciate you calling in. I want to get next to Abby and White Bear Lake. Abby, what have you been observing? Hi, yes. My child goes to a daycare. And our daycare community has been very uplifting in this current climate. And we have really been coming together to protect our daycare workers, our daycare teachers. Are they people who are worried about being detained? Can you say more about the daycare? They are. They are worried about being detained. Every daycare teacher is, of course, has legal authorization to work. But they are fearful for being racially profiled. And so what we have been doing is having observers outside of our daycare, especially at high traffic times to make sure no one is getting into our building, who is should not be there. And giving rise to teachers who do not feel safe, driving alone or taking public transportation, and doing some mutual aid to support their families as well, because some of their spouses don't feel comfortable working and really have been impacted. And this is in, of course, a daycare world of where we have shortages. And shortage of workers, we really don't want this to impact our children, either. Abby, I'm wondering, have you run into any situations like as someone who is driving and transporting these teachers, have you run into situations where you're worried about actually getting pulled over? Absolutely. We've had to think about and talk about what would happen if, as a US citizen, what would I do if I were approached by ICE in these situations, and it's terrifying, especially with the killings that have been happening here locally from ICE of US citizens. And so we're taking on personal risk, but we feel strongly about supporting the teachers who care for our children every day. Thank you so much, Abby. Anna, I want to get you to react to that, because I understand your training volunteers to provide rides, like how are you advising them on what to do if they encounter immigration enforcement? Yeah, absolutely. So we have almost like our dispatchers for rides or have been talking to a lot of different lawyers to help create almost like a flow chart of if this happens, then you need to do this. And to prepare people to, we call it sadly, know your rights and know your risks and the idea of what it means to give a ride is riskier. And so preparing people with hotline numbers that if they are pulled over and if they need to call lawyers and being prepared with what they need to do, we've had folks who've sadly had to ask neighbors to lay down in the back seat so that they're unseen and feel more safe driving around. It's definitely risky work, and neighbors consistently are showing up willing to do it even with the risks. I want to get to a question from Pete and Minnetonka. Pete, what do you want to ask our guests today? Yeah, so my question is this. Thank you for having me on. As I look at this, we'd like to get involved in help. And as I see the people that are being impacted by potential evictions because their significant others have been removed or detained or incarcerated. And is there any type of go-funny effort or can we start one? Just something like that to see how we can kind of maybe financially also help those people that are in harm's way here because of anything they didn't do. Yeah, thank you so much, Pete. This is such a ripple effect, I guess, of what's been going on, which is when people are afraid to leave their houses, they aren't showing up at work. And that can affect their earning power and rent, of course, is coming up. I want to ask both of you. I'll start with you, Karen. What sort of resources might Pete be interested in? And how are you guys handling eviction issues? Yeah, I really encourage that they call our hotline number. And I can put it here too. It's 612-255-3112. Within our hotline number, we do an intake for specific evictions and rent support. We do connect with some lawyers on that and see also with the counties to see how the counties can support. I know Hanepin County has a kind of eviction line where they are supporting the tenants on this and making sure that, you know, because we're in the scenario that we are in, how can we avoid this? How can we support the tenant and not only rent, but in those notices? So I really encourage-- I'll put the number again, 612-255-3112. And again, we do rent and eviction support. So please give us a call, and we can help them out. Anna, what additional advice do you have to offer here? Yeah, I think it's twofold. I think it's supporting metro-wide, statewide organizations who are doing this work. And also, I have had carers who've been buttied up with families. And they're like, hey, we have a rent request here. And often what I say to them is, do you have a network of people that can support you in helping this neighbor? And so I know sometimes people can feel uncomfortable about not being able to give to an organization a 501(c)(3) and also like the most effective, efficient, quick way is to directly help your neighbor and trusting them. I have within six days of us having rent requests for our neighbors. We got 181 requests from around the metro. And so we had to close it because it is administratively a huge burden. And every single time I'm on the phone with a family, they're saying, we just desperately want to work. We have not been able to work, and we can't pay for rent. And I'll say, even this morning, we were going to pay rent for our family. And they actually circled back and said, hey, we had people who were able to help us. We don't need your money anymore. Like the level of integrity and honesty in our neighbors is huge. And really, so I would say Pete, ask people in Minnetonka. I promise you we are getting requests out there. There are neighbors close by that need support and trust them. Thank you. Anna, I'm going to ask you this question. It's a little niche, but it came in over email this morning. Someone named Laura in the Twin Cities wrote that they've raised over $55,000 in the last few weeks to support 22 families. And that money's going toward groceries and other essentials, but also rent. And they said, there's been some roadblocks in getting that money out. So they're using financial apps like Venmo and PayPal. But there's a limit on the number of transactions they can do. They wanted to know if this is a common issue, or if there's any way to sort of decentralize the money so that it's readily available to people who need it quickly. Yeah, Karen and I are both heavily nodding. Not in here. I mean, for us, we had the exact same problem. And we also have neighbors who don't have bank accounts and don't have access. And so really, it is like getting very creative. Like I have had to tap family members to be able to get rent to a certain person because we also had the roadblocks. And so really, yeah, decentralized is helpful. Having trusted people in your network who can-- you can just have an ask for, and they trust you, and they do it. And so I think it's getting creative. It's utilizing your own networks. And sadly, 100%, money getting locked up is really difficult. And again, so I kind of think back to, how can we just have neighbors directly helping another neighbor is the easiest way? And I know it makes people somewhat uncomfortable to not go through an official form. And also, this is what it means to do mutual aid and to care for your neighbor. Right, it really is that grassroots. OK, we have Mark and St. Paul on the line. Mark, what do you want to share? Yeah, I wanted to respond to the caller who asked what we could do to protect ourselves, as well as the people we might be transporting to or delivering meals to. I'm a part of an indivisible group as well. And they had a really good session a couple of weeks ago. And a few things that they suggest it is that when you're going to drop off food or pick up food and deliver or take people from place to place, put your phone on airplane mode, go to your settings, type in location, turn your location off, turn your Bluetooth off. That way they cannot track you or track where you're going to inform. The other thing I thought was really interesting was like, every time you go to do it, my daughter has been donating food on a regular basis, which is great. She's not sure what she can do. I'm like, you need to go a different direction when you go to drop the food off and when you come back. The other thing we mentioned is that when you go to drop the food off to protect yourself, as well as the individual you're dropping the food off, it's circle of buck. Make sure that you don't see anybody waiting, or you might see vehicles that might be imputing what they're doing. Mark, thank you so much for your advice here. I want to make sure our guests can react. Karen, for me, this raises an interesting point, right? Which is that in putting together the show, our producers are making a lot of calls to these networks asking them to come on and share. And they were scared to do it because even though people like Mark are, you know, citizens and might not be at risk of getting stopped, they didn't want to risk putting their network in the spotlight. And we even had a few groups tell us that when they talked to reporters, they were visited by ICE. I mean, so there's like a lot of fear here. And I'm hoping you can speak to like how people can find each other safely. What do you make of some of Mark's tips here? Yeah. But for just like initial reaction here, right, is that we, from organizations and also to neighborhoods, right, there is a target in our back. And truly, we're doing something right if that's the case, right? But it's also important to be very safe, right? It's important from technology to really leaning into what people are teaching and giving you. One of the biggest things we say is we all have those fingerprints that face recognition turn that off. Like put your passcode, get your six, seven digit number on there because you don't know when you will encounter ICE and you don't know if they will take your phones away, right? So making sure that you, you know, signal chats, I know it's a big problem, right? Because they've been tapping into it. How can we protect that even more? There is large neighborhoods and large crowds. But make sure that I do love what Annie says. Like make sure that you know each other, make sure that you're not just letting someone in, right? Do your own vetting if that's going to their house just to have coffee with them because we do have to protect ourselves from kind of everything. And also we understand the fear that people have. I'm a first generation immigrant in Athena from Mexico. Like it took a lot for me to come today, but we are also, I know I have a great group of strong people around us, just like community. So I would say like hear people out, get those tools, start putting more protections onto your technology, onto your phone, start kind of like Bluetooth is all around us, turn it off, be very vigilant. And also we are the voices, right? If there's someone scared, don't push them to, you know, to leave their house or don't push more onto them. Like really be thoughtful of what, of your surroundings, right, and of your neighbors. And Anna, I mean, you have to, I can only imagine that this requires building a level of trust between the person who is doing the delivery for instance, or giving the ride and the person who's accepting that. I mean, how do you navigate that? Yeah, it's been, it has been an uphill battle. Like even as a person who is just connecting directly with neighbors around rent relief, it is building that trust. It's having the phone call. It's hearing what they have to say. It's being consistent. It's responding. And I do think there is something like on our end, we are vetting all of our carers. So we have an entire team that is just vetting them to make sure that we know who they are. We know where they're from, background, just et cetera, so that we can trust these individuals and their motivations. And really, it is taking it like Karen said at the pace of the neighbor and what they feel comfortable with, how they feel comfortable receiving food. And ultimately, I am grateful for the fact that if people are connected and consistently connected to that one or two families, that builds trust over time rather than random people dropping off food or giving rides. And so really, I do think it ends up becoming quite granular of these are your people that you're supporting. We have Tom in Grand Rapids on the line. Tom, what do you want to share? Hey, good morning. We are a group of us are building an organization to transport food and funds to Minneapolis. How manyapolis? First shipment is going to go down later this week. And anybody in Grand Rapids area, if you want to contribute, you know how to get a hold of the right people. And we will be continuing to support folks that need support. We're working through local church and South Minneapolis at this time. Thank you, Tom. And Tom, question for you. Is this the first time you've ever done anything like this? Is this like an actual new network that has been created or did this lean into something that already existed there? It's kind of an offshoot of the folks that have been doing a lot of the demonstrating. And folks that I have worked with in the past, there's a lot of people in Grand Rapids who have experienced working in incident management and organization. And we're going to try and tap on those folks to assist. Thank you so much, Tom. I want to take our next call from Dina and Minneapolis who's been patiently waiting. Dina, what do you want to share today? Hi, I just wanted to. I know we're almost at a time, really quickly, say, if somebody who's been on the ground for five weeks doing this, almost 24 hours a day, because I work nights at the hospital, leave there at midnight, and then I spend another three hours after that on the road, either doing legal observing or delivering food, going to cub, delivering food, and/or getting restaurant workers home from their jobs, which I'm just going to say, it doesn't make sense to me why we have companies who are not doing this for their employees. Why is it only neighbors helping neighbors and not a company? Come on. Come on. So let me-- Karen and I are both not in. Yes. I know you guys are. Let me tell you about a story at the hospital, and I'll let you guys go. We stabilized the cancer patient who is here legally with his wife for children at home waiting for them. And knowing where they lived, I stepped on over a line. I probably shouldn't cross, but I did. And I had their interpreter ask them if they felt safe getting home because I know the area, and it's a heavily iced area. They started crying, saying that actually they did not, and that they and their Uber driver, who is Somali, were terrified getting there because they knew that if they were pulled over, this gentleman would die. He would not survive 24 hours in ice lockup. And she, of course, anyway. So I took my lunch early and went and got them home, and then offered to get them to the hospital for the rest of their appointments. And thankfully, on their very last appointment, we found out they were in remission. And I had a first surprise, gotten a bunch of groceries for them, and then some crumble cookies to celebrate. And when they got home, he sent me a message that literally had me just broken. And they said it was the first fresh food out of that was not of a box that they'd eaten in six weeks. And this is a cancer patient who's trying to live. Our country is helping him financially live. And yet we're doing everything we can to kill him. And they're not the only ones I had a mother who was feeding her baby almond milk, because there was no formula at the food shelf. So we just need the corporations to step up, maybe give me a half-off coupon for all the formula I'm buying along with everybody else. And I think Governor Waltz, you're going to have to do a rent, not just a mortgage, we're going to have to clear the board. Dina, thank you very much. Dina raises a lot of questions. I do just want to go back to her overarching point, which is why aren't workplaces doing this, Anna. It sounds like we sort of addressed this already earlier. But how do you respond to Dina? Karen and I, absolutely not. I 100%. I think there's something that it is beautiful that neighbors are supporting. And also, these corporations and businesses are benefiting off of neighbors driving those folks who are doing the work that other folks don't want to do. And I think even the question around an eviction moratorium, I'm so grateful that that was brought up, because ultimately, the money will dry up. And really, it is benefiting this economy when neighbors are now paying for other neighbors' rents. And so we need to see other folks in higher structures and systems stepping in and supporting, because this economically is, as we're already seeing, is negatively affecting our city. Karen, what else do you want to add there? Yeah. I would say not only our city, but our small business owners. We've had so many restaurants, Latino restaurants closed, not because of-- they were struggling, no, just because they were trying to keep their workers safe, right? And now they're finding hardship, because there's not money coming in. And I want to add on to Anna, right? I know neighbors and neighbors are helping each other, but also tap into the organizations that have the infrastructure, right? I know immigrant defense network were committed to raise 1.5 million, and we're 70% there, but that's 70% there, right? We're still trying to get there, and 100% of those donations are going directly to the families, are going directly to the community. So tap into these resources, because they're there, you know? I just want to say for our listeners, we will be talking about the risks of not seeking health care right now on tomorrow's show, which our caller Dina sort of touched on, right? There's a public health concern here, too, with people who are not going to appointments. We'll talk about that tomorrow. Before we have to end our show, I want to get to Melissa and Carver County. Melissa, what do you want to share with us? Thanks for taking my call. I'm a social worker. I've been so and Scott and Carver County for about 20 years now, and I just want to thank Minnesota for showing up. This work is hard, and the work that we do every day is important, but it's just amazing to see neighbors helping neighbors. I tried to leave my house to go to Costco yesterday and saw neighbors circling, and I live in wakonia, a very small rural suburb, and needless to say, I didn't get to Costco because I spent the rest of my evening circling my neighborhood and supporting my neighbors. Iceout.org is a great app to post when you're seeing ice in your community, but I just want to remind people not to put down just scripting information that's going to potentially harm the people that we're trying to help. That was the case in my neighborhood last night, and so I just want to be mindful when we're using that app. Again, I want to shout out the Immigrant Law Center has been a huge help to our community, and more rural in these outside of the Twin City suburbs. Places like Mikasa and Latino Voices are doing really great work, but the people that run these programs are scared themselves, and so we need white people and people of privilege to step up and support these organizations. And as far as rent help, I do want to remind people that 2-1-1 is a great resource, and if you're facing rent that's due at the end of the month, we're waiting to call until after the first of the month, and they will guide you to local resources that can help with rent, and I just want to thank everyone for their support, and I just want to remind everyone that this work is ongoing and it won't end. Melissa, thank you. We're coming to the end of our show. We've gone over this a few times, but really quickly, Anna, and Karen, just a couple of resources that people who are just tuning in might want to look out if they're interested in getting some help, Karen. I'll let you go first. Yeah, please connect with immigrant defense network. Our hotline number is 612-255-3112 to support in getting rights out, volunteering, and also if you need resources on rent or food services, as well as legal. And I just want to really tell people, really tap into your neighbors and really tap into organizations that have built this infrastructure. Anna, your turn. Real quick here. Yeah, definitely. Resonate with Karen. Get to know your neighbors. It's as simple as that, like plug in first, and if you haven't found an outlet, go to a school or a church near you, I bet they could use your support. And then ultimately, neighbors helping neighbors. We do have a process for folks to come and volunteer and also a process to give, but get to know your neighbors. Share your name. OK, our time is up for today. I want to thank our guest, we had Karen Robinson. And we had Anna Stimborsky, she's the co-creator of the grassroots neighbors helping neighbors group. This conversation was produced by Maya Beckstrom on Catherine Richard, filling in for Angela Davis. I'll talk to you tomorrow morning at 9. Thanks for listening to a recording of my live radio show on MPR News. I reminder that if you want to catch my show in real time, tune in and call in weekdays at 9 a.m.