Farmers can’t take sick leave, so when an emergency comes up, they’re sometimes in danger of losing a year’s crop, putting their entire livelihood in jeopardy. That’s when Farm Rescue steps in. Farm Rescue’s founder Bill Gross worked as a pilot before returning home to North Dakota, where his family had lost the farm he grew up on after a financial setback. In 2005 he started the nonprofit to provide help to farmer’s struggling with illness or natural disaster.
Farm Rescue has helped 250 families in North Dakota, South Dakota, eastern Montana, Minnesota and Iowa. The non-profit provides donated equipment and organizes its over 700 volunteers to make use of the seed, fertilizer, and fuel the families provide. Families can contact Farm Rescue for help, but half of the time concerned farmers hear about a neighbor’s troubles and anonymously recommend them for help. “We provide the equipment and manpower, and we get it done for them,” Goss told David Karas of the Christian Science Monitor. “We are basically a big, mobile farming operation.”
“We are helping to make it more likely for future generations of family farms to be able to continue,” Goss told Karas. “That is what I actually find the most satisfying.”
MORE: This Partnership Encourages Vets to Become Farmers
Tag: Minnesota
This State Is Making Sure No Child Is Ever Denied a School Lunch
To deny a child a meal during school lunch is not only humiliating, it’s food that could be the one nutritious meal he or she gets for the day. When news surfaced last month that Utah had dumped school lunches in the trash when students couldn’t pay, Minnesota decided to see if they were also on the same boat. Their troubling survey found that, like Utah, the majority of their own districts would deny a hot meal — or even any meal — to a child who could not pay for it.
According to the Associated Press, about 62,000 low-income children and teens take part in the state’s reduced-price lunch program where a hot, nutritious tray of food costs 40 cents. But if a student cannot pay that 40 cents, they are usually given food like cold cheese sandwiches. In worse cases, they are denied food altogether and, sometimes, little hands are stamped with the words “LUNCH” or “MONEY.”
MORE: When These Kids Couldn’t Afford a Hot School Lunch, This Hero Stepped Up
In response to these findings, lawmakers have pledged to ensure all school children are fed during lunch. State Congressman, Senator Jeff Hayden (D) and Representative Yvonne Selcer (D) proposed a bill called No Child Turned Away that would provide thousands of low-income students with free lunches.
Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton has also proposed $3.5 million in public funds to help schools cover lunch costs for students who can’t afford to pay for a hot meal. “No child in Minnesota should be denied a healthy lunch,” Dayton said in a statement. “We cannot expect our students to succeed on an empty stomach.”
Here’s Why We Should Be Investing in Single Moms
What happens if you give a single mom high-quality childcare, higher education and a place to live? A whole lot, actually.
The Jeremiah Program in Minneapolis has helped more than a thousand low-income single mothers and their children build better lives and break the cycle of poverty since it began in 1998. The program provides the mothers with affordable housing at its campus and free preschool for the children so their moms can pursue their education at nearby Minneapolis Community & Technical College. Ninety-five percent of the kids leave the preschool ready for kindergarten, and ninety-percent of the mothers are able to maintain steady employment after they finish the Jeremiah Program. This program works so well because it addresses the problems faced by two generations at once—low-income moms often struggle to complete their educations or hold a job while dealing with the demands of caring for young children, while their kids often receive sub-standard childcare or don’t attend preschool at all, setting back their educations before they even begin.
It costs about $25,000 to see one mom and her children through the program, but an independent analysis found a $4 return to the community for every dollar invested in these families, and a $16 million lifetime benefit for every 100 families elevated from poverty. The Jeremiah Program has expanded to Austin, Texas, Fargo, N.D., and St. Paul, Minn., while cities including Boston, Rochester, Minn. and Dayton, Ohio are working to replicate the program. Amira Masri, who participates in the Jeremiah Program with her daughter Arcadia, told Mary Stegmeir of the Des Moines Register, “My mom was a single mom, and her mom was a single mom. I feel like I’m the (one) that’s going to change our pattern … and end the cycle of poverty here, now with Arcadia.”
Why One Minnesota Teen Is Sleeping Outside for a Year
The temperature in Minnesota recently dropped to a blistering low of negative 27 degrees Fahrenheit, but that wasn’t cold enough to deter Rudy Hummel. What started as a personal challenge to sleep outside for a year has since morphed into a selfless mission for the 17-year-old to ensure that people and animals have homes. As part of his Snores Outdoors for a Better World campaign, this Hermantown, Minn., native is raising money for Habitat for Humanity and the local Hawk Ridge Bird Conservatory while building awareness for social and environmental issues. “I thought about what’s important to me, like the outdoors. I also thought about how many people have to sleep outside all the time, without sleeping bags or warm clothing,” Hummel wrote on his website. “At first glance, these don’t seem very well connected, but to me they are. Caring for people is important, and so is caring for the environment that sustains us. We all live on this planet together.”
MORE: How One School Discovered More Sleep Means Smarter Teens
Hummel moved outside on June 7, 2013, in warmer weather. At first, the avid camper figured he’d try to sleep on a tree platform he built in his backyard for the entirety of the summer. But as fall breezed in, he realized that the challenge he had given himself simply wasn’t hard enough, so he decided to keep going. As Minnesota’s brutal winter arrived, Hummel realized he needed some sort of shelter to keep him warm, so like any good Boy Scout, he improvised and built himself a quinzhee, a hut-like structure made from snow. In the recently freezing weather, Hummel simply adds extra layers of warm clothing, fills a bottle with hot water and heads out to his hut, where he crawls under a pile of blankets at night. So far Hummel has raised almost $900 for his local Habitat for Humanity chapter, and $300 for Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory. As for his health, he says he’s doing just fine. “I’m about as warm as I would be inside, I think,” he recently told CNN’s NewDay. “But I haven’t slept inside in so long that maybe that’s not true.”
ALSO: Not Even Brain Cancer Could Stop This 10-Year-Old From Caring About the Homeless
How an Internet Connection Revolutionized Music Class for Students in Rural Minnesota
An online project is connecting rural Minnesota schools’ bands and orchestras with the state’s oldest music education institution. Professional musicians from the nonprofit MacPhail Center for Music teach low-income students via video instruction. Through the partnership, small-town students get access to amazing learning opportunities that their schools don’t have other ways to offer. The project started in 2011 with one school, and has now expanded to 17 districts and 1,500 students. Teachers at the rural schools feel more supported, and say that the project gives student access to professionals who would normally only be able to provide lessons and instruction to students living in a city.