Gettin’ around just got a little easier for people in Grand Rapids. Earlier this month, the first-ever, cold-weather, accessible autonomous vehicle took to the streets. It marks a milestone in how technology and innovation can help rural Minnesota communities meet today’s toughest challenges. The 17 square-mile route offers more than 70 stops around the City …
Rural Minnesota communities are experiencing change at breakneck speed. The pandemic accelerated the way rural learners, workers and employers are using technology. Aging communities are managing workforce transitions, wealth transfers and housing and healthcare strains. The urgency of the climate crisis is destabilizing economies built on unsustainable industries. Political tensions are driving deeper wedges between …
Colleen Foehrenbacher is the executive director at Eagle Bluff Environmental Learning Center near Lanesboro, Minn. Eagle Bluff is an outdoor learning center that connects people with the earth and each other. Each year, their main program brings over 12,000 students for overnight trips involving hands-on learning and adventure experiences in nature. Blandin Foundation has awarded …
Dani Pieratos is one of four Anishinaabeg Ikweg (Indigenous Women) leading a Food Sovernity movement in rural northeast Minnesota under the banner of Harvest Nation. Harvest Nation is a vertical aeroponic farm that makes healthy living a viable option in communities challenged by location, climate, and economic constraint. With access to locally grown foods, Harvest …
Running between appointments with a sick kid at home, Blandin Leadership alum Jessica Velasco pressed pause on her busy day to talk about the 2020 Census. It’s a topic close to her heart because, as a Hispanic woman, she knows the impacts it can have on communities of color in her hometown of Worthington, Minn. …
By Linda Gibeau
More than 60 years ago, Charles Blandin gave two students – both women – scholarships to continue their education. A self-taught man, he knew education was one key to these students’ strong futures. We are honored to stand again this year with 344 Itasca students, each dedicated to their educational dream – at community, technical …
Deer River Implements Full Service Community Schools Model to Improve Student Outcomes Up to two-thirds of a student’s ability to succeed in school is determined by what happens out of school. A child who is hungry or cold, in pain due to untreated medical needs, or exposed to traumatic stresses can have trouble with memory, …
Labeled a silent epidemic by two previous surgeons general, oral disease is on the rise in the United State as access to dental care dwindles in hard-to-reach places. At home in Minnesota, remote rural areas grapple with unrealistic dentist-to-patient ratios, distance to clinics, lack of transportation and clinics that cannot afford to accept dental assistance. …
Take a step back in time, to a 1900 logging camp in the Northwoods of Minnesota. While there, you can take in the smells of the bunk house where lumberjacks sleep two to a bed, visit the cook shack where men eat piles of flapjacks, wind timbers, sinkers and swamp water, grab your gear in …
MacRostie’s traveling exhibit “What’s Left: Lives Touched by Suicide” is a perfect example The art exhibit “What’s Left; Lives Touched by Suicide” was created to open a more honest conversation about mental illness and suicide. For over two years, it has done just that, crisscrossing the state, forcing people to talk about, and truly “see” …