Transformational Accomplishments From Service On the
Lowry Hill East Neighborhood Board

Grassroots Organizing

Personally recruited people of color, women, renters, and diverse age groups for representation on the board and in committee leadership;
Streamlined the monthly board meetings to make them more approachable for all kinds of neighbors, introduced talking circles, and emphasized joyful participation;
Reinstituted program notifying residents and businesses within the immediate vicinity of a proposed development regarding the project and opportunities for engagement

Brought together diverse (and often divergent) voices to co-create a novel community development vision and draft development scorecard;
Worked with Whittier Alliance and Lynlake Business Association to create community vision plan for development of Garfield Lot;
Hosted a forum with community leaders from North Minneapolis to discuss public safety issues;
Partnered with the Minneapolis Peacebuilding Institute to bring restorative justice training to board members;

Organized neighborhood sexual violence bystander intervention trainings with Sexual Violence Center;
Advocated for increased pedestrian safety along Lyndale corridor (editorials, letters to public officials);
Co-created an online neighbor solidarity network during the social unrest in June 2020, organizing over 800 neighbors in 2 days;
Advocated on behalf of 24 residents and the neighborhood for accountability regarding the damage and eventual demolition of naturally occurring affordable housing at 2003 Aldrich Ave S, which was then acquired by the real estate company responsible for the malfeasance;

Transformed the work and vision of the original crime & safety committee by reframing its scope to a community life & safety committee in 2017, and then most recently into the community-building committee;
Worked intimately with other board members to create LHENA’s first strategic plan;
Collaborated on new processes for development issues that is less confrontational and divisive;
Drafted and implemented a first-of-its-kind Qualified Small Employer Health Reimbursement Arrangement for LHENA employee health care stipends when told there were no solutions for providing health care coverage for LHENA employees
Created an organizational model to incorporate a new mutual aid structure within the association that now feeds nearly 80 households every month and creates new opportunities for residents to work on community care outside the traditional neighborhood association system.