helping Minnesota

If you don't know, I was born and raised in Minnesota. It's part of who I am and it's the most important place to me. What the state lacks in literal warmth during the winter, it more than makes up for through the kindness and compassion of its residents. I grew up watching neighbors help shovel each others' driveways and immigrants welcoming people of all backgrounds into their homes. In my career as an artist, I vended at art fairs and markets all across Minneapolis and St. Paul, and I saw the way the people there uplift art as something to be cherished. I wore my Minnesotan-ness as a badge of honor, because I was proud to be from such a welcoming, progressive place. All of this just makes what is unfolding before us even harder for me to stomach.

The current ICE occupation of Minnesota is nothing less than state-sanctioned terrorism. Seeing the utter cruelty, violence, and destruction currently occurring all across my home state on a daily basis is absolutely devastating.

I am currently using some of the proceeds from my Resistance Heart Charms to help me make donations to organizations and mutual aid across Minnesota, and I'm grateful for the way these charms have allowed me to send financial support to communities in need. But if you're looking for an even more meaningful way to help from a distance, please consider donating directly to one of the crowdfunding campaigns, food support services, legal defense organizations, or any of the numerous other fundraisers currently in progress for communities in need. I am listing some links below that contain valuable resources and directories of ways to help. Please consider looking at them and giving as you are able. No donation is too small. 

Stand With Minnesota - An extremely comprehensive directory including listings for rent relief, food support, legal funds, and more. This site has helped me direct my donations to a number of places I wouldn't have known about otherwise.

Mpls.St. Paul Magazine published a list of ways to support the Twin Cities community, including information about local food drives, restaurant closures, and mutual aid funds.

@mplsmutualaid on Instagram has a full page of links on their LinkTree to crowdfunding campaigns and more ways to support.

This is a national crisis and it requires all of us to not look away. The sheer power of grassroots community support in Minnesota should be a lesson to us all about the importance of compassion in numbers. We are the ones who will save us, because we have to.

In solidarity,
Madeline