Lakeland Currents, your public affairs program for north central Minnesota.

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Hello again friends, I'm Jason Eden's your host of Lakeland Currents.

Thanks for joining the conversation today and thanks for your ongoing support of Lakeland Public Tv.

The Covid19 pandemic has left a wake of challenges in our communities and one such significant challenge is food insecurity.

If you're hearing this term food insecurity for the first time consider yourself fortunate.

For food insecurity is a predicament in which a family has to choose periodically between food and other basic needs, according to the Minnesota-based wilder foundation.

Communities of color in Minnesota are facing food insecurity at rates twice that of white communities.

Here to help us understand how the Leech Lake nation is cultivating food security, are my three guests Mike Auger is with Leech Lake Gaming, Becky Graves is the executive director of the Boys and Girls Club in the Leech Lake area.

And Samara Lohnes is the Resource Development Director at the Boys and Girls Club.

Thank you all of you, I appreciate you making the time for our conversation today.

So my first question is for you Becky as the Director of the Boys and Girls Club , I want to reference that same Wilder Foundation report that I recently read.

I learned that an eighth grader a Native American eighth grader, is three times as likely as her white counterpart, to have to skip a meal in any given period of time.

Why is that?

Rebecca: In my opinion, I think that in our community you know we have a higher rate of poverty first and foremost.

And I think that just to recap what you said earlier.

It does have a lot to do with... it's a difference of you know paying a bill versus having dinner.

Jason: I was wondering if you could tell us just a little bit, kind of generally about the Boys and Girls Club?

Can you tell us what role it functions in the community Becky?

Sure, so Boys and Girls Club of Leech Lake area has four clubs.

We have a club in Deer River, we have a club in Cass Lake.

We have a club in Walker and we have a club in Onigum..

Normally pre-covered.

We have annually about over 1,200 kids within the Leech Lake reservation that participate in you know in different various aspects of the club.

And then on an average daily attendance we have over 300 kids or we had three over 300 kids.

And what we do is we provide all kinds of different various programs that help kids get on the right path and be on the right path to being productive citizens.

Jason: So maybe a follow-up question for you Samara, is can you tell me a little bit about what role the Boys and Girls Club plays in terms of food security.

Why is it that the Boys and Girls Club is important for food security in the community?

Samara: Well as a club we're a safe place for our youth in our area but not only that we do provide meals, when they are needed, you know a lot of times they don't only come here for support but they come here because they know that they can find whatever it is that they need including food.

Jason: Sure.

Well that's helpful.

So there's a commercial kitchen at all four clubs then, in the region?

Samara: No, we do not have a commercial kitchen but we do in conjunction with the school.

And then two of our sites have like small food pantries there also.

Jason: Okay so there's basically an on-site food shelf and they know that they can get some food at the at the club?

Samara: Deer River and Walker.

correct.

okay.

Jason: So Mike, I was surprised to learn that you're with Leech Lake Gaming, tell me what role does Leech Lake gaming have with regard to food security in Leech Lake?

Mike: So Leech Lake Gaming as you recall if you flash back in time to March-April when Covid scares started to take place.

Businesses were shutting down all over if you recall, Leech Lake Gaming shut down its casinos and its restaurants in order to you know try and mitigate the spread.

And so then as we shut down I was part of the incident management team for the band.

And we determined that one of the top priorities for multiple reasons, was to try and establish some food security.

Is what you were saying earlier.

It's a real problem on the reservation, as it is throughout the country.

So we got assigned with the task of... hey we need you to get food out to these communities and make it happen.

So a bunch of us ended up putting on different hats and we got some financing initially from the Leech Lake Band.

and they continue to support us both financially along with grants and others.

But our focus was how can we get food out to the communities without just putting layers and layers of red tape and layers and layers of expenses that aren't necessary.

So I got to sign the task overseeing the Covid food initiative for the band.

But I work with a variety of other people so leech like gaming overseas creating food boxes.

Which I can get into more later.

But then we also use our facility maintenance which gets all the boxes that we create in our facilities out to the communities.

And then working with the local Indian councils and community members throughout all of the banned areas.

Getting those boxes out to the individuals.

Jason: Oh just going to ask what exactly is the Covid food initiative?

Is it what you're referring to with these boxes or tell us more about the Covid food initiative?

Mike: So Covid food initiative was designed to protect the community.

Ensure that nobody's going hungry.

If you recall when Covid hit, there were huge layoffs not gaming within our tribal government within the community in general.

You saw huge amounts of people not having secure income and not having food security.

Another piece of that was not only the income part but every time you had to make a trip to the store.

The thought processes you put in your at risk you put yourself at risk to spread the community.

We gotta do it, we have a lot of elders within the band and the goal is to protect the elders.

But how do you protect the elders by protecting the families and trying to minimize those trips to the stores so to speak.

Jason: So I guess, I'm hearing you say that the Covid food initiative is actually delivering food to the band members throughout the community?

Is that a correct summary?

Mike: A better way to phrase it would be is and once again the goal was to cut down the red tape.

If you're in our community they weren't making sure you're Leech Lake per se.

They're making sure, hey if you're in our community we want to make sure you that you have the access to good food and and that was the main goal.

And to this point we started out doing about 500 boxes and it's grown to well over a thousand boxes, that we distribute to the community each month through the local councils.

And we just broke 1,200 boxes that have been distributed since March-April.

Where's this food coming from I mean a thousand boxes 1200, boxes a month.

That's a lot of food where's it coming from and the boxes are pretty amazing too.

I mean they're right up there with what you'd get maybe from a food shelf.

You know shelf stable goods initially it was funded straight up by the by the band.

We're gonna take some money and we want you to get food out to the community.

Since then I've worked with a variety of you know different organizations that have greatly helped in grant money, grant money.

We've gotten from private and from the state of Minnesota, engaging us and local entrepreneurs through a lot of money to make it happen and allow the program to grow.

Jason: So I want to talk about both short-term and long-term strategies for mitigating food insecurity within leech lake.

So Becky can you give us an understanding where can band members go our community members go for near-term food needs?

So, I've learned about the Cass Lake community food shelf and now I've learned from you Samara that kids can actually get food at the clubs but where else can people go or just let's make sure that our viewers understand where those resources are available to them.

Becky: I could talk about what we were doing as a club and what we owed to us and what we had available to our families and then maybe mike can speak on the bigger broader terms as far as the things that were available throughout the reservation.

But as far as the club what we had is we had a grant that came from mde and sprout and we were providing 300 meals for a week to be able to give them out to our current members.

So the because we kind of switched tracks as far as what we are doing and who we're serving we couldn't serve necessarily in the traditional role that we had been serving.

So we we switched and we started serving where we're um doing date providing day care services for the front line workers and during that transition.

We did get that grant and we ended up providing 300 meals throughout to all of our different locations.

Onigum isn't open because they have combined with Walker because their community center isn't open, even still as of yet because of Covid.

We're providing those meals we provide meal we provided meals throughout the entire pandemic for our people that we were serving here.

But then we had the extended outreach of where we were serving our previous families.

So during Thanksgiving and Christmas we had given out some extra gift cards to families so they could go and go purchase and that was done through $50,000 grant as well, that we had received from a anonymous donor from boys and girls club through.

but was anonymous donor.

Jason: Let me follow up with you Becky.

I'm interested so are the clubs open right now for kids in the community or not?

Becky: So we are providing daycare services for those members, we of course are on a limited basis.

Because of the sizes that we can have so we can have 10 people in a room and most clubs have roughly about three to four rooms.

So that's either 27 or you know whatever and then we have to keep them we have entire policies that are built around you know making sure that we're Covid safe.

And things like that.

So yes, we currently are open but we're not open the traditional sense that I originally told you about where we were serving you know 1200 throughout the year, in average daily of 300 kids, Jason: So the clubs have really had to pivot in terms of the services that you're providing for the community?

And now you're prioritizing daycare for frontline workers?

Becky: Yes, know we really wanted to continue on serving our community and that was the best way that we that we saw that we could still continue on.

Because we wouldn't have been able to continue on in our traditional role because after school programming was you know not allowed and not available.

So that's why we didn't change for our community they'll be of service to them.

Jason: Okay well thanks for that Becky.

Mike, I want to return to you if I'm the family living within the Leech-Lake community, where can I turn for immediate relief?

If I'm experiencing food insecurity.

If I'm hungry great?

Mike: Great question, one thing I want to point out real quick is one thing I didn't know is the depth of food security problems in this region.

I've always been there.

Covid.

if there's anything good came out of Covid, it was identifying how serious the food security needs are.

And that's this is something that we're going to need in place long after Covid is beat.

And we're going to continue on areas that they can go.

Number one is your local food shelf there's one in Cass, Cass Lake food shelf is open Tuesday Wednesday, from like 10 to four.

Bemidji food shelf, Grand Rapids food shelf, there's also food pantries that go around the whole all the different communities within the reservation to provide food.

Which is those are second harvest run and they've been a great partner through all this along.

With like the Cass Lake food shelf and other ones to get food out to the community.

But your local food shelf and then at least monthly coordinating with your districts or your community.

When we're bringing the boxes of food out there.

Right now as we develop a need we make sure that everybody who wants a box gets a box.

And that's bad 100 now.

And it's basically it's a supplemental box that weighs 40 to 50 pounds of a lot of staple needs that a family would need to use in order to provide security.

Jason: You know you brought something up that I was going to explore a little bit with you anyhow, which is kind of comparing food security before during and after Covid.

Are you getting the impression from the number of people that are requesting your service, that food insecurity is in fact worse now during the pandemic?

Mike: I would say it is worse because we have you know still have hundreds of people laid off in the area.

But that being said it was always there but it was kind of just simmering under the surface and you know now as a group it's it's been exposed.

And it's going to be something that's going to require a lot of dedicated effort resources in the future.

Jason: Samara I want to ask you if you could share a success story from the Boys and Girls Club?

Obviously you don't need to be specific but I'm just curious if you can tell us the story about an individual?

Someone that's benefited from your services over the course of the past year?

Give us an idea of what you do to restore?

Samara: Um well our families in a hole have unbenefited but this summer when the schools shut down the food service they were no longer providing us lunches.

So we had to find funding and resources to provide them ourselves and that is when we received a ten thousand dollar grant from GMCC.

and that's one of the things that we'll do with that.

Jason: okay, you know I'm glad you brought up GMCC, because I was going to ask you all about them as well.

GMCC, the greater Minneapolis community connections is supporting both the food shelf as well as the boys and girls club.

I'm wondering if you can help us understand why a Minneapolis-based organization is supporting the Leech Lake nation?

And tell us a little bit more about that relationship?

Samara: Well actually I had met Adrienne through a round table and it was just some conversation through the Initiative Foundation they had got us together and the more we started talking she realized that we had some real immediate needs here and within a matter of two, three phone calls she donated ten thousand dollars.

I mean it was really honestly a good success for us and then within that we got into the relationship with [inaudible] and then that we got the fifty thousand dollar [inaudible] it wasn't Walmart, that one was anonymous but we have a lot of families benefiting you know a lot of the elders.

A lot of our families are multi-generational so the grandparents and the great aunts are taking care of the kids and the youth and they're not working or they don't have the funding and we were able to provide that for them.

Jason: Sure.

Well Becky I was wondering if you have any stories about the Boys and Girls Club?

I always want organizations to have an opportunity to kind of share their story so can you tell us a success story about a young person that's really benefited from the Boys and Girls Club, whether it's regarding Covid or not?

Becky: Sure.

I think the one that stands out the most to me and for me is we have a... who is, he's a current worker for us and has been since I've been here and he came up through the organization.

He started as a club kid and that's really what it's all about.

It's about creating that family and that partnership and you know for them to come here and to feel safe here and he has a real success story I believe and he is really committed to the organization.

Being that he came from here another really good example is our chairman of the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe.

He was also a club kid and he's been one of our number one champions that has helped us out tremendously with all the different things that he's been able to do for the club.

He really was crucial in us opening up the Onigum Unit.

Jason: Oh, that's a remarkable story.

Thank you for sharing that.

I have a question for all three of you or any of the three of you.

You know as you probably are aware a food desert is an area with limited access to affordable and nutritionists, nutritious foods, excuse me.

Would you describe the Leech Lake Nation as a food desert?

Mike: Absolutely.

You know many of our communities have no grocery stores, maybe a C store in the area and it is you have to travel substantial miles to get there.

One of the things we ran into when we started the Covid Food Initiative was even finding food that we could have delivered for us when we're writing a check for it.

The wholesalers didn't want anything to do with us.

We were really struggling you know and you remember that food shortage, remember no toilet paper on the shelves and you couldn't get any food in the grocery stores?

That's, that was at a wholesale level too so even if we did have places we weren't going to get the product but we ended up partnering up with Teals in Cass Lake and we worked off of theirs and they were more than gracious to help us out on that.

To be able to get large quantities of food.

We weren't asking for a couple cans of soup.

We needed 2,000, you know and to get those numbers you know you'd wipe out Walmart, but yeah absolute food desert in this area for sure.

You know if you look at the communities there's a lot of people got to travel 30, 50 miles to get to a grocery store.

Jason: Mmhmm.

Well learning from you about the Covid Food Initiative and and hearing you say that this is kind of exposed vulnerability in the community I'm wondering if there are conversations about long-term strategies to address food insecurity?

Are there any conversations to that effect going on?

What are those strategies?

Mike: Long-term issues now that we've started is how do we keep it going on and on what scale?

A lot of what's happening and planning, you got to understand the boxes that we're creating got to be shelf stable because we're creating a you know 1,000 plus boxes.

Then there's distribution and time so the way we're doing it milk, fresh vegetables, breads, things like that are tough to get out to the community but planning aggressively, they've ordered refrigerated storage for all the community centers that's going to be oncoming.

You know how to grow community gardens you know real gardens that we can share to focus not on you know self-sustainability but to be able to better address cultural foods as well was a big topic so it's, there's a lot of discussion and planning and there's a lot of things that are already in motion and at the end of the day it'll be the long-term dollars.

When I first did this I thought we'd be doing it for a few months you know and you listen to the news, hey we'll get over the hump and we'll be through it.

Here we are 10 months later Covid is still here but the reality is and I'm sure Becky and Samara know that food security's always been an issue in these communities and it's always going to need to be addressed.

Jason: You know you brought up cultural foods.

I wanted to ask you all about that actually.

What role do you see traditional foods playing either in the near term or the long term in terms of food security, wild rice and other traditional foods?

Do you have anything to share about that?

Becky: I do.

I know specifically that we want to partner with the band to use some of the dollars that we got from any of the various different grants that we got but we want to use those dollars and provide some of the traditional foods to our people.

I think that that's so important, just even besides you know for our health and things like that and it has a long-term effect and I think that it's even besides just Covid it's a real issue and needs to be addressed and needs to we need to take care of that so I, I know for us personally that, that it's so important for us to partner with the band and to offer some of those traditional foods to our community members and you know we can use some of the grants that we got to provide those, some of those you know things that they that we have available to our community members you know at no cost to them.

Jason: Well we only have time for just a couple more questions but there are a couple more things that I want to ask you all about.

The first of which is it's, it seems as if there's a real cohesive effort to ensure food security for the Leech Lake Nation.

I'm wondering if y'all have any lessons learned that you could share with the broader community?

Are there any takeaways from the work that you've been doing over the past ten months that are a really good example of how we can look out for our friends and neighbors?

What have you learned from this experience?

Mike: Yeah I think what we've learned is that it's a problem that's always going to need attention and the key is to get the food out to the communities right you know and have us put on the mileage and to develop a distribution infrastructure to get it out there and that took a lot of hoops for us to learn.

We learned on the way and that's probably the biggest single piece of it is you know you got to get the food to where the people are not expect them to drive 40 miles to come and get it and there's been definitely a learning curve on that and it's gone well.

I mean you know the community, now you know without spending all the money on payroll we've been able to spend a lot more of it on the actual food.

One of the things you were talking a little bit about some of the grants and the grant from GM.

What is it GMCC, right?

Yeah, the grant that they did allowed us... when, when we first did it I mean we were literally had all of our boxes lined up in rows and we were loading these boxes pushing a card, loading the boxes, pushing a cart but what that grant specifically went for was to allow for conveyors to be able to just push the box and slide it down and because we are planning for long term and this problem isn't going to go away so it's finding the connections for funding and the know-how and learning from Second Harvest.

The probably the biggest thing I learned was how many technical support and how many experts there are in food that you can reach out to to get your answers, kind of like what Samara was saying with some of her networking in the past.

Jason: Well briefly I want to hear from all three of you why it is that you do the work that you do and why food security for your community is important?

Why do you work at the Boys and Girls Club?

Becky why is that work important?

Becky: First and foremost obviously I love to be able to give back to my community.

I came up.

I worked for the band for numerous years and when, when I went to school and I got my degree one of the things that I wanted to do was I wanted to be able to do something and use the skills that I gained from a master's degree to give back to my own community and I feel so thankful and grateful that I am working here at the Boys and Girls Club and that I can use everything that I learned to give back to my community and to help them any way that I can and I think that you know with just Covid we all proved how resilient we are, that we you know instead of just you know moving on or giving up or whatever we found a way to help our community and to really do something good for them and to pivot you know and to change, to change instantly and say, hey we are now going to do this and we did it and then now we're even able to provide a lot of other things for our community as well as such as food, security.

Jason: Well with that Becky I want to thank you so much for the work that you do.

Samara and Mike, I really appreciate everything that you do for the community and I want to thank all three of you for your time today.

I really appreciate it.

[thank you, thank you] and I want to thank all of you for joining us once again.

I'm Jason Edens, your host of Lakeland Currents.

Be kind, be well we'll see you next week.