When I moved back to Minneapolis in 1989, I bought a house in the Bryant neighborhood because I wanted a place, and a community, to call home. I joined the very first Bryant Neighborhood Organization Board and confused about what we were being asked to do by the City, I then studied issue-based organizing through the Center for Urban and Regional Affairs (CURA) at the U of M. I was instantly hooked on tackling community-identified issues collectively, and using creative techniques to solve problems and have been working with neighborhood groups ever since! I am a high-level planner, grassroots community organizer, marketing specialist, financier, grant writer, and the biggest cheerleader of community-based engagement you will ever meet!

I have served numerous Minneapolis neighborhood groups in a bunch of different roles, including the Director of the Kingfield Neighborhood Association for 26 years. Whether as a volunteer or as the Executive Director, my real passion has been to support volunteers in leadership roles. While we have shared a large number of successes, the actual outcome of each project isn’t simply a community garden/ a mural / a PorchFest / or an affordable housing development, but is instead a more cohesive community and a stronger relationship between citizens and the City of Minneapolis.

Over the last many years, I have become concerned about the future of these neighborhood-based groups whose primary job is creating a community within the big city. I created Love Your Neighborhood MPLS to support neighborhoods and the work they do to create a more responsive and closer community. Now I work in community, on behalf of governmental departments or community groups, to help design community engagement processes, lead projects, and walk the path with you of bringing the community in, while we also getting something concrete done.