With civil unrest ramping up in the Twin Cities, there is a need and a want for neighborhoods to create resources for community members to rely on. Hamline Midway Coalition (HMC) backed program, Midway Navigators, is a group of neighbors that have banded together to centralize those resources needed in the current day, as well as the future. Midway Navigators has multiple agendas, ranging from food resources to renters’ and homeowners’ help.
The efforts of the Midway community have launched this initiative in light of the ramped-up occupation of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The program was scheduled to launch in early spring, but with ICE making neighborhoods of constant uncertainty, the community saw a need for centralized resources.
The HMC website says that the initial action of the Midway Navigators, also known as the Neighborhood Navigators (NN), “Neighborhood Navigators was able to mobilize quickly, organizing a supply hub to distribute more than 150,000 diapers, hundreds of canisters of formula, thousands of menstrual products and additional hygiene and medical supplies to families and individuals in need.”
This response from the community is almost unprecedented, yet it is extremely inspiring that a community can react and have a call to action almost immediately. The resources are also not coming from a government organization, but more importantly, a community of neighbors. Midway, through the course of its history, has been able to persevere through adversity over the past decades, not by government aid, but by the hands of those who lived there. The work of students has not gone unnoticed.
“It is run by neighbors. It’s the neighbor’s lead,” senior Cece Chmelik, student intern at HMC and Midway Local, said.
This is not out of the ordinary for this version of community-led groups. Groups such as NN saw an upward trend after COVID-19.
“An estimated 54.2% of Americans helped or exchanged favors with neighbors, such as house sitting, running errands, or lending tools, between September 2022 and 2023, compared to 51.7% in 2019.” (U.S. Census Bureau and AmeriCorps, 2023).
There is lots of thought behind groups like NN, such as a localization of support organizations and ones that are community focused and driven.
“We are each other’s most valuable resource, and we are each other’s safest resource,” Chmelik said.
The old adage of “Love thy Neighbor” holds true in cases like the Midway. The support this community has is like no other. There is something different about the idea of helping the community you live in. Mike Reynolds, Professor of English and Humanities Division Chair, said.
“You pull a lever when you vote, and that’s not nothing, but it doesn’t always feel meaningful, but this can feel really empowering, like you’re doing things with people,” Reynolds said.
The connection of the human aspect of helping your community has something that is not only healing but also gratifying.
The connection of the human aspect is something that helps people volunteer their time and create resources that people need. NN creates a space for people to create much needed connections and relationships that may not have existed in the past.
“[This impact connects] the dots for people, not just delivering food, but then helping them recognize that there’s a whole web of other resources that we want to help them find,” Reynolds said.
