Best & Flanagan celebrated Do Some Good Day on October 8, as part of our tradition of giving back to the communities in which we live and practice. This year’s fundraising and volunteer efforts went to three organizations focused on supporting families and young people, especially those in under-resourced neighborhoods or those struggling with poverty or homelessness making transitions into stable housing.
The Link - founded by former Minnesota Vikings players, Jim Marshall and Oscar Reed – aims to help youth who are struggling with poverty, homelessness, or at risk of involvement in the juvenile justice system. They have 28 programs that provide supportive housing, intensive case management services, and skills development to empower youth and young families to overcome the impacts of poverty and social injustice. Our volunteers baked cookies and prepared buffalo mac and cheese in their community kitchen, and packed individual servings that were labeled and frozen for the youth and young families who need access to such meals each month.
Urban Ventures primarily serves south Minneapolis, with a mission of ending urban poverty. They strive to determine “opportunity gaps in academics, nutrition, physical activity, parenting resources, and more—all with the overarching goal to prepare and send every youth in our neighborhood to college or postsecondary education.” On the nutrition front, they grow their own food at an urban farm and then provide fresh produce to the community. Our farm team cleared out and cleaned a food storage cooler, pulled weeds, cut herbs to hang, and shucked corn. The weather was beautiful, and our team had a great time outdoors helping a great organization.
Reach Out & Read is a program that can be found in clinics across Minnesota, where healthcare providers prepare young children for a happier and healthier future by talking to, singing, and reading with them. Reach Out & Read provides brand new and gently used books as well as developmental guidance to young children and their families at their routine wellness visits at over 300 clinics statewide. This year, we collected dozens of brain-building books for children ages 0-5, and had volunteers sign up for long-term opportunities reading to kids at different Health Partners locations.
In addition to collecting resources for Reach Out & Read, we also collected more than 100 household items for The Link. This year, monetary and in-kind donations from individual donors totaled nearly $2,000. We are proud to partner with and continuously support the work these organizations are doing and contribute to their efforts directly impacting our communities.