Building Communities, Skills & People

PROJECTS

If you pay attention to your community and think about its people - your neighbors, its easy to identify needs and areas for improvement. We create projects from improvement opportunities that we see around us.

CURRENT PROJECT:

Help People Become Licensed Drivers

Why Is This an Issue?

For many teens and young adults in the Twin Cities, the driver education path is full of barriers that are difficult to overcome:

Driving Schools are typically located in the suburbs
3-hour classes are late in the evening,
Driver's Ed costs upwards of $475
Driver's Ed is NOT part of high school education
50 hours of driving practice is required
Insurance and fully operational vehicle required

Access and expense are significant, especially if you do not have a licensed driver or a car in your family. For a teenager who lives in the city under the poverty level, getting through the state requirements are almost impossible. So they wait until after their eighteenth birthday.

The barriers still exist when they turn 18, but now they are multiplied with the added responsibility of adult expectations when transportation becomes even more essential.

Our Strategy to Help Resolve:

Provide affordable access to driving lessons so people learn the

rules of the road and how to become conscientious drivers with an environmental focus. Help people with driving restrictions identify the steps necessary to become valid again.

Realizing that there are significant roadblocks is an important first step, then proceeding to help remove those barriers will not only improve lives of individuals and families, but will also make communities safer.

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MORE PROJECTS

Matters That Matter

Our main objective is to assist people in our collective communities on their journeys to independence and adulthood, as well as to our elders. It is often assumed that teens have learned certain skills, but when generational poverty and trauma are prevalent, a lot of information is overlooked. For many young people, its not they they cannot do something or aren't able, it's usually that they have not been exposed to the subject matter or simply have never been taught. An our seniors, like our planet, always deserve assistance and care.

2025 We are a Grantee Animated Social for GRANTEES We are proud to have been selected to receive a 2025 Community Change grant from AARP!	Growth Mindset Poster Creating visuals to remind us all how to have a growth mindset toward the environment	Senior Safety Workshop We received a grant from AARP and held workshops with seniors for disaster preparedness.	Rental Housing Problems A lot of people have problem areas in their rental history, including unlawful detainers (UD's) that prevent them from being able to rent adequate housing. Whether it was 30 years ago or not, these issues can leave families in very difficult housing situations, contributing to our homelessness problem in the Twin Cities.	Electric Bike Donations An electric bike can mean an essential form of transportations for someone - one that is also environmentally friendly. Donate yours and write off the fair market value while changing someone's life!
Environmental Consciousness Everything that we do contains an environmental component because we ALL need to increase our awareness of our effects on the environment and we ALL need to do more.	The Future of Driving Providing the means for urban youth and community members to obtain valid driving privileges in Minnesota.	Life Skills for Life Basic knowledge of how to navigate society is often missed on our youth, so each program provides useful information and tools to grow and thrive	Community Involvement As we are blessed with resources and opportunities, the importance of giving back and blessing others is key to building strong people and intergenerationally close communities.	Cultural Competencies We live in a society that is a tapestry of government, technology and many cultures. Deeper understanding and connections are crucial.
Social Justice If we want things to change, we must get involved. Learn how to exercise our rights, become informed and act on issues that matter to us.	Emotional Intelligence We believe that most of life's problems can be solved with critical thinking and emotional intelligence.