As a result of the brutal murder of George Floyd, an unarmed Black American, by a white police officer, a series of protests and riots including looting and fires erupted all over the United states. Being the center of the incident, Minneapolis was hit hard, but its residents continued to fight the racial discrimination against African-American communities. Several NGOs and schools in Minneapolis called for donations, and have received overwhelming responses from lots of generous people.
Due to constant looting and fires, the most vulnerable in the city were dragged to a worse situation. Many convenience and grocery stores were heavily damaged by looters, and some were even burned down. Due to this reason, many residents found it extremely difficult to access food and other requirements. To help such people, several community organizations and schools asked for donations, and the amount of donations they received were simply unbelievable.
Many donations flooded in almost immediately at Sanford Middle School. Jabari Browne, a teacher from the school told Insider: “We had a parent that reached out to us who was checking in with other families in the community, and we heard they needed food.” Later, the school called for 85 food kits and other sanitary supplies for the affected families. The school was soon overwhelmed by donations, after the local news picked them up.
The amount of donations was so large that at one point, the line of cars waiting to provide donations stretched along 14 blocks. Bags of groceries filled up a whole alleyway, and several volunteers sorted out everything and delivered to the families in need. Amy Nelson, Sanford’s principal, told WCCO that she was not surprised by the turn-out, as they live in a great city full of people that are eager to help.
Touchstone Mental Health, an NGO in Minneapolis, also called for community donations. Their neighborhood, Minnehaha commons too faced difficulties similar to Sanford’s, and once again, Minnesotans proved their kindness and generosity to the world.
Touchstone wrote on their Facebook: “We were hardly a half hour into our food drive and we already had more than enough for all our residents. Beloved community, we asked and you answered in abundance! I couldn’t be more proud of the Twin Cities Community today. The tenants at Minnehaha Commons told me all day long how they were so grateful and excited to be part of an event like this.”
Touchstone opened up the donations to everyone, so that anybody in need can take them, and even directed part of the donations to other organizations.
Reading, creative writing, poetry writing, and language learning have been my passions since I was young. I have won many Japanese and Chinese language competitions, and many national-level creative writing, art & oratory competitions too. I am still schooling, and passed my O/Levels with distinction passes for English Literature, Japanese, and English. I have also completed my Certificate of Human Resource Management.
