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STEPHEN JOHN: It's six minutes past 12:00 noon. Good afternoon. I'm Stephen John with Minnesota Public Radio News. A group rallying support for the Minnesota Twins plans to leave for Chicago with more than 100,000 signatures for baseball commissioner Bud Selig next week.

The group will hold a rally Monday at the metrodome, then leave for Chicago on Tuesday in five Twins fan vans. Crowds are described as lighter than usual at the Mall of America on this traditional start of the holiday shopping season.

Many retailers are expecting a challenging season with the nation's economic downturn, a war abroad in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks. Despite the uncertain conditions, Buzz Anderson of the Minnesota Retailers Association expects holiday sales in Minnesota to surpass last year's figures.

BUZZ ANDERSON: Last year was a record year, and this year is going to be a 2.5% to 3% over last year. So I think we still think it's going to be a pretty healthy year. Perhaps not as big as they'd hoped at one time, but 2 and 1/2 to 3% in a year when the economy appeared to be slowing down is pretty good.

STEPHEN JOHN: Many retailers are expected to offer deep discounts on merchandise to get people in stores this holiday season. It's the 10th season for the Minneapolis holidazzle parade. Tonight's kickoff event begins at 6:30 on Nicollet Mall in Downtown Minneapolis.

Visitors to the Minnesota zoo can walk the wild lights starting tonight. Zoo goers can stroll past a million lights and 58 larger than life animal shaped surrounding a central lake. The display continues Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings through December 30.

Up to 50,000 people are expected to attend this weekend's Minnesota Hmong New Year in St. Paul. It's the 25th year that the Hmong have staged such a celebration in Minnesota. The event opens today at Touchstone Energy place and continues through Sunday.

The forecast calling for increasing clouds across the state, maybe some showers, highs from around 40 in the Northwest to the low 50s in the Southeast. Rain likely in the North tonight. The rain may become freezing rain in the far Northwest late tonight. And then for Saturday, a winter storm watch in the Northwest Saturday and Saturday night. Thief River Falls is 39 degrees. It's 54 in Winona. In the Twin Cities, 50. That's news. I'm Stephen John.

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MIKE EDGERLY: Welcome back to Midday. This is Midday on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Mike Edgerly in for Gary Eichten. Today, as a part of our voices of Minnesota interview series, we hear from three people who help the poor find work and food.

Later in the hour, we'll hear from Janine Laird and Clarissa Walker, two Minnesotans who help organize the state's emergency food bank and food shelf system. First, we hear from Stephen Rothschild, the founder of Twin Cities Rise, a program that trains poor people for work. Here's Minnesota Public Radio's Dan Olson.

DAN OLSON: Stephen Rothschild left a high paying job in corporate America to fight poverty. He was Executive Vice President of General Mills in 1993 with $100,000 of his own money and some outside help. He started Twin Cities Rise. The program trains mainly men and some women from Twin Cities minority groups for living wage jobs.

STEPHEN ROTHSCHILD: We have four classrooms. They're in use from various times. We're here from Monday morning at 9:30 until 9:00 at night. And we're open Saturdays as well.

DAN OLSON: Rothschild leads a tour of Rise headquarters, offices and rooms in a rehabilitated warehouse on Minneapolis's near North side. The floors are carpeted, the walls freshly painted.

The students sit in darkened classrooms filled with glowing computer screens. 450 adults are enrolled at the ST Paul and Minneapolis Rise centers this year. The pictures of dozens of graduates and descriptions of where they found work hang on the walls.

Rothschild says the training costs as much as $20,000 a person and takes from six months to a year. Students learn everything from computer skills to self-control. The training is free, unless students leave their job before a year is up.

Employers who hire Rise graduates pay some of the cost. The rest is covered by foundation grants, contributions, and a state tax credit for companies who hire Rise graduates. Rise costs much more than state and federal programs, which spend as little as $1,500 on training poor people for jobs. During a conversation at Rise headquarters, Steve Rothschild says he believes the bigger investment yields better results.

STEPHEN ROTHSCHILD: People accuse Twin Cities Rise of investing a lot in people, that this is a costly program. And my response to that is that I sent my daughter to college. She went to the University of Wisconsin at Madison, and it cost me or the state or the endowment there over $100,000. And she got a job for $22,000 when she graduated. And we were all delighted.

Now that's after 12 years of support in a loving environment, going to camp every summer, being in the girl scouts, having all the support she needed. And yet we look at people who have come out of drug treatment and have had physical and sexual abuse often, been in jail.

And we point to them and we invest $1,500 in them and expect them to get to the same place. The calculus doesn't work. If that works so well, we should close down the universities and send all of our kids to these $1,500 per person programs.

So that's what I mean by a lack of investment. We ultimately spend the money in this country. We spend it at the backend by not investing in people so they become self-sufficient. And holding them accountable for that.

We have to deal with their subsidization over and over and over again. And that's been the history. It's not that we don't spend, we spend. We just spend on police and jail and drug treatment and continued subsidization of housing forever, because people aren't self sufficient.

DAN OLSON: Rise founder Steven Rothschild says prospective students are referred by churches, drug treatment programs, or probation caseworkers. Some enroll on their own. The washout rate, Rothschild says, is relatively high because the training is demanding and some of the students have problems.

STEPHEN ROTHSCHILD: We're dealing with a pretty transient population who has a difficult-- historically has had a difficult time focusing on the future and keeping organized and dealing with all the complications in their life, whether it's issues of child care or drug abuse, or dealing with a parole officer or dealing with housing or dealing with the fundamentals of transportation and food.

And as a result, for every two people who walk in the door with interest, only one of those people will follow through orientation. And that's fairly consistent with programs when we have a relationship around the country.

DAN OLSON: What do you suppose happens to the other folks? I mean, does that cause you to pause and wonder, gosh, I wonder if I can talk somebody else in the community into trying to reach the folks who walk out the door?

STEPHEN ROTHSCHILD: Well, some of them may come back to us. Others may find themselves ultimately going to another program at a better time in their lives. And some will just go from one place to another and never make much progress.

I think there's the old 80/20 rule. 20% of the people probably absorb 80% of our resources because they can't quite get out of this routine of being a victim and needing a lot of support and not being able to get their act together for self-sufficiency.

DAN OLSON: Do you have social workers, do you have counselors addressing what you've described as the victim mentality?

STEPHEN ROTHSCHILD: Well, our curriculum is focused on the principle that all development starts from the inside of a person and moves outward. And so a 1/3, fully 1/3 of the time that one spends when they come to Twin Cities Rise in the first 16 weeks is spent on what we call empowerment.

And it's only when that becomes somewhat developed and a person has made a commitment to wanting to become responsible in that way, that we believe teaching literacy or teaching technical skills has a lasting value.

Our staff, therefore, is a combination of adult educators, and also coaches who have the ability to help people bridge from where they are to a new place in their life. And we don't have social workers here.

These are folks who come from a variety of backgrounds. Many of them were in business. Some of them were in the social service arena. Some were in the military. But what they have is the ability to be empathetic without being too sympathetic. And that's what's called for.

DAN OLSON: Why not too sympathetic?

STEPHEN ROTHSCHILD: Because our belief is that people have to take responsibility for themselves. We're not here to do for people. We're here to coach them. And a coach teaches and cajoles and supports, but doesn't do.

And too many of these folks have been in a system where people have done for them, and they've become used to that. And therefore, they don't know any other way. And we have to break that cycle for them to become accountable in such a way that they can move ahead in their lives, become self-sufficient, and qualify for a living wage job that pays them sufficiently to escape poverty.

DAN OLSON: As you've watched folks come through your doors here at Twin Cities Rise, Steven Rothschild, who do you hold responsible for the situation that these folks are in? What kind of thoughts do you have about this country's education system, public and private, this country's family culture? What thoughts do you have on that based on who you see coming in?

STEPHEN ROTHSCHILD: I'm not a social scientist, so I don't know if I'll give you a very cogent answer on that. But our belief is that the world is the way it is. And Twin Cities Rise was established to try to deal with issues of racism and poverty.

And I felt most comfortable with the definition of racism that had to do with prejudice and economic power. There's not much we can do about prejudice individually, someone else's prejudice. But we can do a lot about economic power.

And by giving people the means to develop their own economic wherewithal. And that is a function of society providing the opportunity for people in an appropriate way, and for people then to take full advantage of it.

Motivation isn't enough. Perseverance is what counts. And we find that the folks who make it here not only are motivated to change their life, but they're willing to do whatever it takes to change their life. And those who are merely motivated but require too much support by some system never quite get there.

DAN OLSON: We'll hear more from Stephen Rothschild, Founder and President of Twin Cities Rise in just a few minutes. Tevis Celestin is a Rise graduate. For two years, he's worked as a computer specialist for one of Minnesota's largest companies.

He talked to me recently on one of the last warm fall days at a park near his South Minneapolis home. Celestin described the commitment he and his wife made to complete their Rise training.

TEVIS CELESTIN: I worked two jobs. I went to Twin Cities Rise. My wife also went to Twin Cities Rise. We brought our kids with us to Twin Cities Rise. Twin Cities Rise, they babysitted our kids when we was in class. So basically, my commitment was everybody in the household was committed.

DAN OLSON: Where did that commitment come from? I mean, what was motivating you? What was driving you?

TEVIS CELESTIN: Well, what was motivating is, I mean, we had three kids. Both of us was nurses aides. And if you add up the amount of money that nurses aides make, that's the motivating factor right there. We paid our bills. That was it. It was nothing extra.

DAN OLSON: So how does it work? What does the coach, what does the person who is teaching the empowerment class do for you?

TEVIS CELESTIN: His class is basically designed to say, hey, you know what? You can do it. If you put in the work, something good is going to come out of it. Believe and trust in that, and work hard. And what's going to happen is you're going to succeed.

DAN OLSON: What kinds of things get worked on? What are the skills?

TEVIS CELESTIN: Self esteem. Then there was other classes that were computer classes that basically taught us Word, Excel, Access. Then there was one class that was called work skills, which basically taught us how to just sit in a chair, how to operate in a corporate environment, how to basically be a professional person.

DAN OLSON: Why is that training important for some of the folks coming to rise?

TEVIS CELESTIN: Well, I think it's good for anyone, not just the people that's coming through Rise. Everybody needs to be taught how to do certain things and how to behave in certain places.

If it's time to joke around, we need to know when to joke end. When it's time to basically be a professional person. And we need to know that. So I think Rise is pretty good for anybody.

DAN OLSON: The empowerment training, was that kind of warm, fuzzy stuff, like you're OK, you're going to make it, or was there a real edge to it sometime?

TEVIS CELESTIN: Yeah, it was an edge to it every time you went in class, because we was working on control issues. We was working on, why do we do what we do? Why do you think the way you think?

The only way that we can change or become a more empowered person is to work on your inner self. And you got to believe in yourself. There are some people, and I can't speak for everybody, but I can speak for myself.

I'm going to not say some people, but for myself, I needed empowerment because I needed to know that, hey, you know what? I can do it. And the support of the Twin City Rise staff was basically remarkable.

DAN OLSON: Did the people at Rise talk much about poverty, breaking out of poverty, or how to convince yourself to break out of poverty?

TEVIS CELESTIN: The only way that person can break out of poverty, you got to change your thinking. And if you're not willing to change your thinking, you won't change. Their willingness to want to change and want to follow a leader, that means that, that wants to see them change.

And if a person doesn't want to change, that means that they don't want the good life. They don't want the better life. They don't want to be able to take a vacation. They don't want to be able to make-- they want to live beneath and not above.

DAN OLSON: But do some people in poverty see it as the willingness to change or do they see it as too many barriers, too many hurdles? People are looked down on poor people and won't hire them, or people are racist and won't hire people because of their skin color. Is that the thinking of a lot of people?

TEVIS CELESTIN: I don't know what the thinking of a lot of people is. I know the thinking of myself. I don't know if it's about color. It could be about some issues in some situations, it could be about color. Some issues In some situations, it could be about poor. But if you have a desire and you believe that I can do it, there is no color barrier. There is nothing that can stop me.

DAN OLSON: Twin Cities Rise is fairly expensive training. The employer has to pay a fee. And then in some cases, the graduates pay back some of the Twin Cities Rise expenses. What did you think? Did you have to pay back anything? And what did you think of the economic equation?

TEVIS CELESTIN: Well, basically, I have not-- I didn't have to pay anything back. The only thing that I had to pay back was I had to stay on my job a year. To me, that wasn't a pay back. To me, it still was a reward.

DAN OLSON: Rise graduate Tevis Celestin. Rise has grown from 19 students in its first class six years ago to 450 this year. Last year, 166 people with Rise training found jobs paying $20,000 a year or more.

The state tax credit available to Minnesota companies which hire Rise graduates expires this year. Minnesota lawmakers last session turned down a proposal to extend the credit. Steven Rothschild wants Congress to create a federal tax credit so employers all over the country will have an incentive to support rises philosophy of training poor people for living wage jobs.

Are you suggesting that a fair amount of money being given to and spent by others, whether they be charities or social service programs, is money not too well spent because, well, they're just not doing a very good job of training people?

STEPHEN ROTHSCHILD: Well, I think there are some that are doing very well. As I said earlier, I think the policy in this country is flawed because it's based on taking people off of welfare, not out of poverty, which means it's focused on custodial parents, most of whom are women.

And there's very little invested in men. And there's a great deal of evidence to show that if you don't get men who often cause the welfare into living wage jobs, there's no way that the women and children on their own will escape poverty.

Secondly, because the focus is to get people into work first, there's very little invested even in those people who get trained. And in this economy, you can't just get somebody into a job and hope that they ladder up.

I worked at McDonald's when I was a kid, but I also went to college at the same time. And it was the combination of both of those things concurrently that allowed me to grow. Putting a person in McDonald's by themselves without any support around them isn't in and of itself going to assure that they ladder up into economic self-sufficiency. And that's representative of the policy. We need a change in policy.

And then I would finally say that the incentives for how government money is spent need to change a bit. Right now it's very process focused. The government establishes a policy to take people out of a welfare.

They then fund it, but they establish a rule book. And they ask social service organizations to be compliant by meeting their rules, many of which have to do with process and not outcome, in my opinion, or the outcomes aren't at a sufficiently high level to help the folks themselves.

DAN OLSON: Process being this individual has to show up x number of times over.

STEPHEN ROTHSCHILD: And has to go through this kind of training. And the training is mandated in this kind of a way. And you can only spend so much money on this and you can't spend any money on that.

And there's very little flexibility on the part of the provider. And what you get is compliance, but not innovation. It's a little like the old Soviet command economy. When somebody in Moscow would say what we need is red umbrellas throughout the country, and every factory would make red umbrellas when what the people needed were black galoshes.

And by the time they made that change, they needed something else. What you've got to do is flip that on its head. Government still has an important role to play. Government has to establish policy, but the policy shouldn't be getting people off of welfare only. It should be getting them into living wage jobs.

Then they ought to establish funding for that, but not dictate what the programming ought to be. They ought to say anybody for profit, non-profit, governmental, non-governmental who can get people off of poverty into living wage jobs ought to be rewarded for that outcome, not for some process.

And you're going to have more innovation. Businesses are going to be much more interested in this because they're going to see an outcome that's meaningful to them. And they'll throw in their own money, which they're now not doing.

DAN OLSON: Is creating Rise and working with it with your colleagues changed your attitudes towards poverty, towards people who are poor?

STEPHEN ROTHSCHILD: Well, I didn't know a whole lot of poor people when I got started. Yeah, I guess, poor people in many ways are no different than anyone else. I mean, we all put on our pants the same way. We tend to want the same things for ourselves and for our families.

The difference at one level is fundamentally resources and support systems. We all have problems as human beings. I sure have had that in my experience and in my family. But what we tend to have is a lot of support and a lot of problem solving ability and a lot of financial resources to deal with it. So we cope much better.

Poor people don't have that. And as a result, it becomes overwhelming and can often just kind of knock them off. So part of this is providing resources initially, and then teaching skills that allow people to problem solve for themselves more effectively.

DAN OLSON: When you left a big important job in the corporate sector, did it feel like, well, that's the end of one kind of life. What am I going to do now?

STEPHEN ROTHSCHILD: Well, I didn't expect not to be going back into business when I left that. I left a corporate job with the intention of going back into another one. And a funny thing happened on the way to that job. I decided I didn't want to do that. And I became involved in issues of poverty and racism.

DAN OLSON: Why did you do that? Why did you become involved in those issues?

STEPHEN ROTHSCHILD: I just feel lucky to have the opportunity to do things that make me feel better. I also, quite frankly, used to do a fair amount of traveling when I was in the business world overseas, and I would see gated communities in South America.

And I didn't want that to happen here in Minnesota. And I could see it starting to happen with the-- despite the great prosperity that we've had in recent years and that we're the wealthiest country in the history of the world.

We also have an enormous disparity between rich and poor, which is getting more problematic all the time. And we can't, in my opinion, have a legitimate democracy going forward if that continues. We need to bring people who are at the bottom up for their own good and for everybody's good.

DAN OLSON: So do we have the recipe, the formula for success in this country about right in terms of our market or capitalistic economy? Or are we a little off balance? Are we taxing a little too heavily? Are we not taxing enough? How would you adjust the recipe?

STEPHEN ROTHSCHILD: I think we're pretty short-sighted in how we think about things. I think the political process is pretty reactionary to the immediate needs. I mean, the best example of that is what has happened since September 11. And I think it's been appropriate.

But the fact is that the issues that existed on September 10 are still there, but no one's focusing on them right now. We have to get back to that. But I think that we tend not to invest in things with a long-term view.

We tend to say, what is this going to cost? What do we need to do now? And as a result, we keep spending billions of dollars on the same issues without really getting-- investing sufficiently early on to deal with it.

Now, the irony is that we do that pretty well in the higher ed system. We're willing to invest a lot in people graduating from high school to go to college. And then to support them into graduate school, because we know that there's going to be a great return on that investment to them and to society. But we don't tend to have that same orientation towards others or to other problems.

DAN OLSON: Steven Rothschild, thank you very much for your time.

STEPHEN ROTHSCHILD: My pleasure. Nice to talk to you, Dan.

DAN OLSON: Steven Rothschild, Founder and President of Twin Cities Rise. Among his other volunteer duties, Rothschild is a member of the Minnesota Public Radio Board of Directors. You're listening thing to Voices of Minnesota. On Minnesota Public radio, I'm Dan Olson.

Janine Laird is a lawyer and a lobbyist working to end hunger. 10 years ago, the Richfield native decided to scale back her law practice and devote more time to feeding people. She's Director of Public Policy for Hunger Solutions, the Minnesota coalition which lobbies on behalf of emergency food services and other causes for poor people.

She's a former chair of the Board for America's Second Harvest, the large regional food bank. We talked in the Second Harvest warehouse in Maplewood, surrounded by forklifts moving cases of soup and breakfast cereal. Say a word about how large is Minnesota's emergency food supply system from food banks to food shelves to soup kitchens?

JANINE LAIRD: I think many people are stunned at the number of agencies that are providing services in Minnesota. There are six Second Harvest food banks, and those are the warehouse size organizations who receive donated food from the food industry. And they also receive the government commodity food to distribute to agencies.

There are 300 food shelves that receive food from the food banks and from the community. And this is where families go to get groceries to take home to prepare a meal. There are about 70 on-site hot meal programs commonly thought of as soup kitchens. Those are places where families can go to eat a meal provided to them on the premises.

And we have about 60 emergency shelters throughout our state where homeless people are given shelter and job training and meals as well. So it's a vast, vast network of agencies.

DAN OLSON: Does that network rely principally on corporate or business sector contributions compared to private contributions from individuals?

JANINE LAIRD: I would say yes more indirectly than directly, because about 40% of the food that the agencies distribute is coming to them through the food bank. And the food banks are receiving donated food from the food corporations.

So there is an indirect benefit from corporations as opposed to cash, direct cash donations. But individual contributions rank right up there as probably the second largest resource.

DAN OLSON: I gather we see usage of food banks rising. Do we know why?

JANINE LAIRD: We do see an increase. We've seen an increase of need at the food shelves so far this year. And it's largely due to an economy that's been lagging. And I think some shortcomings, if not outright failures in public policy to accurately assess and keep up with people's needs.

We have an affordable housing crisis here in Minnesota that is so bad that finally the corporate community has gotten on board with what might be thought of as a liberal cause, because if there is no place for their employers or their employees to live, employers can't hire people and they can't thrive and grow.

The cost of living in paying rent, paying mortgages is just-- it just straps so many, many families and puts them in a position of needing assistance for food and for managing other parts of their lives.

DAN OLSON: Who are some of the typical users of food banks?

JANINE LAIRD: Well, more women than men, and primarily White. 40% of them live alone. And we haven't seen the cross tab on the number of seniors. But I'm guessing that there is a large chunk of seniors who live alone, who fall into that category.

And there's a real definite need to do outreach to them to make sure that they're getting the food and nutrition that they need and help, because if they're paying $200 a month for prescriptions, they're cutting back in many other areas.

And, of course, if they're not well fed, their medicine isn't going to work as well. So targeting the seniors and working for them is an important public policy that needs to be addressed.

DAN OLSON: We have a vast food stamp program in this country. Why isn't that doing the job?

JANINE LAIRD: Nobody takes advantage of it. I think that the state participation in food stamps is about 37%.

DAN OLSON: Of those eligible.

JANINE LAIRD: No, those are just 37% of the people who are getting assistance at food shelves or soup kitchens are getting food stamps based on income eligibility guidelines fully twice as many appear to be income eligible.

Now, there are some asset limitation tests that need to be applied. And we cannot really do a survey that asks everybody, do you have a burial plot and all of those questions? But common sense tells us if they're meeting the low income eligibility requirements, they probably don't have assets that exceed the eligibility requirements. So I'm pretty comfortable in saying that twice as many people who get food stamps are eligible for them.

DAN OLSON: Why aren't they going to apply for them?

JANINE LAIRD: Most people don't think they're eligible. They think that they probably earn too much money. And there hasn't been enough education. I think many people tie food stamps to welfare. They're separate programs entirely.

And a family can have moved off of welfare assistance, but still be eligible for food stamp assistance. But that's not known. And when people think, well, I'm not on welfare, so then how could I be eligible for food stamps?

It shows that we need to do some outreach and some education about food stamps. It's a government program that's just being wasted. It's an asset that we should be tapping into more and getting more food stamps out.

DAN OLSON: Would it be more productive, in your opinion, if we spent more time doing the outreach for food stamps than trying to get more donations for food banks and food shelves?

JANINE LAIRD: Probably equal, I would say. Families who do get food stamps report that they last-- they can buy an average of only two weeks worth of food with those food stamps. So if you have none, having access to two weeks of food through food stamps is certainly a boon to your family. But it's not the complete solution to hunger needs in a family.

DAN OLSON: This is a very Scrooge-like mentality that some of us apply to the people who need food and who use food banks. And that Scrooge-like thinking probably goes something like, well, they don't manage their money very well. They drink too much, they smoke too much, they gamble too much. They could be managing their money a lot more efficiently. And they'd be able to afford food.

JANINE LAIRD: Well, it's true that some could manage their money more efficiently. But simple economics tells us that no matter how tightly you pinch your pennies and manage your money, many people who are at the agencies will always, consistently, every month have a shortfall between their income and their family needs.

I challenge anybody to live on the $430 a month that MFIP pays to a single mother with a single child. You want to talk about people who are good at budgeting, though I admire them.

When the average monthly income of food stamps or food shelf families is $937 a month and the average family size is nearly three, I challenge any family of three to live on less than $1,000 a month. To pay the rent, buy the food, the car insurance, the gas, the heating, all of that, go for it.

That we would all be very hard pressed to walk in the shoes of those families. And in instances where we are Scrooge-like because we see people drinking or buying cigarettes or gambling at the Casino, I want to remind them that nearly 50% of those who are served are children. And the kids have no control over what mom and dad do with the money.

So far, far better to err on the side of generosity and remember that there are children at home who need this food. And what was it? Somebody said-- oh, now I remember. Even God doesn't judge people until after they've died.

So let's withhold the judgments and just feed people. It's not like there's a lack of food. I mean, Minnesotans are generous and we have a great pipeline of food coming. It's not like we're a third world nation where food is scarce. America has abundant, abundant quantities of food. So feed people. Just move that food along to where it's needed, and let go of your Scrooge-like judgments.

DAN OLSON: Janine Laird, Director of Public Policy for Hunger Solutions. One of the members of her coalition is America's Second Harvest. The food bank released a new survey recently. Among the findings, more than 1/3 of the people who use Minnesota's 300 emergency food shelves live out state.

The survey of adults who use the food shelves found 24% in St. Paul and 32% in Minneapolis did not eat for at least a whole day during the previous 12 months because they lacked money for food. Here's more of the conversation with Janine Laird. Why did you get started in this line of work.

JANINE LAIRD: Well, I had been an attorney prior to that and was feeling somewhat of a disconnect between how I wanted to really live out the rest of my life and the kind of work that sometimes is involved when a person is a lawyer.

And I got involved doing some legislative work on behalf of food shelves in 1991. And at that time, like many Minnesotans, I knew there were food shelves. That was all I knew. I had no idea the depth, the scope, the breadth of this issue. And my involvement grew until this is what I've been doing now full-time for nine years.

DAN OLSON: So what do you do? Do you get in there with lawmakers and you're sitting in committee sessions and work sessions trying to map out public policy?

JANINE LAIRD: That some of the work that I do, absolutely. Hunger is a symptom. It's part of a mobile of other social issues. You touch one part of that mobile, it all moves. And so hunger can be alleviated in areas where people might not even be-- might not think of it even in the areas of-- Well, the rural economy and the farm crisis, changes in some policies about farm supports would have an impact on hunger in greater Minnesota.

The impetus to build more affordable housing will have an impact on families. Providing more health insurance coverage. There are tragically high number of families who still, even in spite of Minnesota care, don't have health insurance coverage.

And in a month when you have a medical emergency, your child has strep throat or an ear infection and you've got to pay that doctor fee or that emergency room fee, your food bill is what gets shorted.

And you end up needing assistance at a food shelf for a soup kitchen. So there are many arenas in which public policy can be shifted and downstream it has a beneficial impact on hunger.

DAN OLSON: What does this work give you? Why do you stick with it?

JANINE LAIRD: There's the direct benefit of feeding people. And that's a daily three meals a day kind of satisfaction. And then there's the larger long range benefit of being able to engage folks in thinking about more than just their own lives, or thinking about issues in a bigger picture and encouraging them to be part of solving.

DAN OLSON: Did you grow up with social causes as part of your fabric, as part of your life?

JANINE LAIRD: Yes, I was a high school representative to the first Human Rights Commission in the suburb where I grew up back in 1967/68.

DAN OLSON: Where was this?

JANINE LAIRD: Richfield. One of my social studies teachers who recommended me for the position. And I was honored, and I was also engaged in social rights issues at that time. And, of course, the Civil Rights movement was.

I think probably among many horrible images that are indelibly engraved in my memory, the image of Southern sheriffs seeking German shepherds on civil rights marchers or the use of the Firemen's hoses on people have just-- I was 12 or 13 at the time.

And those just haunting, haunting images. And I don't know what it sparked in me exactly, but an interest in seeing that there's equality and that people's needs are met and that people can have a better life.

DAN OLSON: What would you like to see come out of Congress with the economic security stimulus-- the economic stimulus package that's being considered, the reauthorization of the Food and Nutrition Act, if that's the right nomenclature for that bill. And what would you like to see come out of the state legislature this session?

JANINE LAIRD: Well, at the federal level, I'd like to see an economic stimulus package that benefits the people who have been affected, who have been laid off, and who are seeing food shelves as a source of sustenance for them.

I would like the reauthorization of the Food and Nutrition package to have an increase in the federal commodity food program. We receive 4 million pounds million of federal commodity food here in Minnesota. And it is an absolute godsend to our agencies.

We get hamburger, we get peanut butter, we get cereal, we get fruit juice, we get fruits, we get dried beans. The food is fabulous. And we'd like to see food stamps reauthorized with a higher level of benefit and a greater emphasis on the need to get more food stamps out rather than an emphasis on quality control.

States get a benefit for having fewer administrative errors. Well, you reduce your administrative errors by being really stingy with who you give the food stamps to. And so the fewer people you give them to, the likelihood of your error rate drops, of course.

I would like to see that agencies would be rewarded for increasing participation rather than slimming down that margin of error for folks. At the state level, I would like to see more work on public housing and affordable housing as an issue that affects so many and would have a beneficial impact on the hunger community.

And we're interested in doing something for the farm community in creating a direct market for small scale farmers to sell their product to the food banks. And then that food would in turn be passed through to the agencies, to hungry families.

The small farming community has suffered terribly over the years. The failing rural economy is another reason why people are using food shelves. And we would like to create what we call a Farmers and Institutions Tackling Hunger Faith Project that would link small scale farmers with the food banks.

We surveyed the food banks and learned that they could spend $4 million a year on hamburger, butter, eggs, and chicken to turn around to their agencies, and $4 million into the farm economy would be a huge, huge benefit to them. So we know that snowballs may survive in July before anybody gets more money this legislative session. But it's not going to stop us from introducing the idea.

And this would be a benefit to both the farming community and the low income community of people who are using food services because there would be this tremendously high quality food coming into the food system, and farmers would be paid a fair rate for the work that they do. So that's another thing we're looking at the legislature this session.

DAN OLSON: Janine Laird, thank you very much for talking with me.

JANINE LAIRD: Thanks.

DAN OLSON: Hunger Solutions Public Policy director Janine Laird. You're listening to Voices of Minnesota on Minnesota Public Radio. I'm Dan Olson. Clarissa Walker is the first person many people meet when they come to the Sabbatini Community Center Emergency Food Shelf in South Minneapolis.

She's run the food shelf and a free store there for more than 30 years. Her first job at the center was directing a youth program to try to counteract the riots in the late '60s that wracked this country's urban neighborhoods.

People arriving at Sabbatini on a weekday morning carried their identification cards and filled the basement hallway. The cards bear the person's picture, name, and address. It's proof they qualify for help. And it gives them access to the food shelf and free store.

The emergency food shelf Clarissa Walker helped start 30 years ago operated out of a closet. Now it has several basement rooms.

SPEAKER 1: Hi, there.

CLARISSA WALKER: Hi there. This is Stephanie. She's one of our volunteers faithfully every Wednesday. This is food drives, food that she is now putting on the shelf. I'm licensed by the city of Minneapolis, which says the inspector can come through. All food is weighed in. All food is weighed out.

So even when we do a food order, they're working on it too. It will be weighed out. The pounds will then go on that person's client so that we can tell you how many pounds of food came in, but also how many pounds of food went out and who got them.

DAN OLSON: Back in her windowless office, Walker is surrounded by Woll plaques, commending her for helping poor people apply for the earned income tax credit, for her work with the neighborhood housing program, and for literally dozens of other initiatives. Walker says she sees every day the effects of the economic downturn. Who are you seeing coming to your office these days?

CLARISSA WALKER: It's very interesting. Yesterday, we did 78 food orders. My numbers are up. We're seeing a lot of increased diversity in our community. The number of Latinos are almost equaling or surpassing the number of African-Americans. So I can-- the diversity has definitely changed in this community.

DAN OLSON: And what has happened to them recently to cause them to come to your office?

CLARISSA WALKER: With so many of them work in hotels, airport handling, taxi cab drivers. And unfortunately, the September the 11th event has caused them to be out of work.

DAN OLSON: Are they mostly single people? Do they have families?

CLARISSA WALKER: They have families. And that's the sad part, that it's not just themselves. They are concerned about the entire family.

DAN OLSON: What kinds of accounts have you heard in terms of what's happening to them? Are they able to make rent payments? Have they found other work?

CLARISSA WALKER: A lot of them are moving in with each other. There are households of 10, 11. We have the larger number of households because the only way they are not homeless, they're living with other family members.

DAN OLSON: Now, are these mainly able-bodied folks, including even some skills?

CLARISSA WALKER: I would not say they have a higher skill level, skill level being in the field of technology or they are mostly laborers willing to do anything. They apply to work here. And unfortunately, I tell them they can volunteer, but I don't have money to pay them.

DAN OLSON: What do these folks face? Do you have beyond the Thanksgiving giveaway, which you're supplying by way of donations here from the community, do you have money to supply basically anybody who comes through your door?

CLARISSA WALKER: This program is basic needs. And we do not provide financial assistance. However, we try to provide food. It's difficult for me to go home and enjoy my own meal if I have made a judgment call and did not feed a child.

And so I try to stay within the geographic boundaries. But I do have a category, when in doubt, I serve them as a special need, a one-time serve until they can give me the information, backup information that I need.

[VIDEO PLAYBACK]

- Yes, sir. No, your picture. Lola, right there. She will take your picture.

[END PLAYBACK]

And by taking pictures, that's another thing that we have found. And we started the first of this year that many of the people coming here do not have the money to purchase an ID, Minnesota ID, or don't definitely have the necessary documentation.

So we have what's called a basic need card for Sabatini, where they are able to show the basic information, and we give them a service card which allows them to shop in our clothing room.

It's the time of the year when many of them did not come from warm countries, I mean, or they came from warm country. And the reality in Minnesota is that they will need coats. Well, thanks to donors from all over the city and St. Paul, we have coats. And they're coming in and selecting in the back room there.

DAN OLSON: There is, as you know, a lot of criticism of this country for opening its doors to folks who don't have documentation who come here illegally and seeking work. And how do you reconcile that concern, the fact that there are people probably walking in who they don't have proper documentation, they may be in this country illegally?

CLARISSA WALKER: That's right. And I'm faced with that, and I really feel for them. But they are human beings. I provide basic needs and don't necessarily make decision as it relates to their documentation. But I just feel no one should be denied the basics of life.

DAN OLSON: Besides food, what else do you do here?

CLARISSA WALKER: Food, clothing. We do have transitional housing for families with small children. We only have four units. And it's more and more difficult to get them. But that's the flip side of basic needs. I try to do self-reliance programs.

I'm one of the larger income tax service sites in the state. And even there, it makes people legal and it gets a resource that they can make choices of their own on how they spend it.

We have community garden, we have computers, and those become and refer to other organizations that are located in our building that we are able to provide those services that promote self-reliance.

DAN OLSON: You've been doing this work, Clarissa Walker, how long?

CLARISSA WALKER: Well, I've been here at Sabatini 32 years. I didn't always do this type of work. I was hired to work with the youth in the Malcolm Youth Center, a part of Sabatini. And was charged to get the families involved.

And then going into their homes, I know that it's difficult to expect a person to move on when their basic needs aren't covered. And so out of that, the food shop, the clothing shop started, thanks to the sharing of the colonial church diner. And then it grew to what it is today.

DAN OLSON: What was it in your family that gave you a strong upbringing, a sense of wanting to help?

CLARISSA WALKER: Well, my mom was a missionary minister. And we were raised during the time of the depression. And we were taught basic needs were survival. She was a teacher, and we were also taught that the basics-- reading, writing, arithmetic was required. I even lost dessert at one meal because I missed a question, which she might throw at you at the dinner table.

DAN OLSON: One of your children, Neva Walker, is Minnesota's first Black woman state representative. What did you tell her as she was growing up about what a young woman could do in this world?

CLARISSA WALKER: Well, I feel we all have opportunities. And many of us let the opportunities slide by us. I did not really select that she would go into politics. I tried to bring them up with the basics. And that was the main thing that I look for all of them.

DAN OLSON: Sitting here day after day for more than 32 years, do you have a sense of feeling like society is making progress, helping people out of poverty, or do you sometimes despair?

CLARISSA WALKER: For the most part, I feel we're making progress. I have the fortunate of being here to know those that we have truly help, those that come back, to volunteer, to donate, and they hug you. It's something that my daughters themselves can't get.

But on their behalf, people are saying, thank you for giving me that chance, that push, that believing in me. So no. I get enough of them that make me want to keep on pushing.

DAN OLSON: Clarissa Walker, thanks so much for your time.

CLARISSA WALKER: Thank you.

DAN OLSON: Clarissa Walker, a Founder and Director of the Sabatini Community Center's emergency food shelf and free store in South Minneapolis. I'm Dan Olson.

MIKE EDGERLY: That's Midday for this week. Midday was produced this week by Sarah Meyer with assistance from Cara Fiegenschuh. We had help this week from Genaro Vasquez and Trish Taylor. I'm Mike Edgerly.

SPEAKER 2: On the next All Things Considered, a 24-hour TV news and information station that broadcasts to Central Minnesota from an industrial park in St. Cloud. It's All Things Considered weekdays at 3:00 on Minnesota Public Radio.

STEPHEN JOHN: You are listening to Minnesota Public Radio. Well, it's 59 degrees at KNOW-FM 91.1. Minneapolis St. Paul. Twin Cities weather for this afternoon becoming cloudy. A chance of afternoon showers, the high around 51 degrees. Tonight periods of rain, a few thunderstorms possible with the lows around 45. Tomorrow, showers likely a morning thunderstorm possible. The high near 50.