Last Friday I met a fellow Realtor for lunch at The Birdhouse Eat and Drink on Main Street in Robbinsdale. We specifically chose to meet there in support of small community businesses who have been hit hard by the ICE surge which has hit Minnesota hard. My colleague said she was recently delivering groceries to a home where the mother has been housebound for weeks because of the ICE surge… when she observed a foreign journalist filming a documentary on what has been happening in our community. The filmmaker asked my colleague if she has been an activist before… her response was that she doesn’t consider herself an activist, she was just helping someone she cares about. And that is what it has been about for thousands of Minnesotans… “neighborism”, a quiet, radical belief in caring for the people around us, no matter where they come from.
I recently talked to a neighbor who just came back from New Zealand. He encountered many tourists, many from Europe. When they learned he was from Minneapolis, they knew what has been going on here… they were appalled all over the world.
When I picked up the StarTribune this morning it announced “An end in sight… a hard-fought community victory.” Let’s hope that Operation Metro Surge will indeed soon come to a close and we can simply get back to living in community with our neighbors, regardless of where they come from.
Sharlene Hensrud, RE/MAX Results – shensrud@homesmsp.com
