What's New at Community Action?

Click on the following links for stories about What's New.
CAD Wins Third MinnCAP Award in Three Years
Dowload our one-page CAD 2011 Highlights. Click here.
CAD partners with local organizations in the UnFair Campaign
Community Action Duluth's Angie Miller interviewed on KUMD
Arrowhead Legislators Graded on Their Work, Votes for Racial Equity
JumpStart Recipients make the News

CAD Wins Third MinnCAP Award in Three Years

Click play to hear Angie Miller talk about the award on Public News Service.

The Minnesota Community Action Partnership (MinnCAP) awarded a 2012 Promising Practice award to Community Action Duluth (CAD) for our implementation of the Financial Opportunity Center (FOC) model. Financial Services Director Sarah Priest and Director of Employment Services Kate Wigren accepted the award at a ceremony at the MinnCAP offices in St. Paul on February 15th. In 2010, CAD won a Promising Practice Award for our Getting Ahead Program and a Best Practice Award for Bridge to Employment.

CAD staffers Angie Miller, Stephanie Williams, Sarah Priest, Kate Wigren, and Sarah Butler accept the Promising Practice Award.

The FOC isn't a program, but rather a way of working with participants that puts their goals first, makes sure that we bundle together multiple services to fully meet their needs, and quantifies the impacts of our combined efforts on their lives. Executive Director Angie Miller said, "Now we can make sure our participants use all applicable services to work on the goals that are most important to them." CAD just completed our first year of operations using the model, and the Promising Practice award reflects early data on outcomes that indicate significant improvement. CAD's implementation of the FOC model is funded by a $182,000 grant from LISC Duluth.

Award nominees are judged by a panel of human services professionals recruited from the University of Minnesota's College of Education and Human Development and the Minnesota Department of Human Services Office of Economic Opportunity. MinnCAP is the support and coordinaton organization of 28 Community Action agencies located across the State.

The Community Action Duluth board voted to become a partner in the UnFair Campaign. We join these organizations (Central Labor Body, CHUM, City of Duluth Mayor's Office, Human Rights Commission, American Indian Commission, Clayton, Jackson, McGhie Memorial Inc., Domestic Abuse Intervention Project, Lake Superior College, Life House, NAACP, St. Louis County Public Health and Human Services University of Minnesota Duluth, University of Wisconsin Superior and the YWCA) with a common purpose - to begin to transform our own organizations and ourselves with the hope that it will transform our community.

Our agency strives to eliminate disparities in the areas of employment, assets, housing and education in the work that we do. Please join us by looking at the resources available at UnFairCampaign.org and/or by attending one of the many events that are part of the campaign. Click here to see the UnFair Campaign's calendar of events.

What is White Privilege?

According to author Peggy McIntosh:

White privilege is the unquestioned and unearned set of advantages, entitlements benefits and choices bestowed on people solely because they are white. Generally white people who experience such privilege do so without being conscious of it.

Examples of privilege might be:

• I can walk around a department store without being followed;
• I can come to meeting late and not have my lateness attributed to my race;
• I am able to drive a car in any neighborhood without being perceived as being in the wrong place or looking for trouble;
• I can turn on the television or look to the front page and see people of my ethnic and racial background represented;
• I can take a job without having co-workers suspect that I got it because of my racial background;
• I can send my 16-year old out with his new driver's license and not have to give him a lesson how to respond if police stop him.

Arrowhead Legislators Graded on Their Work, Votes for Racial Equity

While the "Un-fair campaign" with billboards and posters across Duluth has been controversial, the issues of racial equity behind the campaign are all too real.
Racial disparities in Minnesota have increased to a point to where Minnesota has among the highest statistics on racial inequality in the country.

Thanks to some generous donors and NAPA Auto Care Centers, 3 people received donated cars from Community Action Duluth right before Christmas. Click on the link to see the news coverage.