Star Tribune
Roosevelt High School’s Operation Holiday Basket delivers 300 holiday meals to Minneapolis families
Roosevelt High School’s gymnasium turned into a festive assembly line Friday. Students and alumni, standing shoulder-to-shoulder, formed what is affectionally dubbed the “turkey tunnel” to efficiently place hundreds of frozen turkeys into boxes filled with all the fixings for a holiday meal.
The ritual is a time-honored one. This week marked the 52nd year of Operation Holiday Basket, the Minneapolis high school’s holiday-season event to gather donations and raise money to provide food for families in need.
The event started back in 1970 when a group of teachers set out to provide meals for about 50 families. Since then, the mission has grown to serve hundreds of families while drumming up school spirit and holiday cheer.
This year, students and alumni packed and delivered 300 boxes of food — each included a turkey as well as carrots, potatoes, dessert and other staples — to neighborhood families, most of whom have students who attend or will attend Roosevelt.
“This has such a long history and it’s powerful to be a part of the tradition,” said senior Erin Grube.
About 100 students helped pack and deliver the boxes Friday morning. Joining them was Interim Superintendent Rochelle Cox, the high school’s teddy bear mascot and more than a dozen alumni. Many of them were from the class of 1968, a group whose members call themselves the ROMEOs, which stands for “Roosevelt Old Men Eating Out Socially,” and typically meet up a couple of times a month.
Most of the group’s members first met Gary Lewis, who has been instrumental in building and continuing the tradition of Operation Holiday Basket, when they were young men. He’s 84 now and has been involved since the beginning.
“Gary was the cornerstone of our lives,” said Lee Nelson, a member of the ROMEOs. “He re-energized us to get reconnected with this marvelous tradition.”
The ROMEOs raised more than a third of the $15,000 collected this year, which will fund the food needed for next year’s baskets. Students and area businesses fundraised and donated the rest.
“This is such a marvelous experience,” Nelson said. “I get to meet these amazing students and find out all about the good work happening in our schools. It’s a beautiful thing.”
Sophomore Rowan Miller signed up to pack the boxes after hearing from a friend about how fun it was last year.
“I didn’t want to miss out,” Miller said.
For the week leading up to holiday break, Roosevelt students have events and competitions to raise funds and bring in donations for Operation Holiday Basket. Homeroom classes compete to raise the most money, collect canned goods and decorate the doors for the holidays.
“There’s a lot of school spirit this week,” Miller said. “It’s all about community-building.”
Christol Schultz, the school’s public relations coordinator, helps organize the event. After more than five decades, she said the process of collecting, sorting and distributing the donations is a “well-oiled machine.”
The students who return year after year know to wear gloves to keep their hands warm as while they pass along hundreds of frozen birds. They know that the “turkey tunnel” is even more fun if you’re singing and dancing to Christmas classics — from “Jingle Bell Rock” to Mariah Carey’s “All I Want for Christmas Is You” — blaring from the speakers.
And they know their efforts might make someone else’s holiday season a little bit brighter.
That’s what has kept the tradition alive for more than 50 years, Lewis said.
“I think it says something about the community itself that the kids are so excited about doing this,” Lewis said. “I hope that when I’m 100, I can be here, seeing the students giving back.”
Northern State 35, Concordia (St. Paul) 34: Wyatt Block’s 2-yard TD run and the PAT with 10 seconds remaining lifted the Wolves past the host Golden Bears. Block’s touchdown capped an 11-play, 72-yard drive by the Wolves, who trailed 24-7 in the second quarter. Jeff Isotalo-McGuire’s 34-yard field goal with three minutes, 32 seconds remaining gave the Golden Bears a 34-28 lead.
Winona State 31, Bemidji State 28: Cade Stenstrom rushed for two TDs and passed for 150 yards and a TD to help the host Warriors outlast the Beavers. Stenstrom’s 1-yard TD run and the PAT with two minutes, 10 seconds remaining gave the Warriors a 31-21 lead. The Beavers responded with an 11-play, 93-yard drive to pull within 31-28 with 18 seconds remaining but the Warriors recovered the ensuing kickoff.
Div. I-AA
North Dakota State 59, Murray State 6: The top-ranked Bison built a 42-3 lead in the first half and went on to defeat the host Racers in Murray, Ken. CharMar Brown ran for 97 yards and three TDs for the Bison.
South Dakota State 20, South Dakota 17 (OT): Amar Johnson’s 3-yard TD run in overtime lifted the host Jackrabbits to the victory. The Coyotes opened the OT with a 40-yard field goal.
Youngstown State 41, North Dakota 40 (OT): The host Penguins went first in OT and scored and then stopped North Dakota’s two-point conversion to hold on for the victory. The Penguins sent the game into OT on a 35-yard field goal with 12 seconds remaining.
Div. III
Augsburg 35, St. Olaf 34 (OT): The host Auggies stopped a two-point conversion in overtime to outlast the Oles. The Auggies went first in the overtime and scored on a 25-yard pass from Ryan Harvey to Tyrone Wilson. It was Harvey’s fifth TD pass — the fourth to Wilson. After the Auggies’ PAT, the Oles scored on a 25-yard TD pass from Theo Doran to Braden Menz. But the Oles’ pass attempt for the conversion failed.
After splitting their two-game West Coast trip to begin the season, the Wolves improved to 2-1 with a 112-101 win over Toronto in their home opener. It was a wire-to-wire win that featured some strong bursts of play from the Wolves and other times when their decision-making was suspect. But those moments when they were on, specifically the start of the game and most of the third quarter, were enough to carry them against a shorthanded Raptors team that was without RJ Barrett, Bruce Brown and Immanuel Quickley.
Julius Randle had 24 points while Anthony Edwards had 24 on 21 shot attempts. Donte DiVincenzo had 16 off the bench. Nickeil Alexander-Walker left the game in the fourth quarter and did not return, though he was in the bench area for the final minutes after going to the locker room briefly.
The Wolves’ starting lineup had its best stretch of basketball on the season after that unit started off sluggish in the first two games. Mike Conley, who was 3-for-16 to open the year, hit two early threes to set the tone, though Conley would finish 2-for-8.
Donte DiVincenzo replaced him at point guard halfway through the quarter and continued the hot shooting from the point guard slot with three threes of his own. The Wolves forced five Toronto turnovers and had a 32-18 lead after one.
Coach Chris Finch toyed with some different lineup combinations in the first half as he had Conley and DiVincenzo begin the quarter together while having Joe Ingles run the point later in the quarter. It led to an uneven second, and the Wolves led 56-44 at halftime.
But the Wolves played inspired coming out of the break. Jaden McDaniels, who didn’t take a shot in the first half, had nine points in the opening minutes of the third. Edwards hit a pair of threes as they pushed their lead to 22. The Wolves weren’t sharp closing the night, and the Raptors had the game within right inside of two minutes, but the Wolves had built enough of a cushion.
Rudy Gobert. Gobert had 15 points and 13 rebounds and was the beneficiary of some lobs from his teammates like Edwards, Conley, Nickeil Alexander-Walker and Joe Ingles. Gobert also finished with four blocks.
Gobert had two blocks on one possession in the fourth quarter that got the crowd off its feet and Gobert pounding his chest. Gobert blocked D.J. Carton and Jamison Battle.
Star Tribune
Trump denigrates Detroit while appealing for votes in a suburb of Michigan’s largest city
NOVI, Mich. — Donald Trump further denigrated Detroit while appealing for votes Saturday in a suburb of the largest city in swing state Michigan.
”I think Detroit and some of our areas makes us a developing nation,” the former president told supporters in Novi. He said people want him to say Detroit is ”great,” but he thinks it ”needs help.”
The Republican nominee for the White House had told an economic group in Detroit earlier this month that the ”whole country will end up being like Detroit” if Democrat Kamala Harris wins the presidency. That comment drew harsh criticism from Democrats who praised the city for its recent drop in crime and growing population.
Trump’s stop in Novi, after an event Friday night in Traverse City, is a sign of Michigan’s importance in the tight race. Harris is scheduled for a rally in Kalamazoo later Saturday with former first lady Michelle Obama on the first day that early in-person voting becomes available across Michigan. More than 1.4 million ballots have already been submitted, representing 20% of registered voters. Trump won the state in 2016, but Democrat Joe Biden carried it four years later.
Michigan is home to major car companies and the nation’s largest concentration of members of the United Auto Workers. It also has a significant Arab American population, and many have been frustrated by the Biden administration’s support for Israel’s offensive in Gaza after the attack by Hamas against Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
During his rally, Trump spotlighted local Muslim and Arab American leaders who joined him on stage. These voters ”could turn the election one way or the other,” Trump said, adding that he was banking on ”overwhelming support” from those voters in Michigan.
“When President Trump was president, it was peace,” said one of those leaders, Mayor Bill Bazzi of Dearborn Heights. ”We didn’t have any issues. There was no wars.”
While Trump is trying to capitalize on the community’s frustration with the Democratic administration, he has a history of policies hostile to this group, including a travel ban targeting Muslim countries while in office and a pledge to expand it to include refugees from Gaza if he wins on Nov. 5.
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