Star Tribune
Minneapolis nonprofit Project Success expands to Mankato schools after record $3 million donation
Project Success was launched 30 years ago to provide free after-school classes and in-school workshops to Minneapolis students, but for the first time in its history, the nonprofit is expanding outside the Twin Cities.
Mankato middle school students are now getting to join the extra classes thanks in part to a $3 million donation announced Wednesday. It is the largest single gift that Project Success has received and it will allow their programs to expand to more places in Minnesota.
The donation, received unexpectedly last year, is from a Minnesota couple, Andris “Andy” Zoltners and Moira Grosbard. Grosbard has volunteered on Project Success’ board of directors since 2015.
“[They] wanted more students outside of Minneapolis … to be able to have these opportunities,” said Adrienne Diercks, executive director of Project Success. “We haven’t been able to make the leap [to expand outside Minneapolis].”
The nonprofit provides after-school classes to boost students’ life and career skills — from money management to cooking lessons. The organization also provides in-school workshops on how students can plan their futures, and offers college tours and theater and outdoor trips to expose students to new experiences, including a trip to the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
Project Success works with more than 15,000 Minneapolis students a year. This year, it also started working with 2,000 Mankato students — all sixth- and seventh-graders. Organizers hope to bring workshops to more students in the Twin Cities and statewide.
“This has been a dream [to expand outside the Twin Cities] really for the last 10 years,” Diercks said.
A bill introduced at the Legislature would boost Project Success’ funding with an Education Department grant of $800,000 this year and again next year, specifically to bring its life and career skills programs to greater Minnesota middle and high school students. A similar request last year failed, and Project Success has never received state funding, Diercks said.
“We really want to build a sustainable model where we’re in Mankato for 30 years as well,” she added.
Mankato Area Public Schools Superintendent Paul Peterson said the in-class workshops from Project Success help students plan future goals, which can help boost school achievement.
“What’s different about Project Success is it brings an outside voice into our schools and just provides another layer of enrichment for our kids,” Peterson said. “The fact Project Success had such a long history in Minneapolis before expanding to greater Minnesota was really powerful. All schools are looking for ways to create meaningful relationships for kids and help them find their purpose in life.”
The donation from Zoltners and Grosbard will help Project Success build its expansion team to bring programs to more Mankato students and to other communities. Diercks said the $3 million will be spent over the next three to five years to expand staffing from the current team of 46 employees.
Grosbard gave the gift for her husband, who died last year.
“For Andy, this gift was in honor of helping all kids to feel like they belong,” Grosbard said in a statement. “And for me, this gift is in honor of Andy.”
Analysis from Minneapolis Public Schools found that students who participated in Project Success programs increased their GPA, school attendance rate and on-time graduation rate, especially students of color. Most of Project Success’ programs are free for students, except for some pay-what-you-can trips.
About 4% of the nonprofit’s funding comes from fees that school districts pay, while most of the rest comes from private donations and foundation grants. Diercks said Grosbard’s donation was unexpected and will not just represent her husband’s legacy but help the Minneapolis nonprofit grow in lasting ways.
“This gift is a foundational gift,” Diercks said. “This is the foundation that will take us to the next 30 years.”
Many residents in the apartments next to the proposed nightclub are visiting workers such as travel nurses or farm laborers, he said. “It makes no sense to have a nightclub that has concerts next to a place where people need to rest to work in the community,” Zuleger said.
He has said that the company also partners with addiction centers and women’s shelters to house Willmar’s most vulnerable residents, and some of these tenants would be too close for comfort to the new nightclub.
Instead of a nightclub, the site should be used for a Somali community center where children from the nearby apartments can play, Zuleger said. Willmar, a city of about 21,000 people, is about 24% Hispanic and 11% Black, with 16% of the city born overseas, double the average rate in the rest of Minnesota. About 43% of the company’s tenants are Somali, and Zuleger called them his “best-paying renters.”
But Doug Fenstra, the real estate agent helping sell the property at 951 High Av., said he had never heard about the possibility of a Somali community center before Zuleger brought up the idea at an October planning commission meeting.
On Wednesday, the planning commission deliberated whether a nightclub would fit the character of the neighborhood. They noted that there was already a brewery in the area.
They passed a motion granting the conditional-use permit.
“DHS and our state and federal partners have seen evidence that kickbacks are happening in Minnesota,” Inspector General Kulani Moti said in a statement. “That’s why we brought an anti-kickback proposal to the Minnesota Legislature last session. We will continue to work with the Legislature next session on ways to strengthen the integrity of our public programs.”
Nuway Alliance, one of the state’s largest nonprofit substance use disorder treatment providers, pays up to $700 a month for someone’s housing while they are in intensive outpatient treatment, the organization’s website states. The site lists dozens of sober housing programs clients can choose from.
Nuway leaders said they got an inquiry from the government about two and a half years ago indicating they are conducting a civil investigation into the housing model.
But officials with the nonprofit said in an email they believe what they are doing is legal and clients need it. More than 600 people are using their assistance to stay in recovery residences, Nuway officials stated. They said having a safe, supportive place to stay is particularly important for the vulnerable people they serve, more than half of whom reported being homeless in the six months before they started treatment.
Health plans knew about, approved and even lauded their program, Nuway leaders said, noting that health insurer UCare even gave it an award.
“The state of Minnesota has been fully aware of our program for a decade,” the organization said. “Since payors are fully aware of, and support the program, we struggle to see how anyone could argue it is improper, let alone fraudulent.”
Mounds View, the first Minnesota city to require homeowners to discharge racist language buried in deeds before they sell their homes, is celebrating a milestone: at least 100 homeowners have completed the process.
Officials say discharging the language is a symbolic step, but an important one.
“How could we call ourselves an inclusive community with the words ‘This home shall not be sold to a non-white person’ buried in the deeds?” Mayor Zach Lindstrom said at the state of the city address Monday.
Racially restrictive covenants, found in deeds around the Twin Cities and Minnesota, were legally enforceable tools of racial segregation for the first half of the 20th century. They barred homes’ sale to, and sometimes even occupancy by, anyone who wasn’t white until 1948, when they became unenforceable. Mapping Prejudice, a University of Minnesota research project uncovering these covenants, has found more than 33,000 of them in Minnesota, including more than 500 in Mounds View.
Many local cities have partnered with Just Deeds, a coalition that helps cities and their residents learn about and discharge covenants. In 2019, the Legislature passed a law allowing homeowners to add language to their deeds that discharges racist covenants but doesn’t erase them from the record. Earlier this year, Mounds View was the first to pass an ordinance requiring it. The city is also helping residents navigate the process.
Just because these covenants are no longer enforceable doesn’t mean they haven’t had long-lasting consequences, Kirsten Delegard, Mapping Prejudice project director, said at a Mounds View City Council meeting this summer: Minneapolis homes with racial covenants are worth 15% more than those without, she said. And neighborhoods with covenants remain the whitest parts of the Twin Cities.
Mounds View residents Rene and Steven Johnson were troubled to learn from Mapping Prejudice that their house, and many homes in their neighborhood, had racially restrictive covenants on them. It took some effort, including a trip to the Ramsey County Recorder’s Office, to find the document, which not only contained race restrictions but barred unmarried couples from owning the home.
The couple got their covenant discharged, and educated the city about the process, Rene Johnson said. That helped lead to the ordinance requiring covenants to be discharged before sale.
