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.”
DULUTH – The Minnesota and Wisconsin transportation departments will make upgrades to the Richard I. Bong Memorial Bridge in the summer of 2025, in preparation for the structure to become the premiere route between this city and Superior during reconstruction of the Blatnik Bridge.
Built in 1961, the Blatnik Bridge carries 33,000 vehicles per day along Interstate 535 and Hwy. 53. It will be entirely rebuilt, starting in 2027, with the help of $1 billion in federal funding announced earlier this year. MnDOT and WisDOT are splitting the remaining costs of the project, about $4 million each.
According to MnDOT, projects on the Bong Bridge will include spot painting, concrete surface repairs to the bridge abutments, concrete sealer on the deck, replacing rubber strip seal membranes on the main span’s joints and replacing light poles on the bridge and its points of entry. It’s expected to take two months, transportation officials said during a recent meeting at the Superior Public Library.
During this time there will be occasional lane closures, detours at the off-ramps, and for about three weeks the sidewalk path alongside the bridge will be closed.
The Bong Bridge, which crosses the St. Louis River, opened to traffic in 1985 and is the lesser-used of the two bridges. Officials said they want to keep maintenance to a minimum on the span during the Blatnik project, which is expected to take four years.
Red Wing will celebrate the grand opening of its first permanent set of pickleball courts next week with an “inaugural play” on the six courts at Colvill Park on the banks of the Mississippi, between a couple of marinas and next to the aquatic center.
Among the first to get to play on the new courts will be David Anderson, who brought pickleball to the local YMCA in 2008, before the nationwide pickleball craze took hold, and Denny Yecke, at 92 the oldest pickleball player in Red Wing.
The inaugural play begins at 11 a.m. Tuesday, with a rain date of the next day. Afterward will be food and celebration at the Colvill Park Courtyard building.
Tim Sletten, the city’s former police chief, discovered America’s fastest-growing sport a decade ago after he retired. With fellow members of the Red Wing Pickleball Group, he’d play indoors at the local YMCA or outdoors at a local school, on courts made for other sports. But they didn’t have a permanent place, so they approached the city about building one.
When a city feasibility study came up with a high cost, about $350,000, Sletten’s group got together to raise money.
The courts are even opening ahead of schedule, originally set for 2025.
REDWOOD FALLS, MINN. – A truck crashing into a school bus left nine with minor injuries Wednesday morning in rural Redwood County, a statement from the Redwood County Sheriff’s office said.
The bus driver, serving the Wabasso Public School District, failed to yield when entering the intersection of County Road 7 and 280th Street, the statement said.
Deputies received word of the crash around 8:15 a.m. and identified the bus driver as Edward Aslesen, 72, of Milroy.
The nine injured passengers on the bus were transported to local hospitals, the statement said.
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