Star Tribune
Sanneh Foundation is buying houses to offer affordable housing for its employees
Tony Sanneh’s foundation helps low-income kids through free sports camps, educational programs and food distributions. But some of his own employees struggle too.
After learning that six employees were grappling with homelessness, the Sanneh Foundation started buying up houses to rent at affordable rates to entry-level employees. On Friday, the foundation closed on the purchase of its sixth house on St. Paul’s East Side.
“We look at it like a 401(k) — a benefit people may need,” Sanneh said.
“They’re invested not just in the work I’m doing, but me as a person,” said DeAnthoney “Kojak” Acon, 23, an AmeriCorps VISTA member who works on social media and marketing for the St. Paul-based nonprofit. “This is a pretty big moment for us.”
Acon has faced homelessness and housing insecurity for most of his life, he said, but on Saturday he moved into one of the Sanneh Foundation’s houses — his first stable home as an adult.
“I’m building up my life, I’m rebuilding up my foundation,” he said. “It means a lot to me because it’s literally life-changing.”
It’s the first foray into housing programs for the foundation led by Sanneh, a retired Major League Soccer star. And now he wants to provide affordable housing not just for his employees but other nonprofit workers as well.
The foundation is proposing a $35 million Innovation Center off University Avenue in St. Paul with 100 units for nonprofit, education and healthcare workers. The facility also would offer training programs and house the Sanneh Foundation’s offices.
U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith have requested for $4 million in federal funding for the project, while bills at the Legislature are seeking $6 million in state funding.
“We’re trying to do this to scale,” said Sanneh, who was on the 2002 U.S. World Cup team and retired from pro soccer in 2010. “We could help more than just our nonprofit.”
Since starting the foundation in 2003, he’s pushed it beyond soccer and sports camps, adding education programs and food services to families in need during the COVID-19 pandemic.
When he first heard about some of his own employees having to couch-hop, without a stable place to lay their heads at night, Sanneh offered them spare bedrooms at his Bloomington house. In 2019, the foundation began buying houses with rooms that employees could rent.
The sixth purchase on Friday, a $350,000 recently remodeled house, was accomplished with the help of a $50,000 grant from the St. Paul Area Association of Realtors Charitable Foundation.
The 14 Sanneh Foundation employees who live at the six houses pay modest rent and expenses. All are entry-level workers or AmeriCorps members, who receive an educational award and are paid a living allowance amounting to about $17,000 a year.
“It gives workers a lot of stability,” said Faydane Ouro-Akondo, 23, who works as the foundation’s program coordinator and moved into the new house Friday. “If you don’t have to worry about a place to sleep, it frees up time for other things.”
The foundation has also hired a social worker who helps employees in a workforce development program.
Sanneh estimates the foundation has spent about $1 million on the six houses and townhouses. But he said it’s a worthy investment, especially for an organization that recruits a diverse workforce to reflect the youth they work with in the community. People of color make up 70% of the nonprofit’s employees.
“To change something generationally, we have to start at both ends,” Sanneh said, referring to both the foundation’s employees and the children they serve. “It’s only making what we do better.”
The Lynx are in the hot seat.
The team lost Game 3 of the WNBA Finals series against the New York Liberty on Wednesday night 77-80, setting the stage for a decisive match at Target Center on Friday night. Fans in the arena reacted with resounding disappointment after Sabrina Ionescu sunk a three-pointer to break away from the tie game and dashed the Lynx’s chance at forcing overtime.
Before we get to the reactions, first things first: The Lynx set an attendance record, filling Target Center with 19,521 spectators for the first time in franchise history. That’s nearly 500 more than when Caitlin Clark was in town with the Indiana Fever earlier this year.
Despite leading by double digits for much of the game, the Lynx began the fourth quarter with a one-point lead over the Liberty and struggled to stay more than two or three points ahead throughout.
The Liberty took the lead with minutes to go in the fourth quarter and folks were practically despondent.
Of course, there were people who were in it solely for the spectacle. Nothing more.
The Lynx took a commanding lead early in the first quarter and ended the first half in winning position, setting a particularly jovial mood among the fanbase to start the game.
Inside Target Center, arena announcers spent a few minutes before the game harassing Lynx fans — and Liberty fans — who had not yet donned the complementary T-shirts draped over every seat.
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.
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