SAINT LOUIS PARK, Minn. — Several cities across the Twin Cities metro are planning to open their outdoor ice rinks this weekend.

Saint Louis Park and Edina both opened their rinks Friday afternoon. Minneapolis and Eden Prairie will officially open their outdoor rinks on Saturday, according to their city websites. The Saint Paul city website says a few outdoor rinks in the city will be open this weekend and a few others could be open in the coming days.

Larry Umphrey is the Park Superintendent in Saint Louis Park. He says the weather this winter has been great for making ice.

“We’ve really had Mother Nature cooperate this year, unlike past years,” Umphrey says. “I’ve been dealing with ice and outdoor ice for 25 years, since the late 90s, and last year was the toughest I’ve ever seen.”

During the unusually warm winter last year most municipalities only managed to keep their ice rinks open for a handful of days. This warm streak has motivated a lot of cities to take a long hard look at the costs and benefits of operating outdoor ice rinks.

“I think there is some analysis going on within the cities of what they’re going to do moving forward. I know here in Saint Louis Park that we believe these rinks are an important amenity,” Umphrey says.

The city of Saint Louis Park maintains 18 ice rinks within the city limits. In Minneapolis, the parks board recently decided to close a few ice rinks, partially due to climate concerns.

The decision to close those ice rinks was also motivated by budgetary concerns.

Umphrey says building and maintaining outdoor ice rinks requires more work than most people realize.

“We actually started getting these ice rinks ready 30 days ago,” Umphrey says. “We’ve had to flood these rinks hundreds of times. Our trucks hold about 900 gallons and we come out and flood basically one full truck every time we come through. So, there are hundreds of thousands of gallons of water down on these rinks.”

Weighing the costs and benefits of outdoor ice rinks can be challenging because the benefits can’t be measured in dollars and cents.

Every ice skater on the rink is a person who is having fun, experiencing the outdoors, and likely creating memories, and you can’t put a price on that.

“We’re the State of Hockey. The state of ice skating. We want people to be able to skate,” Umphrey says.

While several cities across the metro are opening their rinks this weekend the big question is how long they will stay open. Next week we could see several days with temps above freezing.

Umphrey says the rinks should be fine if the warm temps only stick around for a few days, but if the temperatures stay above freezing for longer than three or four days the ice will melt quickly and crews will have to work hard to keep the rinks open.

STILLWATER, Minn. — Behind the locked doors of Minnesota Correctional Facility Stillwater, change is happening.

“When we started this thing, we said we was going to make doing the right thing the cool thing to do,” Tito Campbell said. “Because we made the wrong thing the cool thing to do for so long, right?”

Campbell is the restorative justice specialist with the Minnesota Department of Corrections. The restorative justice program works to help change incarcerated individuals’ mindset, embracing that crime is something that affects all parties involved – the victim, the one who committed the crime, and the community.

That mindset is one that they discuss with a group of 16 mentors, who work inside the prison as fellow members of the incarcerated population. Those mentors then use those teachings to help mentor others, helping them approach conflict or their own day-to-day lives differently.

“Prison doesn’t just have to be prison, you know, prison can be a place where you can actually reinvent yourself,” Campbell said.

Earlier this year, KARE11 spoke with members of the restorative justice program as part of another story about the changes the DOC was making to the mail system. We spoke again to three of them.

“Our job as being mentors is to be able to identify that, to be trauma-informed, to be able to convey what a person may have went through,” Ramone Vercher said.

“We have to come to the table together, that’s how we change culture,” Rich Scheibe said.

Inmates say the program works since they can relate to those who are needing help – they share life experiences, and can use that to help.

“Having some type of insight and level of understanding about those things equips, gives you a better set of tools to be able to actually help somebody,” Lennell Martin said.

All three men say their past is a part of their story, but it doesn’t define them – and they’re working on helping others change their perspective as well.

“I’m able to identify with that persona and be able to help them identify what they’ve been through with traumas,” Vercher said. “It’s helpful.”

Campbell said there’s another group of mentors that will be added soon. He said the goal is to eventually add every facility in the DOC system, with mentors at every location.

ZIMMERMAN, Minn. — There was plenty of anxious energy throughout Zimmerman Elementary School on Friday, as students counted down to the start of holiday break.

But in some homes around town, there was a different kind of anxious energy.

“You worry, like, what am I going to do now?” said Nicole Heinz. “My kids, they eat a lot, so I’m like, ‘Are they going to eat me out of house and home while I’m sitting here trying to be merry because it’s Christmas?'”

Heinz remembers the first year she faced those questions. In December 2021, she was a single mother of two, who had just bought a home for her family, which included her mother.

“My mom was like my daycare with the kids,” Heinz said. “She took care of my kids for me so I could work, and then she just suddenly passed away.

I was at rock bottom. I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I couldn’t work as much, without her. When you’re a single mom and you have two kids and you just bought a home, the first thing you think of is, ‘What am I going to do? How am I going to feed my kids?'”

Fortunately, the social worker at her children’s school helped answer that question.

Minnesota nonprofit Every Meal had just begun working with local volunteers to provide bags of shelf-stable food to help ensure children, and their families, had enough food to make it through the weekend.

“It’s a very smooth system and families can sign up anonymously,” said Paul Gisselquist, a social worker at Zimmerman Elementary. “Kids, at this age, don’t even know the story behind the bag, they just know somebody is dropping off something… for their family.”

“At the time, I didn’t know what it consisted of,” Heinz said. “I just saw the paper when (my son) brought it home and I said, ‘We’ll check it out.’ It took a lot of weight off. Granted, it wasn’t much but it worked, and it helped knowing that I’m not exactly alone doing this.”

Four years later, Every Meal serves 20 kids at Zimmerman Elementary.

“It’s just less than 10% of the students that are taking advantage of the program,” Gisselquist said.

Thanks to a Twin Cities warehouse, and countless volunteers and donors, Every Meal is now serving 12,000 kids in 375 schools.

“At the same time, we have 181 schools on our waiting list,” said Every Meal’s founder, Rob Williams. “Almost all of us, at some point in our lives, need support from an external source; whether it’s from the government, our faith community, our neighbors, our friends, our family. And that’s okay. That’s what community is.” 

“Not only did it help me, but my kids, love bringing the bags home,” Heinz said.

Speaking of kids, Heinz’s family continues to grow. She now has a two-year-old son, two new foster sons and a husband who works two jobs.

“He works a lot,” she said. “It’s a lot on him too to wonder, is it going to be enough?” 

But this year she’s a little less anxious, thanks to a little bit of help.

“I have a cupboard full and my kids always know where to go to get a vegetable for dinner time,” she said. “It warms my heart knowing that they’re going to go to sleep with a belly that’s full.”

That’s the kind of feeling she wants to help spread this holiday season.

“I just want people to know that it’s okay to ask for help,” Heinz said. “It’s okay to struggle and ask for help at the same time. One day at a time, that’s all I can say.”

For more information about Every Meal, click here.