“Hoyo” is the Somali word for mother.

When sisters Mariam, Halima and Asha Mohamed launched Hoyo in 2015, their goal was to employ Somali women making a much-loved Somali snack: the deep-fried, beef-filled pastries known as sambusas.

Since that time, Hoyo has grown into a local food success story, serving 200,000 sambusas a year at schools across Minnesota. Hoyo sambusas are also sold in co-ops and supermarkets.

The business is one of 12 local food producers that recently received microgrants from the Market Entry Fund (TMEF), a St. Paul nonprofit that works with food and beverage producers from underrepresented communities.

TMEF’s micro grants program provides $5,000 to $20,000 grants to food startups. The goal is to help small businesses overcome barriers in the packaged food industry.

This year’s recipients included a range of food producers, including Taiwanese sausage maker Linko Food and Junita’s Jar, which sells cookies at Target.

“The only reason that we are still here and survived is really the support of these people who are still with us, helping us as we speak,” Hoyo co-founder Mariam Mohamed said. “Any ethnic group or any person who’s starting a food [business] you have to have support, people who know the food, who are in the food industry, people who can guide you.”

Kayla Yang-Best, TMEF president, said the grant program started in 2019 and was born of necessity.

A man is dead and police are searching for suspects following a shooting early Saturday in north Minneapolis.

According to police, officers responded to a ShotSpotter activation just before 6 a.m. in the 1700 block of 26th Avenue N. They found a man with life-threatening wounds and gave him aid until emergency personnel arrived to help.

Despite those efforts, the man died at the scene. His name and the cause of death will be released by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner in coming days.

Investigators believe the shooting happened when a fight at a nearby party escalated, spilling onto the street before gunfire rang out.

“Today, tragically, another family has been ripped apart by gun violence,” Police Chief Brian O’Hara said in a statement. “Our investigators are committed to solving this crime and giving a voice to those who can no longer speak for themselves.”

One man was arrested at the scene for disorderly conduct, but investigators were still looking into whether he played a role in the shooting.

Anyone with information about the incident was asked to contact Minneapolis police.

“I will be blasted for this, but sometimes you are hoping the kid commits a crime because then there’s a place for them to go where you’re not worried where they’re going to sleep tonight,” said Benjamin Stromberg, an assistant St. Louis County attorney whose office handles child protection and juvenile delinquency cases. “Nobody wants these kids in detention — we all understand that. But sometimes it’s the one place where they are not going to be hurting anybody or hurting themselves.”

Residential facilities often have long waitlists and deny kids if they aren’t able to handle their specific issues, such as sexually aggressive behavior or substance use disorder.

Psychiatric residential treatment facilities, known as PRTFs, are one step below hospitalization and are supposed to take children with severe aggression, who present a safety risk to themselves or others. This year 281 kids were referred for placement in the four such facilities in the state, according to Department of Human Services (DHS) data, but only 66 got in.

While the facilities are licensed for 150 kids, they were only serving 85 as of June, according to the therapeutic provider association AspireMN. Staffing challenges keep them from taking more kids, executives at several PRTFs said, and while they want to accept as many children as possible, they have to ensure a kid is the right fit.

“Can they manage the [child’s] behavior with the culture, with staff and kids that they have?” said Larry Pajari, CEO of Northwood Children’s Services, which runs a PRTF. “Nobody wants to put other kids that may be vulnerable at risk either, so that’s the balancing act.”

Only 25 children from Hennepin County, the state’s most populous, have gotten into the psychiatric facilities since the first one opened in 2018, county children’s mental health area manager Neerja Singh testified in court, citing DHS data. Singh, a former deputy director of behavioral health at DHS, said children of color generally have not been able to get mental health services at the same rate as white youth.