The new residents of Wellstone House are so excited for this year! We’ve been spending the last (almost) month getting to know our neighborhood, our job placement sites, and perhaps most importantly, each other. Our house, in the Powderhorn Park neighborhood of Minneapolis is beautiful, homey, and welcoming!

Despite our love for our new home, we quickly learned that our house has some fun “quirks,” including dead animals! We started off our LVC journey strong when we bonded over a dead mouse just before going to bed on our first night together. At 11:30 PM after quickly deciding bedroom assignments, this discovery was a unique bonding moment of humor and disgust. Needless to say, we quickly learned who wasn’t afraid of getting their hands dirty, who had a strong stomach, who was a strong cheerleader, and who liked taking out the trash!

Dead animals aside, some highlights of our past month together include:

• Successfully hosting a Twin Cities 2018-19 LVC’er get together
• Exchanging meals for homegrown produce with our lovely neighbor across the street
• Sharing dinner together almost every day of the week
• Babysitting three kids together at our house
• Sharing our “rose-bud-thorn” (one positive thing about our week, one thing we’re looking forward to, and one thing that’s been challenging during the week) every Sunday during our house meeting
• Attending social justice events in the Twin Cities such as a fundraiser for MPD150, a rally for reproductive freedom, a spoken word event, and more

Here are a few little snippets about each of us:

Mari currently works at the Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota as the Communications Associate. She enjoys reading, biking, and eating rice. She enjoys biking to work with fellow LVCer Kristen, and is looking forward to spending time with her housemates and the community.

Maya enjoys playing violin, cooking, and napping. Maya is currently working with Lutheran Social Services in the Refugee Services department! She is enjoying living in intentional community with her housemates and learning more about Refugee Services in the Twin Cities and in the nation as a whole.

Lydia is originally from Saint Paul and just graduated from Luther College with a social work degree. She enjoys reading, listening to country music and following celebrity gossip. Lydia is serving at Neighborhood House on the west side of Saint Paul. She is looking forward to more late-night talks with her housemates and getting to know more about the Twin Cities.

This year, Natalie is happy to be working as the Campus Kitchen Coordinator in the Sabo Center for Democracy and Citizenship at Augsburg University! Campus Kitchen is a program that works to reduce food waste on campus and share food with people in the Cedar-Riverside neighborhood. She is also pumped to be volunteering as a “coach” in a local elementary school, working with kids to make change on issues they care about. When she’s not working at Augsburg, you can catch her going for long walks, listening to podcasts, canvassing for political candidates, and rewatching Gilmore Girls episodes.

Isaiah is thrilled to be spending a year collaborating with New City Church and the Minnesota Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church at the intersection of Christian ministry and community organizing, especially focusing on anti-racism and environmental justice. Here he’s found an outlet to apply his college studies in Spanish; Bible & religion; and peace, justice and conflict theory. He gets to take a course at Luther Seminary this fall, entitled “Race and Protestantism in America.” He is also passionate about telling travel stories, cleaning leftovers out of the fridge, jamming to Calle 13 and Bomba Estereo, watching his 18-month-old nephew grow, and training for a big PR in this year’s Twin Cities marathon.

Haley describes herself as an avid tea drinker, farmers market lover, birth doula, and feminism advocate. She enjoys home cooked meals, baking, and enjoying the outdoors with friends and family. As the organizer for NARAL Pro-Choice MN, she is enjoying the fusing of her passion for women’s healthcare and supporting others with reproductive rights advocacy with policy.

Goodbye for now!

Wellstone House