Create Positive Change
Each time you shop at the co-op, you have a chance to directly support local community partners by donating your 10-cent reusable bag credits and rounding up your purchases to the nearest dollar. It may only be a few cents or spare change, but your generosity makes a huge impact — to the tune of over $11,000 each month for our Positive Change recipients!
Ain Dah Yung Center
May’s Positive Change recipient is Ain Dah Yung Center (ADYC), meaning “Our Home” in Ojibwe. ADYC provides a healing place within the community for American Indian youth and families to thrive in safety and wholeness.
ADYC is the only 24/7/365 shelter for youth in the East Metro and the only American Indian youth shelter in the Twin Cities. For 36 years, ADYC has provided culturally responsive services to help Native youth imagine a hopeful, safe and independent future.
ADYC provides emergency shelter, transitional housing and newly added permanent supportive housing, as well as wraparound services including life skills training, education support, parenting education, family reunification and preservation services, children’s mental health services, chemical prevention services, workforce and entrepreneurship opportunities, and Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) court and legal advocacy services.
New residents at the shelter often come with just the clothes on their backs. ADYC provides residents the basic necessities they need to find stability again, such as a food pantry to stock their new homes and a teaching kitchen in which residents learn how to cook basic dishes and prepare meals. Food stability is a key life skill that residents will take with them into traditional housing.
Funds raised at co-op registers in May will be used to keep the food pantry stocked and provide transportation to and from the pantry for families to access much-needed food and basic supplies.