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Editor's note: Nicole Melancon is a travel writer based in Minnesota. In this first installment of our new Community Voices series, she is sharing what it's like to be in Minnesota right now.

Media attention moves on fast, but what Nicole and others are saying is that the need to restore their community will be here for months to come.

With this piece, we hope to spread the awareness a little bit further. Keep reading to see how you can help.

For the past month, I’ve been volunteering at a tiny church in South Minneapolis that is providing food for over 29,000 families and counting. 

While looking around at the makeshift assembly line of rice, beans, pasta, canned tuna, mac and cheese, and soup on a recent evening, the church pastor said,

It looks like we’re responding to the aftermath of a hurricane here.” 

I can attest – it does. 

To feed this many families requires the daily effort of hundreds and hundreds of volunteers, running up and down stairs, packing diapers and kits, and filling cars with two volunteers each (a buddy is required for safety) to deliver roughly 5 - 7 meals, an undertaking of about 2 hours. 

Imagine the massive effort our community is taking to feed and help our neighbors. And this is just one church.

The need is immense, and every single person I know in my community is doing something:

We're protesting, observing, and monitoring ICE activity, driving kids to school, or standing guard outside schools with our red whistles to make sure children (at least the ones who are still attending, as many are not) are getting to and from school safely.

We ARE NOT OK in Minneapolis.

I opened the news today, and suddenly the world has shifted to other things. 

But we continue to live in absolute fear, anger, and heartbreak as our city and state are occupied by over 2,300 militarized masked federal agents equipped with AR-15 assault rifles who have little regard for the law or for our shared humanity. 

After two long months of violent abductions, human rights violations, the killing of two American citizens, and endless protests, nothing seems to have changed in Minnesota.

Our local news and social media have been showing the country and the world what is happening here every day, yet I'm astounded that so many remain silent, failing to put pressure on the administration to stop this ordeal.

Workers from local companies have been detained. Other businesses, such as Minneapolis-based Target, have even been used as a staging ground to make arrests.

While some businesses and industry leaders have produced a neutralized response, many have not spoken up, perhaps in fear of retribution or the impact on the bottom line.

As a travel writer passionate about sustainable, responsible travel, I've been disappointed in the tourism industry, too.

The hotels, airlines, and many other travel organizations have said nothing, even as their services are assisting ICE (by lodging them in their hotels, transporting detainees, and more).

We have been on the front end of this for weeks, feeding thousands of our neighbors who are too afraid to leave their homes to commute to work and school, get groceries, or seek medical care.

Using secret Signal groups, we are volunteering to help drive children to school. 

We are gathering at churches, food banks, and other non-profits to package boxes of food, hygiene, and diapers for the tens of thousands of families who haven’t stepped outside their homes in months. 

We are tracking ICE agents who are following school buses (and terrorizing those on board) to ensure our federal government doesn’t take the children. 

Collectively, we have gathered to peacefully protest in the sub-zero streets of Minneapolis, to sing at the vigils of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, and to do whatever we can financially and emotionally to support our community. 

We are doing this at the risk of being arrested, violently attacked, pepper-sprayed, or even killed. 

While ICE has been reduced by 700 last week, we still have 2,300 agents in Minnesota. That’s a lethal force almost four times larger than the Minneapolis police.

Alongside other Minnesotans, I'm frustrated that what is happening in our state feels like old news now. 

We want ICE out now. We want our lives back. We are still under duress, and the need to get people back to normalcy is ongoing and vast. 

Our economy has been affected (especially small, immigrant-owned businesses), and our people and community are in dire need of assistance.

The impact of this invasion will take months to unravel, long after ICE has left Minnesota.

What can you do to help? 

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For the most direct action, please donate to DHH Church: this is the church where I've been volunteering for the past month. It provides food and rent assistance for over 29,000 families in the Twin Cities metro. They also need volunteers and donations of food and hygiene items.

I've also compiled a list of other organizations that are assisting families on the ground.

Please consider donating, or if you are locally-based, volunteer your time, energy, and money at a non-profit delivering food or other essential items.

💡 Minneapolis Mutual Aid Directory: Expansive list of aid and community resources across Minnesota.

💡 MN50501 Mutual Aid: Regional resources supporting those affected by ICE.

💡 Stand With Minnesota: vetted statewide donation directory.

💡 Latino Economic Development Center: a business emergency relief fund to support small businesses in our community.

💡 Black Collective Foundation MN: Minnesota's first Black community foundation working to create a thriving ecosystem of Black-led change.

💡 The Asian Americans/Pacific Islanders in Philanthropy (AAPIP): Twin Cities Rapid Response Fund.

The Twin Cities are home to the largest urban Hmong population in the United States. They also have the largest concentration of Karen refugees from Myanmar in the country. We are living through the greatest rise in large-scale detention and deportations of Southeast Asian groups (Hmong, Cambodian, Vietnamese, Lao, Karen) in U.S. history. Many other Asian Minnesotans, who make up the largest immigrant population of any group in the state, have also been detained (this includes people from South Asian communities).

💡 CLUES: MN's largest Latino-led nonprofit whose mission is to advance social and economic equity and wellbeing for Latinos.

💡 First Nations Kitchen: distributes hot meals and groceries to families each week.

💡 The Constellation Fund: a relief effort to support nonprofits embedded in impacted neighborhoods that are helping with emergency rent assistance, direct aid for workers and businesses, emergency grants for students, and childcare for parents who can't miss work.

💡 The International Institute of MN: urgently needed legal services and resources to stay safe for Minnesota's immigrants and refugees.

💡 The Minneapolis Foundation's One MPLS fund: supports community needs amid the ICE surge.

If you are here in Minnesota, consider shopping local to support the small businesses that are struggling right now.

💡 MPLS for MPLS by local tourism organization, Meet Minneapolis, runs this list of local restaurants and cafes.

💡 Kristie Kimball assembled this community solidarity list of restaurants, bars, and cafes to support.

💡 The Salt Cure Recovery Restaurant Fund supports restaurant workers and provides emergency aid grants for Minneapolis restaurants.

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