Thriving through community collaboration in rural Minnesota
MAHUBE-OTWA Wadena office building.
Founded in 1965, MAHUBE-OTWA Community Action Partnership provides a range of upward mobility services in a vast rural area. The name MAHUBE-OTWA is a combination of the five counties in Northwest Minnesota where the organization has administrative offices: Mahnomen, Hubbard, Becker, Otter Tail, and Wadena counties. Now, MAHUBE-OTWA takes a whole family approach, working with children, parents, and elders simultaneously to ensure multi-generational upward mobility. In 2023 the 185-member team at MAHUBE-OTWA served 20 counties and three tribal nations.
A Mandate to Meet Community Needs
Sixty years ago, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Economic Opportunity Act into law giving each community tools to end poverty in ways that best met their need. While the services have been modified to adapt to a changing economy, MAHUBE-OTWA’s core purpose – help people help themselves and each other – and values of being client-focused, community-minded, and resourceful, have remained the same.
On any given day, a visitor to a MAHUBE-OTWA office might hear someone trying to read Ojibwe signage, perhaps an elder who knows the long words are a string of smaller words and doesn’t hesitate. Or maybe it’s a young parent working on reclaiming the language lost to his generation that he wants to pass on to his children.
Waiting areas have resources for families and ways to entertain young ones as well.
Ojibwe language signs are prominently displayed in MAHUBE-OTWA offices.
On the monitor located in the reception area, a visitor might see images from a recent photo project where young parents shared an image of something that gave them strength – for some it was a healthy routine, for others a religious practice, or their children, or a big accomplishment, or their ancestors. The photos flash across the monitor with encouraging words for other families who are trying to find their footing
A visitor might also taste a handful of cherry tomatoes picked from the nearby Medicine Garden by a volunteer and placed near the front desk for nourishment. Or smell the sage from a healing ceremony in the conference room. Quite often there is a young child nearby eager to share a toy or give a high-five.
“Community is literally our middle name.”
— Liz Kuoppala, - MAHUBE-OTWA Executive Director
Community-minded Partnerships
MAHUBE-OTWA manages over 1,100 organizational relationships through which it lives its value of being community-minded. In some instances, this can look like negotiating with a landlord to give someone a second chance, helping a teen get reconnected with school, or partnering with legal aid to help a family access benefits.
In others, it can mean convening quarterly meetings of the Family Service Collaborative – which includes superintendents, public health, social services, mental health, and probation professionals – to work on integrated services for families, or bringing local businesses together with faith community partners for a Poverty Simulation to help them experience firsthand the daily life of the families they serve.
MAHUBE-OTWA Coaches guide families on their journey together
A grantee partner since 2020 in the Quality of Life Domain, MAHUBE-OTWA has adapted its service delivery model to a Whole Family Approach while meeting families where they are, and leveraging support to provide upward mobility while preventing backsliding.
The partnership with MACP has expanded the depth and breadth of MAHUBE-OTWA’s work. For example, after being connected with MACP grantee partner Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health, MAHUBE-OTWA began to focus not only on Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) in its trauma-informed work but to lift up the value of family and culture and other Benevolent Childhood Experiences (BCEs).
Collaboration is essential for MAHUBE-OTWA leadership and staff to work effectively within communities.
“MACP funding and partnership has helped us pivot from a scarcity mindset to an abundance mindset. We know we have plenty of natural resources, we know indigenous communities have thrived in these rural areas for millennia and are thriving still, we know rural areas have a way of pulling together to bring in the hay or to put up a barn. We are leaning into these collaborative and integrated approaches as our top strategy to end poverty.”
– MAHUBE-OTWA Executive Director Liz Kuoppala
By listening closely to their program participants (including hiring some on as staff, contracting others as context experts, or still others serving on the Board of Directors), MAHUBE-OTWA continues to evolve its services to meet changing needs and opportunities.
Recent examples include a Winter Car Prep program where families enrolled in Education or Employment Pathways are provided a chance each fall to get their car checked for tires, batteries, wipers, and lights to keep them safe in the winter.
There were also outreach events in Mahnomen and Naytahwaush, where a combined 77 families, 119 parents, 39 one-parent households and 40 two-parent households were provided with giveaway items like diapers, wipes, personal care products, and kid games. These events are an opportune time as well to share information about MAHUBE-OTWA’s programs and services. A community engagement bus, purchased as a part of MACP support, works well to transport staff and resources throughout the multi-county region.
MAHUBE-OTWA staff take in the community garden at the Detroit Lakes MAHUBE-OTWA office.
MAHUBE-OTWA staff with a member of the Wadena community
Community Engagement bus in action. Pictured L to R: Shanna Grefsrud, Kayla Johnson, Dana Patsie, Cynthia McDonough, Wayne Somes, Destiny Weaver, Tricia Shaw
Former Head Start preschoolers who are now completing high school and headed to college have an opportunity to receive a scholarship for another “head start.” MAHUBE-OTWA is able to provide Barrier Elimination Funds with MACP support, which are flexible resources to meet needs that cannot otherwise be met with public funds such as school needs for kids and adults like laptops or textbooks, car repairs, and utilities.
Last year, MAHUBE-OTWA served nearly 18,000 people with a range of upward mobility services.
None of these services or interactions were merely transactional. All of them required partnership with clients and community. This is how MAHUBE-OTWA in a vast rural region of Northwest Minnesota is moving the needle on poverty, not by fighting against it but by building community and making meaningful connections.
Story by Liz Kuoppala, MAHUBE-OTWA. Photos by Ne-Dah-Ness Rose Greene. Video courtesy of MAHUBE-OTWA.
