Community Support Connections FEBRUARY 2025
As we CELEBRATE being present with each other We encourage you to get vaccinated and BOOSTED - but if you can’t - to stay safe
Read our Social Benefit Goals Report for 2023 to learn more about our impacts in the community.
In response to the murder of George Floyd, we are called to join the necessary work of reform and justice. Butter Bakery is what it is because Lake Street, the 38th Street Cultural Corridor, and Nicollet’s Eat Street are diverse and vibrant. Join the efforts to invest in and rebuild our independent, immigrant and BIPOC businesses. Financial support, coalition building and community wealth building can be provided through We Love Lake Street, 38th Street United, and the Cultural Wellness Center as we envision a stronger Minneapolis!
Minneapolis has passed a bold Climate Equity Plan — if you live in MPLS - GET INVOLVED and take Climate Action! We celebrate the initial 10 million dollars of funding and know there is so much more to do! There are next steps are dedicated to “block by block” greening of our city and efforts to shut down the garbage burner. We’re working with UNIDOS and Minneapolis Interfaith Power and Light in their efforts to build climate resilience.
finding a bit of BUTTER love in the Community
Jungle Theater is now showing The Effect — alas no intermission so we’ll hope to be back with intermission cookies after this intermission.
February Donations head to support EMPTY BOWLS KINGFIELD 2025 Sunday February 9th! Butter’s classic vegan soup - the Lentil-Brown Rice (LBR) - will be part of the selections from several awesome neighborhood restaurants.
We’re sending December/January donations of $200 to the ALL SQUARE team - for their Unspoken Sentence Campaign - Thank you!
Green Central Elementary School and Lyndale Elementary School, Barton Elementary, and Lake Country Montessori School - are our local schools and we honor teachers and students on Wednesdays with a discounted drink for any teacher, staff member, or student! Just show off an ID or claim your school for your weekly discount! We connect monthly with Green Central’s PTA “pastries with the principal” event. On Monday, January 20th we raised $360 for Anthony Middle School PTA. Lyndale Elementary will be raising funds with us on April 20!
No - there isn’t a second Butter Bakery Cafe but we have many kindred spirits out there! Our friends at ALL SQUARE, FAWKES ALLEY COFFEE, LUTUNJI’S PALATE, and CAFE MEOW should be on your friend list too. Our partnership continues with WILDFLYER Coffee supporting work mentorship for youth experiencing homelessness. We celebrate the growing network of social enterprise partners around the city including FLAVA CAFE
Save the Boundary Waters Coalition - efforts to stop pipeline construction and copper mining continue in northern Minnesota. As a business voice we continue to keep the pressure on to protect the wilderness. We celebrate with the coalition on the recent 20 Year Moratorium on mining in the BWCA but can’t stop there.
Support the efforts of Hennepin County to increase organics recycling composting for both residents and businesses - one of their grantees, FOREVER WARE - provides our ZERO-WASTE takeout options. Check out the Waste-Wise campaign - MN-inmize. Join us for PLASTIC-FREE FEBRUARY challenge!
As a former teacher, I cheer on the student/baker/gardeners at GREEN GARDEN BAKERY and the crew at SPARK-Y who support sustainable food systems by educating students, as well as the staff and young adults participating in Project for Pride in Living’s LEAP program.
*City Advocacy work – Coming out of the pandemic has changed the narrative about support for small businesses and their employees across the country — Our local raise the minimum wage movement is still pushing for One Fair Wage NATIONALLY through RAISE. Dan was connected to the Work Advisory Committee for the City of Minneapolis whose efforts built a Wage Theft ordinance to fill in where State ordinance leaves off. We encourage efforts to continue this advocacy for workplace improvements through shaping a meaningful Minneapolis Labor Standards Board.
*State advocacy efforts– Dan and the Butter crew are celebrating a tremendous session in 2024 that brought great strides toward adequate, affordable child care, housing, transit, health care as well as access to capital, so that small neighborhood businesses can thrive. Earned Sick and Safe Time and Paid Family and Medical Leave had been on Dan’s testimony list for 6 years and they are both signed into law! Want to get involved in the 2025 session efforts? Just drop Dan a note!
Need a way to get connected? TakeActionMN! Shop your values through Main Street Alliance! Connect with the Social Enterprise Impact Ecosystem Collective and digger deeper into the values that drive businesses for good.
*National advocacy efforts – Dan was in DC in March 2023 for a Leadership Training Institute through Main Street Alliance and serves in a Leadership Circle role for this organization. In December of 2023 , Dan received an MSA Campaign Award for efforts to pass Paid Leave here in Minnesota.
Catch a glimpse of Dan’s testimonies:
Committee on Education and Labor, Subcommittee on Workforce Protections hearing “Standing Up for Workers: Preventing Wage Theft and Recovering Stolen Wages”, May 2022. oral presentation link
Joint Economic Committee hearing: Help Wanted: A Stronger Labor Market for Robust Growth. October 2021. You can read Dan’s written testimony here, or watch his oral presentation here (starting at minute 24)
We are excited to help your GROUP get into a regular routine! get your group on our COMMUNITY TABLE CALENDAR
the Butter Bakery Community Book Club is up and running - 2nd Mondays at 3 pm
our usual YMCA after-swim class-group Tues and Thurs @9
the Feral Crochet Circle meeting on the second Saturdays at 11 am - ALL CROCHETER’s WELCOME
first Fridays - Our Saviour’s Men’s breakfast group at 7 am
fourth Fridays - Zion Lutheran’s “re-connection” breakfast group has the table at 8 am
second Mondays - Wilderness Canoe Base women’s group at 9 am
the neighborhood knitters (Hats for the Homeless) - third Saturdays at 11 am
our Butter Advisory Board meets Quarterly - interested in joining this effort? connect with Dan - next B-Corps conversation table is January 21 at 5 pm
although they don’t hang out at the community table, the staff of the American Swedish Institute pick up a box of baked goods for a monthly staff meeting - and your business or organization can too - just connect with Dan!
Boomerang Bags - a sewing bee event to create reusable tote bags used to meet here but we’re still awaiting their return from that last pandemic toss…