Food bank and shelf leaders met at the state capitol on Tuesday to back a bill that would provide $5 million in state funding to Minnesota food banks every year, a response to record-high hunger levels in the state. 

The Minnesota Food Bank Program bill would use pre-existing money from The Emergency Food Assistance Program to fund six food banks that do not currently receive any state funding. 

Should it pass, the bill will take effect in the 2025 fiscal year.

Bill author Sen. Heather Gustafson (DFL-Vadnais Heights) said in a statement to The Minnesota Daily this bill is a continuation of previous legislation that supported food-insecure communities, aiming to put more food in the hands of food banks and shelves.

“One of the gaps we still need to close is making sure that food banks are equipped with enough food and resources to service our community food banks,” Gustafson said. “Simply put, our food shelves and food banks need food.”

2023 was the hungriest year on record — and is already being outpaced in 2024, according to data from Second Harvest Heartland, one of the six food banks supporting the bill. Minnesota saw 7.5 million visits to food shelves in 2023.

The bill includes an amendment asking for an additional $2 million in one-time funding for the Minnesota Food Bank Program. Additionally, Gov. Tim Walz’s (DFL) budget proposal dedicated $5 million in one-time funding to food banks, shelves and tribal food programs, according to Sophie Wallerstedt, a spokesperson for Second Harvest Heartland.

Wallerstedt said Second Harvest is sending 30% more food to food shelves this month compared to April 2023 and the food bank system is “not in a sustainable place” to meet the unprecedented need for food in the state.

“We are sending out more food than ever before, and the system is running out of food,” Wallerstedt said. “We have food shelves that cannot meet the current need that’s out there.” 

The record-high hunger levels statewide reflect levels on the University of Minnesota campus, according to Karin Onarheim, a health promotion specialist at Boynton Health. 

In 2022, about 34 percent of undergraduate respondents were classified as food insecure, a 44 percent increase from 2021, according to a survey of University students conducted by the Office of Student Affairs.

Patrick Brady, a researcher in the School of Public Health at the University, said state funding for food banks helps relieve some of the financial burden of fundraising.

“Any money they need to put in for seeking fundraising and organizing events and trying to get donors is money that’s not going to serve as provision, so food for hungry families,” Brady said.

Onarheim, the manager of the University’s twice-monthly food pantry Nutritious U, said she has seen a considerable increase in student’s going to the pantry in the past year, pushing Nutritious U to grow its resources to meet students’ needs.

“We’re seeing double, sometimes triple the number of students we were used to,” Onarheim said. “We’ve since had to really grow and think of really diverse funding streams, get really creative to raise money, to order more food per person.” 

Nutritious U applied for multiple grants to grow its financial resources and food availability, according to Onarheim. One of those grants was available to the pantry after the University received a Hunger Free Campus designation in 2022.

Wallerstedt said food insecurity can be best alleviated with preventative support that considers “financial stressors [people] have in their life that keep them from being able to afford food for their family or for themselves.”

Onarheim said beyond fulfilling Nutritious U’s goal of being a supplemental food resource, the pantry aims to put more money in students’ pockets to help them take care of other financial responsibilities.

“We like to use the analogy of a bathtub where the water’s flowing in and that’s all the money for your savings or your family helping you or your wages,” Onarheim said.

Wallerstedt said while the $5 million per year investment would be an excellent resource, it will not be enough to make drastic changes to the food bank system and alleviate hunger in the state.

“Even if we get $5 million a year, that is not going to meet the need out there,” Wallerstedt said. “We’ve already really scaled back the ask knowing that this isn’t a budget year.”

Gustafson’s statement said she is confident funding for food insecurity will pass.

“I’m confident that we’ll get something,” Gustafson said. “Maybe not the full ask, but something will likely go to food banks this session. If not, we will introduce an updated bill next year in the budget year.” 

Wallerstedt said while the legislature works toward passing the bill, the long-term goal for food banks and shelves is to ensure food is readily accessible and affordable to all Minnesotans struggling with food insecurity.

“You find that folks who are faced with having to decide between paying rent and buying food are more likely to pay for their housing or their utilities or whatnot and go without food,” Wallerstedt said. “We would love to be in a space someday where people don’t have to make that choice because they have food available to them and can afford it.” 

A new bill introduced in February in the Minnesota House of Representatives aims to create state-funded stipends for student teachers.

The bill, first introduced by Rep. Matt Norris (DFL-Blaine), would allocate state funds to pay student teachers in Minnesota public schools, a historically unpaid position. 

If the bill passes in May, it is expected to take effect in July 2025, according to Norris.

Norris said he does not want financial difficulty “to be something that is going to keep those individuals from pursuing something that they’re passionate about” and sees the bill as a way to change that.

The idea for the bill first came to Norris’ attention before he entered the state legislature while working as the policy director for Youthprise, a Minnesota youth advocacy group. 

“One of the things that the young people we were working with told us was really important to them was increasing the number of teachers of color and Indigenous teachers in our state,” Norris said. “I talked to people in the field and one of the things that they said is, ‘Well, you could pay student teachers.’”

Student teaching and teaching have been historically unpaid and underpaid positions, according to Jehanne Beaton-Zirps, coordinator of the University of Minnesota’s DirecTrack to Teaching program, an undergraduate course program that introduces students to a potential teaching career.

According to Beaton-Zirps, student teaching often demands the same or more amount of work as paid internships in other fields. Student teachers generally work 40 unpaid hours a week for a state-mandated 12-week period to get their teaching license, leaving some to work additional jobs or postpone getting their license.

Jacob Daubenberger, a social studies teacher at Eastview High School in Apple Valley, said that when student teachers need to work outside of full days in the classroom, burnout is likely to happen.

“I had classmates in my [student teaching] cohort who had bartending jobs, and now you’re adding on very late nights and then you’re up at six o’clock at the latest the next morning to be ready to student teach,” Daubenberger said. “If you are needing to work while student teaching, you are being put into a situation where the likelihood that you burn out of the program, of teaching in general, increases significantly.”

Norris said the bill would “make sure that every student teacher in Minnesota is paid a livable wage during the time,” thus removing a major financial barrier to entering the profession, especially for teachers of color and Indigenous teachers.

“We need more teachers in the classroom,” Norris said. “We know that here in Minnesota the number of teachers of color and Indigenous teachers is significantly lower than our students of color, so we’d like to be able to close that gap.”

Daubenberger said the bill seems like a productive first step but does not think it will fix the larger social issues that limit people of color and Indigenous people from entering the profession.

“We still see teaching in the state as a very, very predominantly white profession,” Daubenberger said. “One of the reasons that we still see that is because the experience of BIPOC students in schools is still largely negative, and if you are having a negative experience in school, why would you want to then become a teacher?”

South Metro area social studies teacher Abbey Seidel said that by paying student teachers and decreasing financial stress, student teachers can perform better in the classroom, ultimately strengthening their relationships with their schools and students.

“When that stress of money is taken off the table you are able to do a much better job,” Seidel said. “Which then would make it easier for student teachers to make connections in that school, make connections with the school district and find a job later on.”

Norris said that while he is confident the bill will pass in May with bipartisan support, the major challenge is how the cost of the stipends will affect the state’s education budget. 

“We want to be responsible stewards of the remaining dollars we have available in the state budget,” Norris said. “So we may have to scale it down initially this year and do more of a pilot with certain school districts, or find other ways to start small with the goal.”

Norris added he would like the stipend to be equivalent to the state minimum wage of $15 per hour and potentially up to $20 per hour, however, there is no specific amount listed in the bill.

Without a definite price tag, Beaton-Zirps said the stipend will “need to be substantial” to sufficiently support student teachers while they complete their program.

Seidel said this bill has the potential to shift the narrative that surrounds teaching by making it a more viable career option.

“Teaching is a great career, and we teachers and educators do need to be paid fairly,” Seidel said. “We shouldn’t have to sacrifice so much just to enter the profession.”

Beaton-Zirps is enthusiastic about the bill and what it would do for student teachers but said it is merely a step toward repaying a social debt owed to educators. 

“The last four, five years have been brutal for teachers,” Beaton-Zirps said. “This is, in my mind, the slightest of reparations for teachers, and I hope we do more than this, but this is a result.”

When a classmate told her South Dakota and Minnesota would end their 40-year higher-education tuition agreement, third-year University of Minnesota student and South Dakota resident Lyndsey Wanner panicked. 

As soon as she heard the news, her mind raced through the possibilities of either transferring or bearing the financial burden of a tuition increase to finish her degree at the school she had grown to love.

South Dakota ended the agreement, known as reciprocity, in December 2023 and notified Minnesota in January, according to the South Dakota Board of Regents’ website. The decision will take effect starting in the 2024-2025 academic year for public colleges and universities in both states. 

Wanner’s concerns were eased upon learning current students would retain their current tuition rates, however, she said she sympathizes with South Dakota students whose college decision has become more difficult.

“I feel bad that South Dakota students, if they really want to come to Minnesota, it’ll be really hard for them,” Wanner said. “I feel bad because I felt so lucky to get to come here and have such great rates.”

Because this decision came late in the admission cycle, South Dakota students enrolled at the University for the next year will receive tuition waivers to match the reciprocity rate, according to University Interim President Jeff Ettinger’s March 8 report to the Board of Regents.

South Dakota will do the same for their incoming students by offering them the state’s resident tuition rates through the South Dakota Advantage program, according to Nathan Lukkes, the executive director of the South Dakota Board of Regents.

Lukkes said the reciprocity agreement was terminated because it offered a different tuition rate exclusively to Minnesota students compared to those from other states receiving tuition discounts. 

“It was really about trying to treat students equitably from similar states coming into South Dakota and also making sure that we maintain our competitive advantage,” Lukkes said. “It was originally viewed as a negative by some, but from a Minnesota student standpoint, we were ending it so we could lower the rate, saving them about $1,400 a year.”

The South Dakota Advantage Program applies to students from 11 states surrounding South Dakota, including Minnesota. The University does not yet have an official tuition rate plan for South Dakota students beyond the upcoming academic year, according to Ettinger’s report.

Emma Niebuhr, a Minnesota resident and first-year student at South Dakota State University, said she feels South Dakota students deserve to have a similar tuition agreement with Minnesota that South Dakota has with Minnesota students. 

“It seems kind of not right if we get to go [to South Dakota] for a discounted price and they don’t get to do that for our colleges, it just doesn’t really make that much sense to me,” Niebuhr said.

Lukkes said the South Dakota Board of Regents wants to retain the state’s students as much as possible by preserving affordable tuition.

“We certainly want to keep as many of our homegrown students in state as we can,” Lukkes said. “We feel that keeping the price point as low as possible on top of providing a quality product is a solid attractant to keep them in South Dakota.”

Wanner said she does not think South Dakota’s decision will be effective for keeping resident students in the state.

“Anyone who’s looking at Minnesota just wants to get out of South Dakota like I did, and if they’re not going to go to Minnesota, they’re still going to go somewhere else,” Wanner said. “I don’t think it will help South Dakota hang on to their students.”

Lukkes said while South Dakota has no control over how Minnesota sets its tuition rates, South Dakota looks forward to offering affordable education to Minnesota students after the terminated agreement takes effect.

“If you can hold the line and provide a quality, affordable product, students will come to your institutions,” Lukkes said. “We’re hoping that this will not only benefit our institutions with increased enrollments, but it also helps Minnesota students looking to find that quality, affordable education here in South Dakota.”

A Bar of Their Own opened March 1 to celebrate women’s sports and grow fan interest amid increased national attention on women’s sports.

Located in Seward, less than a 10-minute drive from the University of Minnesota’s East Bank campus, A Bar of Their Own is the first of its kind in the Twin Cities. The bar was inspired by The Sports Bra, a women’s sports-only bar that opened in Portland in 2022, according to bar owner Jillian Hiscock.

Hiscock, who grew up in Minnesota as an athlete, was motivated by her experience as an avid women’s sports fan to create a space for the women’s sports community to feel respected and valued.

“I have always had the experience that many women’s sports fans have of having to ask to get a channel changed in order to watch the game that I want, which doesn’t make anybody ever feel prioritized,” Hiscock said. “I never felt like my fandom was worth as much as the person sitting next to me.” 

Dusty Abdulghani, a server at A Bar of Their Own, said since the bar’s opening, they have seen how the bar not only grows the women’s sports community but creates a celebrated safe space for women.

“It’s rubbing off on me already. This could really do something to bring more people to be interested in women’s sports and be watching it,” Abdulghani said. “A lot of people are excited about this bar outside of the sports thing and just being able to have a safe place for women.”

Hiscock said she felt Minneapolis had an active women’s sports community in need of attention and is excited by the bar’s ability to serve Gophers sports fans.

“[We want] to make sure that all of those athletes that are spending just as much time and dedication as the men athletes are being celebrated, and we have a space where their fans can come in and watch,” Hiscock said. “We want this to be a space for Gopher fans to be able to come and hang out.”

The excitement for women’s sports is extending beyond A Bar of Their Own as the city has become a hotbed for women’s sports this year, hosting the Big Ten women’s basketball tournament in early March and the women’s Team USA Gymnastics Olympic Team Trials in June.

Historically, however, women’s sports have been underserved in media coverage and financial investment due to the incorrect assumption they have no interested audience, according to University sports sociology professor Dunja Antunovic.

Antunovic said women’s sports have been “expected to succeed under really unfavorable conditions,” which has created a fluctuating record of visibility.

“Progress has not been linear,” Antunovic said. “When we saw some increases in participation or perhaps an emergence of professional leagues, those sometimes weren’t sustainable. There was often backlash or lack of investment.”

Today, women’s sports receive about 15 percent of total sports media coverage, according to a 2023 report by Wasserman.

Hiscock said there is a growing women’s sports movement thanks to places like her bar and the prowess of female athletes like University of Iowa point guard Caitlin Clark and Louisiana State University (LSU) forward Angel Reese.

“[These things] help grow the sport when casual fans or just sports fans in general learn more about women’s athletes and women teams,” Hiscock said. “That helps everything grow.”

Viewership for the 2023 NCAA women’s basketball tournament game between Iowa and LSU was up 103 percent from 2022, according to reporting by Nielsen.

The increase in attention to women’s sports is largely due to more consistent media coverage and more prominent dialogue around gender equality, according to Antunovic.

Hiscock added while she is thrilled about the popularity of female athletes like Clark and Reese, she hopes the bar can expose people to lesser-known sports, such as roller derby, and younger female athletes.

“Think about some of the athletes that are doing incredible things that aren’t playing on a Division I team somewhere,” Hiscock said. “Two of the best high school [basketball] players in the entire country are playing in the state championship game today, but nobody knows that because we don’t talk about those athletes, and so we’re going to show those.”

Antunovic said she remains “cautiously optimistic” about the ability of women’s sports to sustain their growing platform despite evidence of positive change.

“We have very little data and we don’t know quite what happens between that college-level fandom and professional-level fandom,” Antunovic said. “We still need to learn more about if certain players have a large following during their college years, do the fans stay connected to those schools or do they sort of follow those players when they play professionally?”

Hiscock is unwaveringly confident that the current growth of women’s sports is the beginning of a better future for all sports communities and is proud of the role A Bar of Their Own can play in making that future a reality.

“[Young kids] will grow up in a world where it’s normal to have women’s sports on TV. That’s not a world that I ever imagined when I was a kid,” Hiscock said. “That gets me super excited for the future generation, for the future athletes [and] for future fans.”