Kingfield Neighborhood Association

Kingfield’s MLK Park Welcomes a New Director in 2023

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Thank you Peter, for your 8 years of soccer, syruping, and service!

Peter Jaeger has been the MLK Park Director for the past eight years and will be moving into a new position with the Mpls Parks as a city-wide program lead with a focus on nature based pillar programs and working out of Lake Nokomis Park.  Peter states, “I will miss MLK Park more than most could realize,  the beautiful facility, outdoor grounds and especially the community and park participants that support the park and all of its programs.”

Aaron Flanders is  a lifelong Minneapolis resident born, raised, and currently living in the Longfellow neighborhood.  I grew up in the Park system beginning tball at Longfellow Park at the age of 4.  Aaron says, “I love that in my job I get to give back to youth and residents by providing the same wonderful experiences I had as a child.  I am looking forward to meeting new and wonderful people with my new assignment as Recreation Supervisor at Martin Luther King Jr. Park.”

Celebrate Martin Luther King Day!

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Events:
a. On SUNDAY January 15, a Dawn Reading of the “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 7-8:15 AM, 41st & Nicollet in MLK Park (at the freedom Form Sculpture)
b. On MONDAY January 16, the Annual Park Board Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day Celebration at MLK Park, 6:30-8 PM, 4055 Nicollet
As part of the evening celebration, the13th Annual Feeding the Dream Food Drive will be in progress. People are encouraged to drop off non-perishable food items at their local MPRB Recreation Center through January 16. This year, all donations will go to YouthLink.
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration is free and open to the public. Attendees are encouraged to bring a non-perishable food item to donate. Refreshments will be available following the program.

KFNA is thankful for Active (and Activist!) Neighbors

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Kingfield Neighbor Michael Vanderford took the time to attend the City of Minneapolis Budget Hearing and testify to the value of all 82 neighborhood associations’ role in creating a safer and more connected city.  Here is what he said:

 ” I am Michael Vanderford, 4154 Blaisdell Avenue, 8th Ward, Kingfield Neighborhood. 

 I ask that you support an amendment to the 2023-2024 City Budget proposal to comply with the City Council’s resolution of May 25, 2019, assuring “Base Funding” of $25,000 per year to the 85 neighborhood organizations. [approved by the Council (including an “Aye” vote from Andrea Jenkins), and approved and signed by Mayor Jacob Frey, on May 22, 2022.] 

Your 2023-24 Budget proposal sounds a death knell for the City’s neighborhood organizations such as my Kingfield Neighborhood Association. The City’s 85 neighborhood organizations can’t operate on the $10,000 administrative base funding in the current budget proposal. The current Budget proposal also defaults on the City Council’s, and the Mayor’s, Resolution 2019R-153, copies which are distributed to each of you. On the tabbed 2nd page, the Council and Mayor commit to: “The minimum neighborhood base funding allocation will be $25,000.”  Your budget proposal cuts this to $10K each. 

So What? Why is this important? Because you are killing one of the City’s best investments in public safety.

An example is that after 15 years of Christine Kreitz’s murder (1985) at ML King Park by gang violence, it was still hard to get families from the neighborhood to come to King Park. There was still a strong feeling that it wasn’t a safe place to bring your kids. The Kingfield Neighborhood Association Executive Director turned this around, starting in 2002, by recruiting volunteers, the ML King Park Director, and NRP funds to establish the “Little Kickers” soccer program at ML King. 20+ years later, we have 175 kids and their families gathering every Wednesday evening in the summer, playing silly games with soccer balls. 

If you fail to keep your Resolution 2019R-153 commitment to neighborhood organization base administrative funding, such community safety efforts cannot continue.” 

Those of you that know Michael might know him as the volunteer that has led the above-mentioned Little Kicker’s soccer program at MLK Park since 2002. Clearly good ideas don’t go very far without dedicated and determined volunteers! We are thankful for Michael’s activism to speak directly the City Council on KFNA and other neighborhood groups behalf, and for his twenty-year commitment to the Little Kickers program.

Get Involved with Gardening for Good in Kingfield & Lyndale!

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Want to grow stuff in your neighborhood? Want to learn from master gardeners how to do it? There are multiple options to work and learn alongside some of Minneapolis’ finest gardeners in our own local gardens and these two sites also donate everything they grow to local food shelves!

 

MLK Donation Garden Weekly Workshops & Workdays / Every Tuesday 5:30-6:30 (including August 9, 16, & 23) / 4055 Nicollet, north end of Park Building at the raised beds

Now almost a decade old, the mission of the MLK Donation Garden is to connect neighbors and grow food for our community. Neighbors and Master Gardeners gather every Tuesday to tend the vegetable gardens on the northern side of the Recreation Center and discuss a weekly topic. The food we grow is donated to The Aliveness Project (located at 3808 Nicollet), but the knowledge you go home with is yours to keep!

Pillsbury Farm Community Workday /Saturday August 13th, 10am-12pm / 3110 Pillsbury Avenue

Pillsbury Farm is also currently experiencing a Master Gardener take-over! This group of six individuals have gone through a garden training program with the University of Minnesota Extensions; they are now completing their community project by maintaining Pillsbury Farm and growing food for local food shelves. Here are  some  photos  from  Pillsbury  Farm  in  May  2022  and  in  July!

 

Seeking Adult Soccer Game Leaders & a Table Manager for Little Kickers at MLK Park

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NEEDED: ADULT GAME-LEADERS AND A TABLE MANAGER for 2022 Little Kickers Soccer Program
at M.L. King Park, Nicollet Ave. & 42nd Street
Fun Soccer Games Program for Young Children Ages 4-8

This summer, on Wednesday evenings from 6:15 to 7:30 PM, on the grass of ML King field #1, the Minneapolis Park Board and the Kingfield Neighborhood Association will again host a program for 4- through 8-year old boys and girls, of all nationalities and backgrounds. The program is designed around soccer basics and soccer balls, and lots of action. But the highest priority of the program is that the kids have fun; have fun playing games with soccer balls, and want to come back the next week, enthusiastically, to play the games with soccer balls again. Sessions start Wednesday, June 22rd, and continue through August 17th. Neither the kids, nor the Game Leader/Parent Coaches, need to be there every Wednesdays. But we need adults to commit to attend each Wednesday that you are in town, to help lead the games!

If you can imagine; dads, moms, aunts, uncles, and grandparents, (you!); joining in to play the games with your 6-year-old son, your 4-year-old daughter, and the the other 15-20 kids in their age-group, on the field. The adults are regularly invited to join in games kicking the soccer balls, and pretending with the kids for: “Ouch!”, “Allegators”, “Go Get It”, “Islands”, “Bandits”, and “Mosquito Squahers”.  There is the occasional soccer scrimmage for the older groups at the end of session, but mostly it’s about teaching soccer through these other, “silly”, games.

The Little Kickers Program uses these little-kid teaching-games, led by 2 or 3 parent-coaches trained in a bunch of the games, to groups of a dozen to 20, or so, 4-year-olds, 5-6 year-olds, and 7-8 year-olds. The games are about teaching skills and behaviors core to soccer, but the games are generally not soccer games, and we don’t do “drills”, we don’t form organized teams for the summer, and parents don’t commit to being team soccer coaches for the summer. Parent coaches don’t need to be athletes, nor need to have experience playing organized soccer; ten adults have already committed but with 100 kids on the field, we could use a dozen more! [Read more…]