Kingfield Neighborhood Association

Nicollet Open Streets!

Roll and rock down Nicollet Avenue Sunday, September 24th: from Kmart to 46th Street, between 11 AM and 5 PM for a two-mile celebration of our main street, with activities, music, food, and more! 

Join this event page to get daily updates on music line-ups, specials happenings, and other event details!

Organized and hosted by the neighborhood partnership of Lyndale Neighborhood Association (LNA), Kingfield Neighborhood Association, and the Whittier Alliance Nicollet Open Streets has grown into our largest annual festival. Last year this event brought out more than 100 businesses and nonprofit organizations and over 15,000 people.

To get ready for this year we have been working for months with Our Streets Minneapolis, as well as with local businesses and nonprofits, to bring the best of our neighborhoods to you. Although the event may be getting bigger each year, we seek to continue local involvement, so you will see many of your favorite local community partners along the route.

So, pump up your tires or put on your walking shoes (or maybe your dancing shoes?), as the street will be closed to motorized transportation, to see what’s great about our neighborhoods from a totally different perspective.

Kingfield Community Pizza Party with The Aliveness Project at the Outdoor Oven

The oven will be hot, literally 800 degrees of hot, on September 14th, and we will be baking pizza for neighbors to sample and collecting donations for The Aliveness Project’s gardening efforts and food shelf. Pack a beverage (no bottles on site, please), and wander on down and enjoy a slice.

September’s event is a partnership between KFNA and The Aliveness Project, another great Kingfield nonprofit, focused on linking people with HIV/AIDS to resources to lead healthy self-directed lives. Pizza toppings will be harvested from the Donation Garden, located at Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Park, a partnership of all three organizations.

We host regular oven events the 2nd weekend of each month until the snow flies, so be sure you are receiving the Kingfield weekly e-News—sign up on www.kingfield.org (right-hand side of the page)–where notices will be shared about upcoming oven dates, registration details, and the focus of each unique event.

If you have questions about the oven, including how to volunteer, please feel free to contact KFNA at or 612.823.5980.

A 100% Green KFNA Event

Judson Rain Garden Tour

Do you know the purpose of a rain garden? Would you like to know why Judson Church chose to put in three rain gardens? Would you like to see what they look like and how they work? Come for a tour and information!

Our process started nearly a year ago. We applied for and received a mini grant from the Mississippi Watershed Management Organization. We proposed installing three rain gardens that would capture runoff rain from our roofs and filter it before it flowed into the street and directly to the Mississippi River. Volunteers from the church provided the labor to dig the gardens, plant the native plants and spread the mulch. The grant was used primarily to pay for the plants, the mulch and some educational material for the children. During the upcoming school year our preschool and Sunday School children will learn how these rain gardens work, why they are important and why we use native plants. If you join us on September 17th, you will learn all of this too!

Lighting Up Lakewood

The Lakewood Cemetery Lantern Lighting Celebration, now in its third year, is a public memorial event that offers guests a unique way to remember their loved ones. The celebratory event features live music, food trucks, and activities, and culminates with a special nondenominational ceremony at sunset, in which candlelit lanterns are released on Lakewood’s lake while the names of loved ones are read aloud.

Come early for the activities, which will include

  • Self-guided tours of the cemetery (via brochures and mobile app); Lakewood’s Memorial Chapel and Garden Mausoleum, open from 3 to 5 PM
  • Historic streetcar rides to and from Lake Harriet provided by the Minnesota Streetcar Museum ($2 round trip)
  • Lantern decorating from 5-7 p.m. (decorating supplies provided; however, a $5 donation is suggested for each lantern, and please register online at LakewoodCemetery.org to insure adequate supplies)
  • Lantern release ceremony at sunset (roughly 7 to 8 PM).

The event has grown significantly over the past two years, and we are eager to welcome the public back to Lakewood for another wonderful evening this September 16th.

Lantern Lighting Web Release