(C) Minnesota Reformer This story was originally published by Minnesota Reformer and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Coming together to choose something different [1] ['More From Author', 'July', 'Melia Haugen Ahrens'] Date: 2022-07-12 Everywhere you look these days, it seems our democracy is under attack. The rise of right wing extremism and growing inequality has many of us feeling both scared and powerless, especially as the rich get richer and that wealth gives them more influence in our decision making. But there are other stories out there, and it’s time we started telling them. Stories, like ours, of communities coming together to choose something different. Southeastern Minnesota is full of fresh-water springs, trout streams, and limestone bedrock, which means Winona County is particularly susceptible to both groundwater and freshwater contamination. One of the major contributors is excess nitrates from manure and farm run-off. A factory farm in the heart of Winona County — Daley Farm of Lewiston, LLP — has been pushing to expand their dairy operation to over 4,600 cows, all near a town and neighboring townships that already have issues with contaminated drinking water. We started organizing as a group of citizens to make sure our concerns about this proposed expansion were heard loud and clear. We attended town hall and county board meetings, wrote to our county commissioners and letters to the editor, and spoke up in hearings during public comment periods. We hosted a rally, circulated petitions, and called our neighbors to make sure they were informed of the threat to our local ecology and economy. Across the state in Worthington, students were attending overcrowded schools every day. There wasn’t enough space for students to walk the halls when switching classes or leaving school. Some classes were even being taught in closets. Voters in Worthington had voted down five referendums to fully fund the school, consistently voting against giving students access to more space, resources and a better student-to-teacher ratio, all of which would have helped students learn and retain more. That’s when Worthington students decided we were no longer going to wait for the adults to see what we needed. Many of us were not eligible to vote, and although we knew at the time that we would not see the benefits of the referendum, we knew we had to step up for future generations. So we took the initiative to organize. We door-knocked, phone-banked and attended committee meetings. The rhetoric from the “vote no” committee was “those are not our children,” but we had a different story to tell: “If you’re doing good, I’m doing good.” In Winona County and Worthington, community members wanted what people across the state want: clean water, healthy local economies, and fully-funded schools. But both communities were up against well-funded opponents, who dug in their heels to protect their limited self-interests. The committee fighting the school referendum in Worthington had the money to bring in an organizer from out-of-state to fight their battle. The large factory farm in Winona County was able to pay for repeated lawsuits against the county, continuing the fight every time they were denied. Luckily, residents fighting for healthy water and schools had something else: each other. These stories show the power we have when we come together. But they also show how our current systems are set up to benefit those with wealth and power. It took six school referendums before Worthington students were supported. Winona County residents have been fighting for four years, and the lawsuits aren’t over yet. While Worthington is poised to open our new intermediate school and a new expansion to the high school next fall, in Winona County, we will continue protecting our water and the average-sized farm in the area, until the proposed factory farm expansion is laid to rest. There are very real threats to our democracy right now, but there’s also a real opportunity to make it better. We’re excited about “We Choose Us,” which is a new campaign for multiracial democracy that launched recently. They understand that real democracy begins and ends with people. It’s a campaign that sees the future of a multiracial democracy rooted in our stories. We know first hand how important it is to stay informed about what our local government is discussing, and using our democratic right to voice our opinions and concerns. We know the power that even our neighbors who can’t vote have to better their communities. Beyond fighting locally, the next step is to lift up each other’s voices and support communities like ours across the state, fighting alongside one another as we fight for each other. That is what democracy means to us. We want to build power with people across the state, because if we come together, we can win policies that will allow us to continue building victories for our communities. That’s where our movement starts and that’s how we’ll define its success. We Choose Us is uplifting our work and connecting us to communities like us across Minnesota, as we make the world we want to see and put democracy in action. [END] --- [1] Url: https://minnesotareformer.com/2022/07/12/coming-together-to-choose-something-different/ Published and (C) by Minnesota Reformer Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons License CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/MnReformer/