Gathering in north Minneapolis gives out food, advocates for peace

At the corner of Fremont and Lowry avenues in north Minneapolis, a quiet grassy corner was transformed into a gathering of giving Sunday.

"This is how we give back to the community neighborhood,” said Donte Williams. “We give out food, we help with needs. Brings the community together."

From a giant barrel grill, brimming with the smells of cooking meat, to volunteers bringing in donations of food, to tables stacked high with canned goods, toiletries, and other essentials, the signs of giving were everywhere.

“I’m proud to do it,” declares Sa’Lesha “Bunny” Beeks. “So many stores and essential things that they need have been lost due to the riots.”

Beeks started “Be The Voice," an anti-gun violence group, after her mother Birdell was shot and killed in May 2016. She was 56 years old.

"My mother was struck by a stray bullet on 21st Avenue and Penn Avenue North,” Beeks recalled. “The bullet hit her, and she ultimately died from that."

Now, four years later, she and more than a dozen volunteers are paying it forward to honor George Floyd.

“This is our part in giving back and being the voice for George Floyd,” Beeks says. “As much as we’ve seen the looting and the burning of the buildings and things, let’s do this in a peaceful way that respects his name.”

In the wake of the destruction that followed Floyd’s death, many nearby grocery stores are now boarded up or closed.

These donated items are helping people in need.

“I just do it out of the kindness of my heart,” says Edward Freeman, who drove over with donations of food and water. “I look at it like this: everybody needs a helping hand. Everybody. We should be a community.”

Williams, manning that smoky grill, clearly enjoys preparing comfort food with a dash of humor.

“Why are you the one doing the cooking?” he was asked. “’Cause I do it the best,” he laughed. “So I think.”

But then Williams turned serious.

“A lot of destruction was done, a lot of buildings burned. People lost a lot of personal items as well,” he said. “Some of the basic things you need in life. We’re here to help assist people, just trying to get back on their feet.”

Amid the feeling of loss, there was also laughter, love, and healing on this street corner.

And the remembering.

Always remembering, George Floyd.

“If he was a peaceful person, we should continue to be peaceful as well,” Beeks says quietly. “We have come together — white, black, it doesn’t matter. We have come together and united as a city. And such a powerful voice, that we all can unite in the worst of times.”