Duluth group receives ‘transformational’ grant to build Black community hub
A coalition of Duluth nonprofits is celebrating a grant to help build a hub for the Black community in the city’s Central Hillside neighborhood.
The grant from the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation will provide $100,000 each year for the next five years to the Family Freedom Center, founded six years ago to provide a safe and inclusive place for Black families in the Twin Ports.
“Over the next five years, Family Freedom Center’s goal is to transform our organization into a hub for Black and Brown families, from all around the Twin Ports, to be able to come to and exist, to learn, to grow, to dream, but most importantly, to plan and to map out those dreams,” said Executive Director Jacob Bell.
The Center, housed in the Washington Community Recreation Center, an old red brick junior high school on Duluth’s hillside, serves around 400 young people and up to 1,000 families, said Bell. It’s current annual budget is around $900,000.
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In addition to providing after-school programming, the center offers an entrepreneurship program for adults and a technology program for youth — complete with a state-of-the-art recording studio — geared toward introducing young adults to technology and art-driven career pathways.
A new program will work with first-time BIPOC homebuyers, in partnership with One Roof Community Housing.
“I think it’s important to note that Black ownership out here is almost zero, especially commercial property and homes,” said Bell. “I can count on one hand the Black businesses that own their property in this town.”
While Duluth has had a thriving Black community for more than a century, Black people currently make up only about three percent of the city’s population.
“There’s not a lot of places out here for Black families to go. There’s just simply not. There’s not a lot of places for families in general to go, but especially for Black and Brown families out here,” Bell said.
The Freedom Center works with a coalition of other groups to improve the quality of life in Duluth's Central Hillside neighborhood, including the Zeitgeist Center for Arts and Community, LISC Duluth and First Ladies of the Hillside.
Bell and other coalition members say people of color who live on the Hillside face lasting disparities, in health, education, income and other categories. The average life span is more than a decade shorter than some surrounding neighborhoods.
“There have been decades of disinvestment and underinvestment in a number of Hillside neighborhoods,” said Tony Cuneo, executive director of the Zeitgeist Center.
Cuneo said the groups are working with Hillsiders themselves to bring investment and opportunities to the community “to make long-term sustainable change.”
To do that, partners are focusing on the area’s strengths; diversity, arts and culture, a vibrant, walkable neighborhood.
Shaun Floerke, director of the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation, said philanthropy has too often been guilty of giving short-sighted donations that don’t get at the root of big issues.
“These guys are together, they’ve got a bold vision. Nothing simple. But it’s leaning into difficult work. We’re really proud to do this.”
The foundation has reorganized its granting to focus on longer-term “transformational” grants. The Family Freedom Center is their first-ever grant like this.
Its second is being awarded this week to the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa in northwestern Wisconsin to create a farm to grow healthy food and build on cultural knowledge.