We All Need Food and Water

Our three core programs focus on climate education. “In this together” provides engaging family-friendly activities that serve as a springboard for starting crucial climate conversations. “Take a Breath: Fostering Mindfulness and Clean Air” is mindfulness program offered in partnership through Saint Paul Parks and Recreation to multi-generational audiences to educate and help families develop environmental compassion and embrace life-long ecological stewardship. And “Create Your Future” is geared for creative people to help them craft original works from songs to screenplays to tell their climate stories and reach a broader audience. Other programs include the 1-acre Peace Community Garden, which includes 10 “giving garden” rows, a “Water Heroes” camp program, and pollinator education.

Although we are only starting our fourth year, our staff and board has hundreds of years of combined experience. Our organization consists of a dedicated founder/executive director (who has yet to receive a paycheck) and many contract employees including two amazing and energetic part-time educators, and a financial bookkeeper, a grant writer, and a website search engine optimization specialist. We feel lucky to work with all of these individuals who bring decades of experience and skills to our organization. All contracted staff members are overseen by six involved board members.

Targeted & “Standing on the shoulders of giants”
Yale Climate Communications confirms that most (72%) Americans realize climate change is happening but relatively few people (39%) talk about it. We want to change that by starting and normalizing climate conversations. Problems don’t get solved without conversations about the problems. Since adults are the people with the ability to put needed changes into effect right now, we feel they should be the ones leading the way. We feel it’s unfair to expect the youth to grow up and solve the worlds’ problems alone. They need their parents, aunts and uncles, and grandparents looking out for them and steering the world to a planet that sustains them. Thankfully, there are numerous people and organizations also working on climate change education and we are using their science-based information as the basis of our educational efforts. Our favorite resources and experts include: Yale Climate Communications, Project Drawdown, Climate Interactive/ MIT, Climate Reality, 350.org (Bill McKibben), Climate Scientist, Katharine Hayhoe, and 2015 Paris Agreement lead negotiators Christiana Figueres and Tom Rivett-Carnac.

Fun, Guilt-free & Creative
With the pandemic dragging on, people are weary and looking for a little fun. We recognize that the capacity of humans to rationalize, compartmentalize, and be easily distracted is a coping mechanism. Facing the collapsing climate is so scary and people cannot live in constant fear. That’s why it’s important to gather people together doing fun activities which also include important actions people can take so people start taking action without it being scary. Each month we will host a family-friendly outing coupled with education. For example, we’ll take a sleigh ride and have a conversation over cocoa about divesting from fossil fuels. Or, we’ll go ice skating and discuss resources and clever ways to BE a “cheapskate” to reduce our use of plastic and lessen our impacts on the planet while also improving our health and saving money. We provide age-appropriate children’s activities so adults can focus on the educational conversations. Book discussion groups, using mindfulness to strengthen environmental compassion and action, and working with people to rethink and rewrite their future—we thrive on creativity. And we have many more creative programs in the hopper.

Partnership-Seeking
We know there’s definitely strength in numbers and we recognize the value of partnering with established civic organizations, neighborhood and lake associations, faith-based organizations, schools, other environmental organizations, etc. We rely on their existing networks to help us reach more people. In addition, we seek unlikely partners too such as car and sports clubs, because like our name says, we all need food and water. We hope to help mend this divided country we live in.

Although we are a young nonprofit finishing our third year, we have a solid history of successfully completing and managing assistance agreements and completing programming—even through the pandemic. We were able to successfully complete and manage all agreements and have always met the reporting requirements under those agreements on time. In fact, we’ve been complimented for our exemplary reports so nicely laid out that they were ready to share with the wider community. We also have always submitted acceptable final technical reports under the agreements.

In the Spring of 2021, we hired a bookkeeper. Dana Deziel with Supporting Strategies. She is a skilled accounting professional with a successful history of leading accounting teams and providing accurate and timely financial reporting. She is adept at managing internal control programs that mitigate risk and result in positive audits as well as compiling reports and offering insight into the financial health of companies. Prior to founding Supporting Strategies | Minneapolis, MN, in 2019, Dana was a Senior Accounting Manager at a leading food distributor. There, her diverse responsibilities included managing the overall direction, coordination and evaluation of the corporate accounting department as well as ensuring a timely and accurate month-end close process. She also maintained accounting policies, procedures and controls to ensure compliance with generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP). Dana earlier served in a variety of accounting and finance roles, including Controller for a software company, Corporate Accounting Manager for a company in the cleaning industry and Auditor for a public accounting firm. Dana holds a Bachelor of Arts in Accounting (minor in Business Administration) from Augsburg College in Minneapolis. She is a Certified Public Accountant in the State of Minnesota and has over 20 years of QuickBooks experience.

It is also noteworthy that Executive Director, Dawn Pape, has managed larger grants when she was the Outreach and Education Director at the Rice Creek Watershed District.

Since 2019, We All Need Food and Water received the following grant awards:

Capitol Region Watershed District, 2019 Water Heroes Program $10,360

Capitol Region Watershed District, 2020 Water Heroes Program $ 9,000
Grantor Contact, Lindsay Schwantes
Capitol Region Watershed District Community Outreach Coordinator
595 Aldine Street | Saint Paul, MN 55104
Email: [email protected]
651.644.8888 Ext. 105 | mobile 651.485-7324

Coon Creek Watershed District, 2021 Water Heroes Program $ 1,000
Dawn Doering
Coon Creek Watershed District Information & Education Coordinator
13632 Van Buren NE | Ham Lake, MN 55304
[email protected]
763.402.0000 direct | 763.755.0975 office

Anoka County, 2021 for Peace Community Garden $ 3,000
Erin Ostrowski and Samantha Osterhaus
Anoka County SHIP & Health Educators
2100 3rd Avenue, Suite 600 | Anoka,

We are proud of what we’ve achieved so far. For example, we’ve doubled our budget and programming every year. But we know we haven’t scratched the surface of what we'd like to achieve. And we don’t plan on stopping until the climate crisis is no longer a concern and there is widespread environmental equity.

Winter 2019
Incorporated January 2019

Summer 2019
We held two Water Heroes Camps in partnership with Saint Paul Parks and Recreation, the Science Museum of Minnesota, Friends of the Mississippi River, Frogtown Park, and Farm funded by Capitol Region Watershed District. This camp, geared for kids ages 8-12, developed kids’ “superpowers” to protect water. By the end of the week, each hero earned their own mask and cape that they designed to display their unique water hero skills and strengths. Each day we dove into water-related topics and tackled real-world issues with hands-on projects or fun field trips. Some days we got our hands dirty in a rain garden or marking storm drains with educational messages. Other days we toured solar gardens and investigated innovative engineering techniques. The final celebration was a picnic at a community garden that focused on our future actions and we learned which water hero mission the children chose to keep working on even when they are dressed in plain clothes.

Fall 2020
WANFAW partnered with Ramsey County Soil and Water Conservation Division to deliver a puppet show about mason bees to 1,847 elementary and middle-school-aged students in Ramsey County. Before the show, the students learned about the importance of native plants. Students received superhero masks and packets of native wildflower seeds (mostly butterfly weed) to help restore biodiversity.

Winter-Spring 2020
We held a Water Heroes program at Washington Technology Magnet school in partnership with ComMUSICation and funded by Capitol Region Watershed District. Because COVID hit, we didn’t quite finish so had to repeat the program to fulfill the grant requirements in the fall.

Together, we taught 37 under-resourced St. Paul youth about the importance of water, the challenges our waters face, and ways to protect water. The students showcased what they learned about water with an original rap performed at a Minnesota Senate hearing about the salt legislation, letter writing, and we created four projects that were put together to create one podcast. The podcast is on all podcast platforms (Spotify, Apple podcasts, etc.) and social media.

Summer 2021
We started a one-acre Peace Community Garden in partnership with Peace Lutheran Church and Anoka County.
Hosted nine community events in the Peace Garden.
Giving Garden. We All Need Food and Water grew and donated produce to the local food shelter.
Held a Water Heroes Camp for 11 youth and 44 contact hours.

Fall and Winter 2021
Strategic Planning
Website redesign
Contracted with a grant writer
Applied for a $100,000 EPA federal grant