In Business e Winter 2011-12

Emergency Foodshelf Network receives Outstanding Business Award

Technical assistance program will soon be "Open to Business"

Mayor Hemken (front left) presents a plaque to Lori Kratchmer, EFN executive director, acompanied by council members Hoffe, Lammle and Elder (not pictured council member Stauner).

New Hope Business HighlightsLDI Family Business AwardIn November, Twin Cities Business magazine recognized five outstanding, family-owned businesses for the value they add to Minnesota's economy and overall quality of life. New Hope's Lib-erty Diversified International (LDI) was honored as one of the finalists in the 2011 Minnesota Family Business Awards. LDI is a $500 million producer of cor-rugated cartons, plastic extrusion products, health care equipment, office products and high-tech machine tools. Mike Fiterman became CEO of the company started in 1918 by his grandfa-ther in 1983. Three family members are among the company's 1,600 employees. Fiterman explained his family's com-mitment to the business, "Being involved in our business was not an ob-ligation and not a birthright, but rather a responsibility to embrace." Congratu-lations Mike Fiterman and LDI!

Sealed Mindset CUPIn December, the City Council ap-proved a Conditional Use Permit (CUP) for Sealed Mindset Training to operate a firearms training facility as part of their business at the recently renovated building at 5121 Winnetka Avenue N. The firearms training is considered a

The New Hope City Council presented

Emergency Foodshelf Network with the Fall 2011 New Hope Outstanding Business Award in November.Emergency Foodshelf Network (EFN) was founded in 1976 to support 12 Hennepin County foodshelves. Today, EFN is a full service food bank that provides quality, nutri-tious food and support services to over 230 hunger relief programs including foodshelves, on-site meal programs, and reduced cost grocery distribution sites throughout the state. EFN has been based at 8501 54th Av-enue North in New Hope since 2004. The food bank provides more than $7 million in support and services to its member agencies each year. With a modest staff of 32 full and part-time employees and more than 13,000 vol-unteers (in 2010), EFN puts 92 cents of every dollar donated directly into pro-grams serving hungry families. In addition to passing along donated food, providing bulk purchasing oppor-tunities and free or subsidized delivery to member agencies, EFN has several other noteworthy programs:✦ Fare For All makes fresh fruit and

vegetables and frozen meat available to everyone at up to 40 percent off grocery store prices. Fare For All events are held every other Monday in New Hope.

✦ Harvest for Hungry provides fresh locally-grown produce to Minnesota families facing hunger through a partnership with local farmers.

✦ Baskets of Hope provides about 5,000 families facing hunger with holiday meals.

✦ Mobile Foodshelf distributes emer-gency food to about 9,000 low income individuals who have trouble access-ing food from traditional foodshelves.

Multicultural Mobile Foodshelf dis-tributes culturally appropriate foods to East and West African and Latino communities in the Twin Cities.

✦ Lost Harvest rescues and redis-tributes about 1 million pounds of fresh produce grown in Mexico and shipped to the U.S. that otherwise would go to waste.

The City Council applauded Emergency Foodshelf Network for the fine work it does with local food shelves at PRISM, NEAR and with other agencies. The Council also noted how EFN stepped forward this spring to provide space in front of its building for the Hope Grows Community Garden. By providing a location for the garden plots, EFN was instrumental in helping the new com-munity garden to get started in 2011.EFN was nominated for the Outstand-ing Business Award by Thomas Mercier, president of Hope Grows. Lori Kratch-mer, executive director of EFN accepted the award and thanked the City Council. The New Hope Outstanding Business Award is a quarterly award to recognize the contributions of New Hope busi-nesses to the community and to en-courage other businesses to rise to the excellence achieved by the award recipi-ents. To learn more about Emergency Foodshelf Network, visits its website at www.emergencyfoodshelf.org.

It’s a simple but important concept: helping small business owners get

access to the business assistance they need can help to create local jobs, ex-pand the tax base, and increase the vitality of the community. Yet, it has always been a challenge for a smaller community like New Hope to provide as much in the way of technical busi-ness assistance as it would like. In September, New Hope partnered with the city of Golden Valley to apply for matching funds from the Hennepin County Housing and Redevelopment Authority (HRA) to bring Open to Business, a one-stop shop for business services, to our communities. The joint application has been approved, and the program will begin providing services to local business people beginning in March 2012.Open to Business began as a partner-ship between the city of Brooklyn Park and the nonprofit community devel-opment organization Metropolitan Consortium of Community Developers (MCCD) in early 2010. Through the partnership, MCCD provides direct, one-on-one technical assistance ser-vices to aspiring entrepreneurs and small businesses. The Open to Business model has since expanded to the cit-

ies of Minnetonka and St. Louis Park. With financial support from Hennepin County HRA, Open to Business will soon launch in several additional cities.Open to Business staff can help aspir-ing entrepreneurs work through the critical business hurdles that must be overcome in order to realize their vi-

sion. They provide intensive, one-on-one consulting at no cost to the

business person, and stay with them all the way through the pro-cess. MCCD’s business advisors have also been successful in helping existing businesses

that are stuck in their development. The range of services Open to Business provides include: business plan devel-opment, feasibility studies, cash flow and financing projections, marketing, preparing loan requests, and advocacy with lending institutions. MCCD also has a micro loan program to provide direct financing or credit enhance-ment. Open to Business staff will likely have open office hours alternating be-tween the New Hope and Golden Val-ley city halls one day each month.For more information about Open to Business, call the New Hope Commu-nity Development Department, 763-531-5110.

commercial recreation use in an indus-trial zoning district. Sealed Mindset, owned by a former Navy Seal, provides innovative personal safety, crime avoidance and defense skills training. Sealed Mindset Training (SMT) is a collaboration between Sealed Mindset and Range Systems, a global leader in the safe design and building of live firearms training facilities also lo-cated at 5121 Winnetka. SMT will train citizens in proper use of handguns and avoidance of unsafe situations.

State of the CityNew Hope business people are invited to attend the New Hope State of the City presentation from 7:30 to 9 a.m. on Tuesday, February 7, at New Hope City Hall, 4401 Xylon Avenue N. The presentation provides a review of the city's accomplishments in 2011.

Participate in Remodeling FairSpace is available for home improvement or landscaping businesses interested in participating in the 20th annual North-west Suburban Remodeling Fair on March 31, 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., at the Crys-tal Community Center, 4800 Douglas Drive. For more information or to regis-ter, call Beth Nelson at 651-638-1956 or nwremodelingfair@comcast.net.

A new CVS pharmacy opened at Midland Shopping Center, 7932 27th Avenue N. on January 8. A vacant Snyder Drug store and a transmission shop at the northwest corner of Winnetka and Medicine Lake Road were demol-ished to make room for the new 13,225 square foot store and pharmacy drive through.