Ventura Village Neighborhood News and Events

Ventura Village

Photo by Ed Kohler licensed under Creative Commons

The Ventura Village neighborhood has many assets, including a great diversity of peoples and businesses, plentiful bike lanes, walking proximity to the major employment centers of downtown and Abbott Northwestern Hospital, strong connections to transit (including an LRT station at Franklin Avenue), and a committed and optimistic outlook for the future of the neighborhood. Franklin Avenue is the commercial and civic center of Ventura Village and is home the neighborhood library, many different social service providers, an array of different restaurants and shops, and the Ancient Traders Market-with a public plaza, cafes, restaurants and American-Indian oriented shops. Attractive, new development continues to take place along Franklin, particularly at the intersection with Portland Avenue where a gateway to the neighborhood is envisioned. Historically a home for immigrants, Ventura Village, and the larger Phillips community is now home to the city's largest population of Native Americans as well as growing numbers of Asians, Latinos, and Somalis.

(description from livemsp.org)

For detailed demographic information, see the neighborhood profile from Minnesota Compass. 

 

 

Half Native, half Asian, all service to the people: A profile of Daniel Yang

By Allison Herrera, The Uptake

Daniel Yang is part of a new cohort of young leaders in the Native American community in South Minneapolis, a half-Native, half-Asian grassroots activist with a passion for public service and a special compassion for refugees. The experience of being lost, exiled and afraid is one his family knows well: Yang’s father was a Hmong refugee who, along with his Ojibwe mother, instilled a commitment to social justice and community service in his son.

MORE »

Hope Community in Minneapolis: Two tutors, two stories

By Ge Gao, TC Daily Planet

Tutors at Hope Community (Photo by Ge Gao)

Tyler Engstrom-Socha and Alicia Beattie both volunteer as tutors at Hope Community. They told the stories of their involvement and the rewards of volunteering.

MORE »

Tutoring at Hope Community in Minneapolis

By Ge Gao, TC Daily Planet

Tutoring at Hope Community (photo by Ge Gao)

Every Saturday, about 50 volunteers come to Hope Community center to volunteer in the tutoring program with students from different backgrounds. The children from 6-9 years old are mostly from Somalia or Mexican immigrant families. For two-hour sessions in the morning and afternoon, volunteers sit down with students doing reading and writing together.

MORE »

Celebrating new Minneapolis bike lanes on Park and Portland Avenues

By Ge Gao, TC Daily Planet

(left to right) Organizer Molly Sullivan, Ward 6 Council member Robert Lilligren, Commissioner Peter McLaughlin, Ward 8 Council member from Ward 8 Elizabeth Glidden, organizer from Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition Nicole Campbell cutting ribbon at Peavey Park.

Elected officials, city county staff, and representatives from neighbor community, Midtown Greenway Coalition, and MORE »

THEATER REVIEW | "The Learning Fairy: Episode 2" surprises and amazes at Open Eye Figure Theatre

By Sheila Regan, TC Daily Planet

Zoe Sommers Haas, Julian McFaul, and Carly Wicks in The Learning Fairy: Episode 2. Photo courtesy Open Eye Figure Theatre.

It’s Pee Wee Herman on crack. No. It’s Sesame Street on LSD. No, it’s The Learning Fairy, Open Eye Figure Theatre’s trippy sensory experience, running through November 11.

MORE »