A quiet community garden in north Minneapolis allows neighborhood residents — and staff and patients at the nearby M Physicians Broadway Clinic — to pause, take in nature, and take home fresh herbs and vegetables.
Kanko Akakpovi and Sharmyn Phipps helped transform a vacant lot into the Butterfly Grove Garden in a project funded by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) through the University of Minnesota Extension.
Phipps said that the garden is a way “to give people access and create a safe, and welcoming space where they can access the food or be able to take a walk around the neighborhood.”
The garden is one of two started by Phipps and Kanko in Minneapolis. It has generated jobs for youth, allowed residents to start gardening and grow their own food, and hosted multiple community events.
Started in collaboration with multiple community stakeholders including the Expanded Food and Nutrition Program (EFNEP), the garden will remain, but Akakpovi, the health and wellness regional director, and Phipps, the health and wellness community facilitator, lost their jobs on Friday.
They are two of the 60 health and nutrition educators through the University of Minnesota Extension funded by the federal SNAP who were laid off on Aug. 22.
The cuts came as the entire $550 million SNAP-Ed program was eliminated in the budget bill that passed the Republican-led Congress in July following federal cuts in President Trump’s budget bill last month. Along with reduced funding and increased eligibility thresholds for SNAP, the funding for SNAP-Ed was on the chopping block.
Everyone who qualifies for SNAP can access SNAP-Ed services. In Minnesota, that’s about 440,000 people.
The SNAP-Ed program at the U was slated to receive $7.25 million in fiscal year 2024, which makes up a significant portion of $9.1 million allotted to the state. That money would’ve gone into providing the nutrition, health, and wellness education services that helped over 170,000 people in the state in 2024, according to data provided by U Extension.
One of the programs involved helping Minnesota’s food shelves transform into what they call “SuperShelves,” which means reworking the layout and offerings of food shelves to resemble grocery stores in order to reduce the stigma that’s often associated with visiting food shelves. In 2024, 75 SuperShelves served over 55,000 people in counties across the state.
Phipps calls their work part of the “food justice movement,” one that especially served rural Minnesota more than the metro.
“There’s a saying that goes, ‘My people perish for lack of knowledge,’” said Phipps. “You can go in and teach nutrition education, but you also want to make sure that everybody has access. You can’t just educate people and say, ‘I’m done,’” she said.
For many in the SNAP-Ed program at the U Extension service, this work is personal and informed by their lived experience. Like Thao Pham, a first-generation Vietnamese immigrant and a SNAP-Ed health and wellness coordinator. He works with people of color, youth and newly arrived immigrants to help them navigate a new country with unfamiliar foods, all on limited resources.
Pham also leads a men and fathers program to foster their mental wellness through outdoor activities like camping or canoeing.
He is also being laid off, and in his last week of work, he is taking 15 to 20 men on a two-day camping trip.
Every Thursday for the last five years, Pham has brought the men and fathers group together for an outdoor activity. And at the end, there’s food that Pham and his co-workers cook fresh on the spot.
Last Thursday, they met to learn how to build fires and put up tents for their upcoming camping trip. Pham served grilled flank steak, shrimp, rice, and Thai papaya salad to the participants of the program and their families, who often come along.
“I can’t believe this is going away,” one of the men said. “This is the only time my brother takes time for himself and eats nutritious food,” said the sister of one of the participants.
When asked about the impact of his work, Pham took a pause. “I’m feeling emotional about the whole process right now … I love my job very much, helping out communities, and now we don’t have that job anymore,” he said.
Pham had planned new programming this fall in Bloomington with the city’s community education department. He wanted to work with schools to teach students how to eat healthier food. But not anymore. “I had to step back and let them know that I’m being laid off,” he said.
Phipps says she will continue to find ways to work with the community. Akakpovi, too, but she worries about the community they had already built that they will now have to leave behind.
“When we think about the impacts of the program, and the momentum we had going to really address disparity and then to know that that’s been disrupted… That does really bother me and can interfere with my sleep, because it makes me a bit angry,” Phipps said.
