Feeding Our Future: not my stepbrother’s keeper

The Star Tribune reports on a free-food nonprofit run by a relative of a state representative. The headline reads,

State representative’s brother runs nonprofit that participated in federal meals program

Stepbrother, as it turns out, and the two are not close. State Rep. Mohamud Noor (DFL-Minneapolis), is chair of the House’s Workforce and Business Development committee. He oversees a number of state agencies, but none with responsibility over free-food programs.

His stepbrother, Mohamed Ahmed, runs a nonprofit named Average Mohamed. Neither Ahmed, Noor, nor Average Mohamed have been accused of any wrongdoing in the case. None of those names or entities appear in any FBI search warrants or Dept. of Justice indictments in the case.

Average Mohamed was founded back in 2015 and is located at 5701 Shingle Creek Parkway in Brooklyn Center. We visited the address back in June, by coincidence. No entity at that location has been accused of any wrongdoing.

The only connection between Feeding Our Future and Average Mohamed is that the latter nonprofit was approved to operate a free-food distribution site under the sponsorship of Partners in Nutrition, a rival to Feeding Our Future. Average Mohamed was registered to operate under the Child and Adult Care Food Program, with a maximum capacity of 1,800 children per day.

The address for the site was located in Minneapolis, on Snelling Avenue. Average Mohamed has a second Minneapolis site listed on Washington Avenue, with a registered capacity of 1,500 per day. Partners in Nutrition was shut down by the state Department of Education (MDE) back in January. Partners is suing MDE for reinstatement.

In that lawsuit, there is a list of unpaid invoices outstanding. Average Mohamed has three invoices listed. Neither Partners nor Average Mohamed have been accused of any wrongdoing.

Partners is seeking reinstatement to the free-food program for 213 of its locations. Average Mohamed has three locations appearing on that list.

For his part, Rep. Noor has no association with any of these entities. His campaign did accept a $320 donation back in 2020, from a figure later indicted in the Feeding Our Future case.