Although neither the organization nor any of its staff have been charged with or accused of any wrongdoing, the nonprofit Somali Community Resettlement Services appears in a recently-filed Feeding Our…
The major nonprofit players in the free-food scandal may be dead and gone as corporate beings, but they live on in tax return and audit trails. Examining the official IRS…
We recently visited this southern Minnesota city and noted some of the connections to free-food fraud. Back in March of last year, we noted that during Covid, Owatonna had more…
Criminal trials have been postponed to 2024. Two unrelated civil lawsuits are now closed. The Feeding Our Future scandal has spawned a cottage industry in courtroom activities, at the state…
Four free-food nonprofits are suing the Dept. of Education. Free-food lawsuits may be Minnesota’s biggest growth industry. Last week, the always alert Lou Raguse of KARE-11 noticed that the state…
The nonprofit Youth Leadership Academy, d/b/a Gar Gaar Family Services, had been the third largest Minnesota participant in the Federal Summer Food Service Program (SFSP), one of two child nutrition…
The third large free-food nonprofit suspended by the state Department of Education (MDE) appeared in the state Court of Appeals yesterday. Youth Leadership Academy, d/b/a Gar Gaar Family Services, is…
Three more unmarked packages of documents arrived at the office last week, filled with correspondence related to the Feeding Our Future scandal. If you believe the FBI, government programs operated…
Earlier this week, the Minneapolis-St. Paul Business Journal reported on a significant real estate transaction involving a prominent free-food nonprofit. Somali Community Resettlement Services (SCRS) purchased the historic Gale Mansion…
Other nonprofit, free-food networks are implicated in the set of indictments announced by the U.S. Attorney Andy Luger last week. In his press conference on Tuesday, Luger described the dollar…
The Feeding Our Future scandal largely disappeared from the radar of local media this summer. However, court cases involving the state’s three-largest free-food charities reveal that the battle continues to…
We visit two sites closely associated with the third free-food network shut down by the state Department of Education (MDE). At the time it was shut down by MDE, Gar…
We wind up our free-food tour of the Twin Cities with stops at two “Youth”-related commercial buildings. We’ve previously covered the rise and fall of the short-lived nonprofit Youth Inventors…
This stop on the free-food fraud tour brings us to the south-central Minnesota city of Mankato. This town of 44,000 is home to Minnesota State University (which advanced to this…
Minnesota regulators have shut down three free-food distribution networks, so far. The smallest of the three took in $26 million in its only year of operation. The Star Tribune reported…
Digging deeper into the alleged free-food scandal uncovers fascinating stories in outstate Minnesota communities. It’s amazing how quickly the unlikely coincidences pile up. Yesterday, we looked at Willmar, Minnesota. Today,…