This gofundme is in response to interest in donating to my "Shovel ICE out" of Fairlington idea. Below is the original post. If you live in Fairlington, I feel STRONGLY about making sure I shovel your car, so please message me on FB with details. If you do not live there and would like to help this cause, I thought gofundme would be a better way to do this. Again, I am in absolute tears at the responses I've received in the name of helping thy neighbor.

Original Post

Hello Fairlington Community - my name is Megan Moos Detweiler. I’m an imperfect member of our neighborhood (my kids are loud, I put my big trash out on Thursday three months ago, I never have my pool pass and my Christmas lights are still up), but I’m asking for your partnership.

As a Minnesotan, I am absolutely distraught over what is happening back home. I’m from the Eastside of Saint Paul (IYKYK), a neighborhood with a high immigrant population and a high poverty rate. These are good people doing everything they can to build peaceful, stable lives for their families and communities.

In Minnesota, we take care of our neighbors, no matter who they are. Change starts with small, local action and empathy.

To support the Eastside, I plan to make an impact by “shoveling ICE out” of Fairlington. I’ll put my Minnesotan training to use and shovel out/scrap literal ice off of your car in exchange for a donation that will go directly to the school I attended as a child. *the name of school has been edited to protect its privacy

ICE activity has been occurring around school pickup lines, bus stops and at food assistance lines. I encourage you to follow the Star Tribune or Pioneer Press for accurate news on what is going on there, as reports this far east are unreliable (putting it nicely). Families are scared, and the school has very limited resources. It is painfully clear that help is not coming from elsewhere, so we've gotta step up, as always, and do it ourselves.

If you want your car shoveled, here is the plan:

1. Message me on FB with what court you are in and a picture of your car.

2. Once it’s shoveled I’ll send you a pic of the finished car and my venmo, what you donate is up to you.

3. I will send everyone who participates the total I’ve collected and make sure our efforts go directly to the East Side of Saint Paul community. This will help alleviate stress on families by helping them with rent, heating bills (it's been around -20 lately), laundry, meals etc. If we band together to reduce stress on the community, the children will show up to school better able to learn and thrive.

Thank you!

I will leave you with my favorite poem, "Kindness"

by Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is

you must lose things,

feel the future dissolve in a moment

like salt in a weakened broth.

What you held in your hand,

what you counted and carefully saved,

all this must go so you know

how desolate the landscape can be

between the regions of kindness.

How you ride and ride

thinking the bus will never stop,

the passengers eating maize and chicken

will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness

you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho

lies dead by the side of the road.

You must see how this could be you,

how he too was someone

who journeyed through the night with plans

and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,

you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.

You must wake up with sorrow.

You must speak to it till your voice

catches the thread of all sorrows

and you see the size of the cloth.

Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,

only kindness that ties your shoes

and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,

only kindness that raises its head

from the crowd of the world to say

It is I you have been looking for,

and then goes with you everywhere

like a shadow or a friend.

Listed here are the clear beneficiary details:

1. These funds will be used for rent assistance, meal/food assistance, hygiene assistance (many people do not have laundry facilities nearby), and family support services for students whose parents are detained. Students who have their basic needs taken care of can come to school ready to learn. This is the goal of the fundraiser, to reduce trauma.

2. Susan Moos is the representative for the community who disperses funds. She is in contact with the school daily and is keeping close records of where financial support is being provided.

3. All funds donated here are transferred to an account with the sole purpose of supporting this community.

Thank you.