Officials with Lutheran Social Service of Minnesota on Tuesday announced a five-year $100-million campaign to expand its social services statewide, the largest such effort in the group’s 160-year history.
Called Empower What’s Possible, the campaign aims to expand the organization’s reach in areas including housing, financial stability, behavioral health, early childhood education and community connections. LLS has already raised nearly $60 million since the campaign’s start in 2023, which includes commitments of more than $1 million from the St. Paul Area Synod, the Otto Bremer Trust and the Sauer Family Foundation.
The organization announced the campaign at the construction kickoff for the Center for Changing Lives — Frogtown-Rondo in St. Paul. Renovations on the building at 709 University Ave. includes expanding the Early Learning Center playground, adding two classrooms, increasing the organization’s transitional housing capacity by 50%, opening a youth resource center and creating a home base for the organization’s street outreach services.
“This project, we started to dream in 2022,” said Alexis Oberdorfer, LSS senior vice president of services, during the announcement event. “In November of 2022 was my first conference call with the team talking about, what services do we see at this location? What do youth need? What can be needs of the community? And how do we pull that together in one centralized location to really think about integrated services and that continuum of care?”
The organization already completed several projects during the campaign’s “quiet phase” during its first two years, Oberdorfer said.
Those include a $3.3 million project razing and rebuilding the emergency shelter LSS Bethany in Duluth and expanding its family services, a $1.5 million project opening a second Early Learning Center in St. Paul’s East Side with extra services, and a $1.4 million project expanding lodging and multipurpose spaces at Camp Knutson at Crosslake.
Frogtown is already home to an Early Learning Center and several other organizational services. The Center for Changing Lives – Frogtown-Rondo will include employment services, financial counseling and education, housing services and behavioral health services, with expanded transitional housing and other resources for youth and young families experiencing homelessness. This will also include accessible housing units.
The center’s second floor will have transitional housing for youth and young families experiencing homelessness and will fully open in late 2026.
“Our goal is to not only sustain critical programming that our neighbors across Minnesota rely on, but to innovate and reimagine how Lutheran Social Service cares for our communities both now and in the future,” said Patrick Thueson, president of LSS of Minnesota, in a statement. “Empower What’s Possible builds on our strengths to tackle challenges and opportunities in new ways to create a brighter future for our neighbors — a future of greater self-sufficiency and achieving bigger dreams.”
LSS has social service efforts in each county in Minnesota. The organization began in 1865 when a Lutheran pastor and his congregation opened an orphanage near Red Wing. According to the LSS one of 63 Minnesotans is assisted by the nonprofit.
To learn more about the campaign, go to empowerwhatspossible.org.
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