They had bake sales and candy drives. Neighborhood-run District Councils, publicly supported citizen planning bodies, unique to St. Paul, were among the original sponsors. Even as the program grew, encompassing 15 Minneapolis and St. Paul neighborhoods, each community kept its autonomy. Each appoints its own board of directors and hires a program manager and staff. Each program finds its own financing, although they have begun to collaborate as funding has become more competitive, said Alice Seuntjens, the program's assistant director.
Referrals come from friends, someone in church, someone in the neighborhood.
No one is turned away for lack of money, and the services are as specific as the needs. Lynn Thibodeau, the retired writer, was hospitalized three months with complications following her bypass surgery. She refused transitional care, she wouldn't live with her adult children, and she fought against having a stranger in her four-story St. Paul home. I wasn't mentally receptive to that. The nurse assigned to change her dressings each day became a close friend.