The Grand Forks Herald sat down with LISTEN Executive Director Christy Potts to discuss the nonprofit’s mission, as well as the new LISTEN Center in Grand Forks.
LISTEN, a nationally-accredited North Dakota nonprofit, has a goal of providing opportunities to people with intellectual disabilities while helping them live as independently as possible. It has spent more than 30 years at its location at 624 N. Washington St.
“It’s a challenge; a lot of the amputees are in high-security military hospitals. You have to build relationships to get in,” said Monte Schumacher, the founder of Courage Ukraine who can’t speak Ukrainian yet.
Michael Standaert, who most recently was employed as a correspondent based in China with the Bloomberg Industry Group, was hired by North Dakota News Cooperative to work on in-depth stories for newspapers in the state.
The actor and North Dakota native helped encourage the family of Danny Mapes to set up a charity in honor of the man who never let physical limitations get in the way of achieving his dreams.
The Hopeful Heart Project was founded to help women in the Fargo-Moorhead area cope with the loss of a pregnancy or baby, but now co-founder Kayla Sorum is under investigation.
Group homes that care for developmentally disabled people in North Dakota have been struggling with staff vacancy rates of 20% or more during the pandemic.
According to search warrant affidavits, the FBI believes Feeding Our Future, whose reimbursements for federal food programs grew from $3.5 million in 2019 to $197.9 million last year, worked with food distributors to file false claims for huge amounts of food that never was delivered to needy kids.
