Community Engagement

Nurturing our Neighborhood

ASI’s campus is located in the Phillips West neighborhood, one of the most culturally diverse yet economically challenged areas in Minnesota with approximately 40% of families living below the federal poverty level. ASI is deeply invested in contributing to a vibrant, healthy, and interconnected Phillips West community and provides access to arts and cultural-identity curricula through neighborhood partnerships and collaborations, including four long-term partnerships with the Minneapolis Public School District.

Story Swap

Since 2007, ASI and Wellstone International High School have partnered on Story Swap, a special program that invites immigrant or refugee students to learn about immigration to the United States and share their own experiences with descendants of Scandinavian immigrants. The exchange pairs students with ASI elders to swap stories on immigration, music, craft, and food traditions across cultures. 

Story Swap reaches across cultural boundaries to uplift the many ways that all of us can maintain our own unique cultural identities and expand our appreciation of others’. In the Story Swap program, the experience of exchanging immigrant stories creates cross–generational relationships rooted in respect, sympathy, and understanding.  

The Pippi Project

Launched in 2007, the Pippi Project is an annual partnership between ASI and the Minneapolis Public School District. Over six weeks, students from Anderson and Bancroft Elementary Schools learn about the power of storytelling as they craft characters and plotlines for their very own story, using Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Longstockings as a guide. 

After-School Programs

ASI partners with Minneapolis Community Education to provide after-school experiences for our community schools. These experiences uplift Scandinavian folk arts and cultures and offer hands-on arts, craft, and language activities.  

Bancroft Elementary
Through this collaboration, ASI supports a number of curriculum units and offers after-school handcraft enrichment classes for K–3 students.   

Whittier Elementary
After-school handcraft enrichment programs offer elementary-age students from Whittier Elementary School a safe environment and an opportunity to make something beautiful and useful with their hands.