Keeping a sense of community through unsure times…

I think I can speak for everybody when I say the first couple months of 2026 has been super wild, especially here in the Cedar Riverside Community in Minneapolis, Minnesota, where Augsburg University and the StepUP program are located. With the occupation of ICE in Minnesota, political unrest, and Augsburg being right smack in the middle of it, our scholars have dealt with a lot to say the least. At StepUP’s Leadership Team meetings, we’ve had many open discussions about the impact all of these external forces have had on the community, and I’ve heard a lot of words like “Tired. Scared. Overwhelmed. Unsure. Hopeless.” But one of the biggest sentiments that almost everyone on the team has shared is how important community is during this time.

A lot of the role of Leadership Team is dedicated to fostering a safe and supportive community and I can say personally that doing things with and for StepUP have been really good for me. We have Circle every Monday, where all the StepUP scholars gather and spend time together, game nights every week, service opportunities (we just went and spoke at a local high school about recovery and StepUP), go to meetings together, have community dinners, do homework together and even get to do fun events together! We just had a Superbowl party, and coming up on the 5^th of March, we will be attending the Recovery Night at the Timberwolves game. It’s events and moments like these where we can just be together and support each other but also have fun during hard times, that makes StepUP such a special community.

It’s not always easy, and there were a few times when it felt very hard to be optimistic and want to continue with the things we were doing. But it’s within chaos and instability that community and being together matters the most. Just last night we had a super fun game night in one of the residential flats of our sober dormitory and I’m proud to say that I, Elizabeth, won Flip 7. 😎 I’m so thankful for our sober community and happy I got to share a little bit with you all!