I’m on my way home and am reminded how easy it is for me to work anywhere – so long as I can get online. We flew from Dublin to Chicago on Friday. I have been working at my sister’s; but am not working in a hotel while I watch a sick kid. Tomorrow we go home to St Paul.

I know that’s a little off topic – but it always amazes me. My phone is in a sort of limbo. The Irish phone doesn’t work. I only have my pay-as-you-go temporary cell phone, which I had to give to my husband with the healthy kids. But so long as I can get online – I can work. And as long as I can get online people can reach me.

As was the case with the email I got last night from my Aunt letting me know that Blandin Foundation has awarded MinnPost with a three-year grant totaling $225,000. And I was able to email Bernadine Joselyn at Blandin for more info. It’s the next best thing to being there!

More about the Grant

On to my real topic – I was thrilled to learn about the award. MinnPost is a nonprofit online news source. They have a number of seasoned journalists writing real news stories. They also invited editorials and comments from citizens. It’s a fairly new initiative – but it’s going great guns.

It’s a great fit for Blandin. As Bernadine wrote to me, “the connection to our mission is about what we call “rural voice”: one of our strategic goals is to “help rural people be their own voice.” Our goal is to ensure that rural perspectives are well represented in policy discourse that affects rural people and places.”

The money will be used to reach out to rural voices – if you are a rural voice, I hope you’ll consider getting involved. They are looking for a number of experienced journalists based in Greater Minnesota to join our group of more than 50 freelancers and they are looking for new contributors from around the state to write occasional opinion pieces for our Community Voices section.

It will be fun to watch how this progresses.