River Rock Kitchen & Baking Co’s local community impact starts with sourcing. Under Montana’s leadership, the bakery sources their ingredients from more than a dozen farms, mills, and cooperatives in Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin.

Freshly opened in June 2024, Half Pint Coffee Company brings a new coffee house to downtown Walnut Grove. The menu includes a full coffee bar featuring Half Pint Coffee Co’s freshly roasted beans along with baked treats, smoothies, teas and hand scooped ice cream.

On a rise in southern Minnesota that Rachel Davis’ ancestors called Poverty Knob, Kalvin, Rachel and their two young children (soon to be three in January!) raise a myriad of mushrooms at their ten acre solar- powered farm. 

“I’m not that great a cook. I’m a really good shopper,” laughs Beth Dooley, James Beard award-winning food writer, author of more than a dozen cookbooks, Star Tribune columnist, and a regular contributor to MPR.

“We tried over and over and over again to write a song about climate change. It’s really hard to do that, especially for kids,” explained Joe. “In the end the song ‘Trouble in Paradise’ reflected more than just climate change. It ended up surprising us that the song was about a world that was living by the narrative of separation.”

The work that it takes to turn raw wood into a custom handwriting piece or a Montessori kitchen tool all serves as a metaphor for life’s journey at Umbrella Custom Woodworking.