Community Investment

In honor of the 2024 Summer Olympic Games, our M&B Cares team organized a week-long Moss & Barnett Office Olympics for Special Olympics during the week of July 22-26, 2024, to benefit Minnesota Special Olympics. Our M&B Olympians participated in events that included an Opening Ceremony Parade of Departments, Putt Putt Golf, Equestrian Basketball, Paperball Shotput, jAXlin Throwing, Suction Cup Archery, Bags Tournament, Competitive Puzzling, Competitive Sudoku, Rhythmic Gymnastics, Nerf Soccer, Chair Race Relay, and more. It was a fun week embodying the Olympic values of Excellence, Respect, and Friendship while raising funds for Special Olympics.

To show our support for and thank the courageous men and women veterans who have served our country, M&B Cares organized a Cards for Veterans drive the week of May 20, 2024. The cards were delivered to the Veterans Service Office located in Little Falls, Harding Place in Pierz, the Veterans Home located in Luverne, and the Veterans Home located in Fergus Falls – all located in the State of Minnesota – in time for Memorial Day.

Moss & Barnett employees were honored to volunteer with the Cooks for Kids program to purchase and serve a meal to the families at the Ronald McDonald House – Children’s Hospitals & Clinics of Minnesota location through our M&B Cares initiative. Ronald McDonald House Charities-Upper Midwest, in partnership with the community, provides a comfortable and caring home-away-from-home that supports keeping families together and reduces stress during a child’s serious illness. Its four Twin Cities sites provide complimentary lodging, meals, and a community of support to families facing a child's serious illness, injury, or disability. 

M&B Cares purchased and gift wrapped 52 copies of The Chronicles of Narnia box set for the 7th grade students at Hope Academy. Hope Academy is a private inner-city school serving over 700 K-12 students in the Minneapolis area.

M&B Cares learned that Hennepin Healthcare had zero shoes to provide inpatient adults as they are discharged, so the M&B Cares team ran a shoe drive for the month of November 2023 to provide shoes and socks to our neighbors during their time of need. In 2021, M&B Cares provided 120 patients with shoes. We hope to provide even more shoes and socks in 2023. 

Volunteers from the firm helped the Urban League Twin Cities put on their 33^rd Annual Family Day Homecoming. This event strives to provide a stress-free day of fun for the family. It also is meant to empower families as they learn of the resources and services that are available to them.  Our team ran the Kid’s Zone which included field games, face painting, and a bouncy slide. In addition, M&B Cares provided a cash donation to the Urban League for the event.

The Race for the Cure is Komen’s signature fundraising event. M&B Cares sent a team of volunteers to this year's race. Our volunteers handed out Komen wraps to all participants to be used as interactive pieces in the Opening Ceremony. They roamed throughout the event site and made sure everyone had a wrap which was very much appreciated on an especially cold and rainy race morning.

M&B Cares purchased and gift wrapped copies of two books, Just Mercy and The Hiding Place: Corrie ten Boom, for the 8th grade students at Hope Academy. Hope Academy is a private inner-city school serving over 700 K-12 students in the Minneapolis area.

On November 2, 2022, the M&B Cares Committee hosted a Chili Cook Off to benefit the Children's Law Center of Minnesota (CLC) Foster Kids Duffle Bag Drive. Kids in foster care move around a lot so CLC makes sure that every new child client also receives a new duffel bag full of necessities.

During the month of July, 2022, M&B Cares held a personal hygiene products drive to benefit Breaking Free's Drop In Center. Breaking Free's mission is empowering survivors of sex trafficking and prostitution to build new lives through safe housing, direct services, effective healing programs, survivor advocacy, worldwide policy change, and hope. One component of the services they provide is their Drop In Center where they provide the basic needs including safety planning, a place to rest, showers, and food.

Imagine sleeping without a pillow? Thousands of families and individuals face this situation every day. M&B Cares partnered with Bridging to collect new and gently used pillows and pillow cases, as well as cash donations and direct donations, to meet this need in our community.

M&B Cares purchased and gift wrapped copies of two books, A Wrinkle in Time and One Crazy Summer, for students at Hope Academy. Hope Academy is a private inner-city school serving over 700 K-12 students in the Minneapolis area.

M&B Cares learned that, for a variety of reasons, many patients admitted to Hennepin Healthcare Inpatient Psychiatry arrive without footwear. To address this need, we ran a shoe drive for the month of September 2021 and collected over 150 pairs of shoes to ensure that patients who need shoes have them at discharge.

The M&B Cares Committee made a cash donation to Nurture Newborns, an affiliate of Emerge Mothers Academy, a nonprofit organization. Nurture Newborns is an annual student-led fundraiser dedicated to providing free newborn and infant supplies to parents in need.

M&B Cares collected healthy snacks and toys for FamilyWise, a nonprofit organization that offers supervised parenting and safe exchanges between non-custodial parents and their children.

M&B Cares created and designed over 500 Valentine's Day cards for senior residents at the Presbyterian Homes-Johanna Shores facility in Arden Hills, Minnesota.

M&B Cares wrapped up its 2020 projects by purchasing gifts for seniors in need through the Fifth Street Towers Gifts for Seniors virtual gift drive.

M&B Cares made a cash donation to Beyond New Beginnings, a non-profit organization dedicated to supporting young families by providing safe, secure housing, programming, and high-quality child care to those currently enrolled or graduated from the New Beginnings program.

M&B Cares made a cash donation to the Hope Academy Christmas Book Giveaway so that each of the school's students would receive a set of two gift-wrapped books. Hope Academy is a private inner-city school serving urban youth located in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

M&B Cares collected cash donations in support of Sneakers for Soldiers that provides athletic shoes to deployed combat troops from all branches of the military. The soldiers are able to select the brand and style that best fits their feet and their needs. We were able provide 21 pairs of customized sneakers to our brave men and women in the military. 

M&B Cares was pleased to again sponsor a school supply drive this year – this time for a 1st grade classroom of 20 students at Hope Academy, a diverse K-12th grade inner city school located in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

M&B Cares collected healthy snacks and toys for FamilyWise, a non-profit organization that offers supervised parenting and safe exchanges between non-custodial parents and their children in a safe environment in one of its five locations.

M&B Cares made a cash donation to the Hope Academy Christmas Book Giveaway so that each of the school's students would receive a set of two gift-wrapped books. Hope Academy is a private inner-city school serving urban youth located in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

To show our ongoing support for the courageous men and women who serve our country, M&B Cares once again shipped 30 care packages to a designated military unit to arrive in time for Thanksgiving.

M&B Cares walked in the 2019 Twin Cities Walk for Water in support of Water Mission. Over 400 people participated in-person in this year’s walk, with 250 more participating virtually, which raised $161,638. The funds raised will help deliver clean, safe water to people in developing countries and disaster areas.

M&B Cares walked in support of the 2019 Out of the Darkness Twin Cities Walk and joined a quarter of a million people from hundreds of cities across all 50 states to raise awareness and funds that will save lives and bring hope to those affected by suicide.

M&B Cares once again sponsored a school supply drive – this year for the 6th and 7th grade students at Hope Academy, an inner city school located in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Hope Academy is a diverse K-12th grade school with 74% of their student body being low income. The school is faith-based and the philosophy is powerful and effective, rooted in a premise of strengthening and engaging the family structure around the kids, and striving to break cyclical poverty to have a lasting impact.

Moss & Barnett has been a longtime supporter of Breaking Free, a nonprofit organization that rescues women and children from sex trafficking. Every year, Breaking Free hosts an annual BBQ where they invite all of their clients, past and present, along with their children, to enjoy a day of food and fun. M&B Cares was once again very pleased to volunteer to provide and serve food at the annual event.

M&B Cares was honored to participate in another Happy Hour Squared to make sandwiches for Mr. Allan Law's 363 Days Food Program.

To show our support for the courageous men and women who serve our country, M&B Cares once again shipped 30 care packages to a designated military unit to arrive in time for the Memorial Day holiday. 

The firm's employees purchased and donated supplies for cleaning kits for homeless youth transitioning into new housing at The Link, a nonprofit working with youth and families to overcome the impacts of poverty and social injustice.

M&B Cares' 2018 year-end projects included purchasing gifts for the Gifts for Seniors Gift Tree sponsored by Fifth Street Towers and cash donations to House of Charity and the Salvation Army.

Each year, suicide claims more lives than war, murder, and natural disasters combined. Yet suicide prevention does not receive anywhere near the funding as other leading causes of death. M&B Cares was pleased to be a Silver Sponsor of, and also field a team of Walkers for, the 2018 Twin Cities Out of the Darkness Community Walk in support of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention's lifesaving work.

Inspired by the burden that millions of women and children bear every day walking an average of 3.5 miles to collect water that is not safe, Moss & Barnett was pleased to be a Platinum Sponsor of the third annual Twin Cities Walk for Water. We walked to raise awareness of the global water crisis as part of our M&B Cares initiative.

M&B Cares sponsored a school supply drive for the 11th and 12th grade students at Hope Academy, an inner city school located at 2300 Chicago Avenue, Minneapolis, Minnesota. Hope Academy is a diverse K-12th grade school with 74% of their student body being low income. The school is faith-based and the philosophy is powerful and effective, rooted in a premise of strengthening and engaging the family structure around the kids, and striving to break cyclical poverty to have a lasting impact.

Moss & Barnett employees and friends enjoyed serving a picnic lunch to the clients and families of Breaking Free at their annual barbecue held on July 28, 2018, at Newell Park in St. Paul, Minnesota. There were games and prizes for the kids and face painting, too. A good time was had by all. Breaking Free is a Minnesota-based non-profit and social justice/social change organization founded in 1996. Every year, Breaking Free helps over 500 women escape systems of prostitution and sexual exploitation through advocacy, direct services, housing, and education.

Ronald McDonald House Charities-Upper Midwest, in partnership with the community, provides a comfortable and caring home-away-from-home that supports keeping families together and reduces stress during a child’s serious illness. Its four Twin Cities sites provide complimentary lodging, meals, and a community of support to families facing a child's serious illness, injury, or disability. Moss & Barnett employees and family members were honored to volunteer with the Cooks for Kids program to purchase, prepare, and serve a meal to the families at the Ronald McDonald House – Children’s Hospitals & Clinics of Minnesota, Minnesota.

To show our support for the courageous men and women who serve our country, M&B Cares is adopting the 30 members of the 4th Expeditionary Medical Unit (4th EMU) which is currently stationed in Iraq. The members of the 4th EMU have been deployed to provide medical assistance to U.S. fighting forces on the ground in Iraq and Syria and to make arrangements for further medical transport to a permanent hospital out of country, if necessary. Additionally, they provide medical assistance to local nationals who have been devastated by the continued conflict in their country. The deployment is for nine months boots on ground.

M&B Cares will put together care packages with cookies, movies, magazines, books, office supplies, toiletries, and other items to be sent to the members of the 4th EMU throughout their deployment to let them how much we appreciate them and how grateful we are for their dedication and service.

The Brave New Workshop Theatre (BNW) has partnered with Finnegans, Inc (charitable beer company) to reinvent happy hour, with the goals of feeding the hungry and serving the community. Moss & Barnett employees, family members, and friends participated in this innovative monthly event dubbed "Happy Hour Squared," held at the BNW's event centre in downtown Minneapolis, to make over 2,000 sandwiches that were handed off to Allan Law's MRD 363 Days Food Program to feed the hungry on the streets that night.

We are fortunate to live in a land of plenty, but there are so many of us who do not have enough – or anything – to eat. M&B Cares hosted a food drive throughout the month of November 2017 to donate food for the holidays to Community Emergency Services (CES). CES's Neighborhood Food Shelf is a critical part of CES's food programming, which had more than 80,000 client contacts in 2015 and distributed 516,000 pounds of food.

Timber Bay seeks out kids in our midst who are too often overlooked. Some struggle silently in school; others act out in self-destructive behaviors. Timber Bay's staff develops long-term relationships with the youth they serve through a dynamic camping and community approach. On Saturday, November 18, 2018, Moss & Barnett employees, family members, retirees, and friends assisted Timber Bay with setting up 500+ Christmas trees for their annual fundraising event where 100% of the profits go to benefit youth in the community.

Inspired by the burden that millions of women and children bear every day walking an average of 3.5 miles to collect water that is not safe, Walk for Water in support of Water Mission raises awareness of the global water crisis. Moss & Barnett was pleased to be a Platinum Sponsor of the Walk, and we walked in support of people around the world who have to walk several miles daily to supply water to their families.

Our first M&B Cares initiative took place on June 4, 2017, when Moss & Barnett employees, family members, and friends participated in the Feed My Starving Children’s mobile packing event, LOVE SOMALIA, held at the St. Paul River Centre. The group filled 46 boxes of food that will provide 9,936 meals (the event produced a total of 645,568 meals).