Breaking down barriers in North Minneapolis

A community event originally focused on healthy eating grew into a wide-reaching street festival recently—one that brought 1,500 people together in North Minneapolis to promote healthier living and build meaningful relationships. The Live Your Healthy Lyfe festival, held August 2 on West Broadway Ave. between Penn Ave. and Logan Ave., featured a variety of food, music, art, healthcare screenings, vaccinations and purposeful dialogue, all intended to help elevate the quality of life for the North Minneapolis community. 

The event was organized due to “barriers in access to healthy foods, health care and health information,” said Teto Wilson, a local business owner and one of the event founders. To build relationships between communities of color and organizations that can improve community health, Wilson and others found sponsors in healthcare and other businesses to support the event. 

After organizing a smaller event in 2019 featuring food trucks and other vendors, Wilson, owner of Wilson’s Image Barbershop & Stylists, was inspired to expand his vision and attract more people after taking a pause during the pandemic, then attending the Selby Avenue Jazz Festival in St. Paul in 2021. “I got the idea to reboot the healthy community concept, and it grew beyond healthy eating choices.”  

Leveraging relationships he had with healthcare providers, Wilson recruited Children’s Minnesota, North Memorial Health and Gillette Childrens as sponsors. Other sponsors included mental health service providers Prairie Care and Arubah, Life Source—an organ procurement organization, Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity, the city of Minneapolis, the West Broadway Business and Area Coalition, and Bellmont Partners—a communications agency.

The festival was an “opportunity to address needs of underserved communities,” said Wilson, who coordinated the event along with Brittany Clausen, founder & CEO of Envision Greatness, and Latasha Sims, founder of Twin Cities Black Women Connect. “The sponsors were all on board” to make the event a success, and all want to return next year, Wilson said.

Not surprisingly, plans are already underway for next year’s event, with an even bigger turnout anticipated. “We want to build on that success and keep it going,” said Wilson. “We want to open this up to anyone and want to be truly inclusive.”