Healthy Community Initiative

Highlights from HCI’s 2025 Community Breakfast More than 250 guests gathered in St. Olaf College’s Buntrock Commons Ballroom on Wednesday, April 9, for HCI’s annual Community Breakfast. HCI’s staff and board, along with friends, community leaders, and longtime and recent supporters of HCI, enjoyed breakfast and celebrated the transformational impact HCI-supported programs are having on […]

By Colton Kemp for the Northfield News Northfielder Nikita Geissler hopes to soon be promoted to house manager at A Way Out Sober Living in Northfield. There was a significant skill he was lacking experience with however — administering naloxone. Naloxone, often referred to as the brand name “Narcan,” is what’s called an opioid antagonist, […]

By Ashley Gardner as a Guest Columnist for the Northfield News Students involved in the RAVE (Reduction and Awareness of Vaping and E-cigarette use) Initiative have launched a campaign to raise awareness in Rice County of how to properly dispose of vape devices. The students organized a vape disposal take-back last month at the Community […]

To Heather Luethje, the Rice County Diaper Bank Collaborative is a blessing; another way she can show her clients that the community cares about young families and is there to help. “Every family is so appreciative and grateful for something so small but yet so big in the grand scheme of managing their month-to-month budget, […]

By Colton Kemp for the Northfield News Emily Culver is back in her college town of Northfield, taking on a new role as Network Impact Coordinator for the Northfield Racial and Ethnic Equity Collaborative of Healthy Community Initiative. As she finds her footing in the community again, she was given an official tour of the city’s […]

We celebrated 10 years of Northfield YouthBank this past Saturday and took a look back at some of the great programs and youth-driven change that YouthBank grants have supported over the years. From the construction of Arcadia Charter School’s hoop house, to providing instruments to the Key Youth Center, and the inception of Community Youth Activity Night (CYAN), Northfield youth have worked to shape the city. […]

Three Rivers Community Action and Healthy Community Initiative (HCI) have exciting news to share about Mobile Home Rehabilitation efforts in Rice County. Three Rivers, with its robust housing and home energy and weatherization programs, is bringing the Mobile Home Rehabilitation Initiative under its umbrella of programs and will employ and provide support for the initiative’s […]

By Tom Steinmetz as a Guest Columnist for the Northfield News I started as Healthy Community Initiative’s new Executive Director one month ago, and it’s been delightful to meet so many people who are dedicated to improving the lives of youth and their families in Northfield and Faribault and across Rice County. My whole career […]

“What’s pretty amazing and unique about HCI is there’s this really clear, ambitious mission, but all of that work is done through really strong, creative, trusting, innovative partnerships with people and organizations in a lot of different fields and disciplines and areas. But everyone is coming together with that same shared purpose.

The Healthy Community Initiative (HCI) Board of Directors enthusiastically announces that Tom Steinmetz will serve as the organization’s new Executive Director. Steinmetz will start Monday, Jan. 13.