Healthy Community Initiative

Cheers to Growing Up Healthy! The HCI program recently received a Seed Coalition 2025 Presidents’ Community Partner Award, which celebrates individuals and organizations who have meaningfully improved a community’s quality of life through collaboration with a college or university. Growing Up Healthy was nominated by Seed Coalition member St. Olaf College. Seed Coalition consists of 40+ […]

Healthy Community Initiative (HCI) is celebrating National Prevention Week (May 11-17) by recognizing the efforts of local prevention champions. The Rice County Chemical and Mental Health Coalition recently presented 2025 Prevention Champion awards to David Aase, principal broker and founder of Revival Commercial Real Estate; Gabbie Carlander, Community School Coordinator at Faribault High School; Daryl […]

The Northfield Community College Collaborative is an HCI program that offers in-person and online community college classes, tutoring, career planning assistance, and other support to anyone who has graduated from high school or has a GED. Sign up now for summer and fall classes! Summer Session: 4-Week Global Studies Course! The deadline for summer registration […]

Originally published March 11, 2025 by Carleton College’s Center for Community and Civic Engagement The Center for Community and Civic Engagement (CCCE) partners with schools and organizations for our Community-Based Work Study (CBWS) program, providing students with opportunities to engage with the Rice County community through their work-study positions. One CBWS job is tutoring with […]

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. […]