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Audra Tonihka, loan officer at the White Earth Investment Initiative, was recognized Nov. 17 at Minnesota’s Top Women in Finance awards celebration. The awards are bestowed annually by Finance & Commerce magazine, which held this year’s event at the Hyatt Regency, Minneapolis. An interview with Audra is included in the online magazine.

White Earth Investment Initiative is an affiliate of MMCDC and operates in Ogema, Minn., on the White Earth Reservation. It offers community economic development services to Native American Communities.

(Photo by Bill Klotz, reprinted with permission from Finance & Commerce Inc.)

The Metropolitan Economic Development Association (MEDA) will celebrate its 45th anniversary as part of its MEDA Gala, 6 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 19, at The Depot, 225 S. 3rd Ave., Minneapolis, Minn. MEDA is a nonprofit provider of services to minority entrepreneurs.

MMCDC’s affiliate, the White Earth Investment Initiative, is among those organizations helping to sponsor the event. White Earth Investment Initiative is a nonprofit provider of services to Native American Communities and businesses.

Revitalization of a vacant downtown landmark in Park Rapids, Minn., is being recognized with a Quality of Place Award by the Northwest Minnesota Foundation, Bemidji, Minn. The project transformed the former National Guard Armory into Armory Square, an arts and cultural center.

MMCDC provided financing and other assistance for the project. A complete story is found in the Park Rapids Enterprise.

Seward Cooperative, an MMCDC borrower, was honored this summer with a visit from U.S. Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew. Highlights of the visit were captured in an announcement by the New Markets Tax Credit Coalition and posted to its webpage. Secretary Lew lauded the Seward expansion as a good use of the federal New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) program. Congressional leaders and the White House voted Sept. 15 to extend the NMTC for five years.

Walk-in showers, new flooring and appliance updates are under way at Pine Villa Estates, an MMCDC-owned 30-unit building in Wadena County.

Upgrades are made possible by funding from NeighborWorks America and the Federal Home Loan Bank of Des Moines. Pine Villa is specifically set aside for seniors and disabled adults and has an elevator, community room and park-like setting in this safe community. Contact MMCDC for application assistance, tours and more.

MMCDC held its annual meeting Thursday, June 16, at the Historic Holmes Theatre in Detroit Lakes, MN. The evening highlighted the work of an MMCDC subsidiary, White Earth Investment Initiative (WEII), a nonprofit community development company headquartered on the White Earth Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota. The agenda included a video highlight – courtesy of the Minnesota Vikings – of US Bank Stadium construction in Minneapolis.

The crew for Bald Eagle Erectors (a Native American-owned company) has worked 41,346 hours alongside other subcontractors to install steel and other metals at the stadium. The company employed a total of 40 ironworkers – 29.4 percent minority and 10.7 percent female – on stadium contract work totaling $6.9 million to date. White Earth Investment Initiative supplied a total of $717,100 in loan funds to support company expansion during this time.

“White Earth Investment Initiative helped me reach a longtime goal of owning my own office and yard for Bald Eagle Erectors, Inc.,” company owner Dave Bice said.

Longtime MMCDC partner Rural LISC is being recognized as a 2016 Housing Visionary Award Recipient by the National Housing Conference.

The award honors individuals and organizations for their effort to support the availability of affordable housing in the United States. Rural LISC is a provider of training, technical assistance, financing and other contributions to its network of approximately 70 rural community development corporations.

MMCDC is a member of Rural LISC.

Source: http://www.nhc.org/#!honorees/fqevh

Wide, wooden doorways drew Melissa Price to her historic Perham home, but she soon realized other aspects needed modernizing.

She and husband Nick planned to replace the old lathe-and-plaster walls with insulation and sheetrock, but ran into barriers with building code issues. More extensive work was needed, and they approached their community bank for a loan. They were referred to MMCDC, which provided a $27,800 home renovation loan at attractive and affordable terms.

“I’m totally impressed there’s a loan company out there doing this,” Melissa said. “There’s a lot of old homes out there that need work but they can be beautiful again.”

Nick, a carpenter, gutted the home to the studs and found it structurally sound. A bathroom was added upstairs, and the stairway and landing were updated. Original wood was salvaged whenever possible, and leftover lumber was repurposed as a dining room table. Finishing design touches further modernized and personalized the home, and best of all, there was no more frost appearing on the inside of the home.

The Prices made discoveries along the way. One was a letter in the walls dating back to 1882, in which the author promises to send money. The other is was the importance of working and communicating together as a family to overcome a challenge. Not only did Nick and Melissa participate, but daughters Keyana, 11, and Destiny, 5, also lent a hand.

“We thought about it a long time,” she said. “We prayed about it… I think God blessed that whole thing.”