Procurement: Buying Local

Health Care Partner Procurement

CCAP health care partners agreed upon a priority list that included creating a list of preferred vendors, meeting with Sodexo about using local produce vendors, and further discussion about a shared sterilization facility.

Local Vendors

Garden Fresh Farms (GFF)

GFF has developed several systems to grow herbs and produce using sustainable methods indoors for consistent year round growth. In 2013 GFF won the National Sustainability Award in the Clean Tech Open, the Minnesota Cup Clean Tech Division. Garden Fresh products are sold at Whole Foods, Lunds, Kowalskis and other retail outlets.  GFF also wholesales and offers daily delivery.  Products include lettuce, sprouts, and herbs.

Hirshfield’s

Fairview developed a relationship with Hirshfield’s, a local, family-owned business that offers Zero-VOC paint which is better for people and for the environment.  Hirshfield’s also manufactures its own paint in Minneapolis and offers paint recycling.

Armored Car

HealthPartners may begin to work with a Central Corridor vendor  for armored car services once its RFP process concludes at the end of October 2016. Education partners are participating in the RFP. 

Snow Removal and Appliances

CCAP partners are urged to continue using or consider working with Central Corridor vendors Prescription Landscape for snow removal and Warners’ Stellian for appliances.

Transit: Growing a Culture of Transit Use

College Partners

Four college partners—Augsburg, St. Kate’s, St. Thomas, and Bethel—engaged in the Metro Transit freshman Go-To card promotion in fall 2016. Each campus provided all freshman students with a pre-loaded Go-To card and encouraged students to load at least $10 onto their cards to be eligible for a $10 bonus, with each school providing the matching funds. The Partnership developed an app, Green Line Go!, and a social media contest, #10dollarTransitBonus, to help promote transit use.

Employer Partners

In fall 2015, Regions Hospital transitioned its employee transit incentive program to the Metro Transit MetroPass program, enabling employees to purchase the pass using pre-tax earnings. Metro Transit provided Regions with customized transit information specific to transit options near the Regions campus. Regions grew its employee transit use by 34 employees, all of whom gave up their parking contracts, since fall 2015. HealthEast continues to provide subsidized MetroPasses to employees, and increased transit program participation by 30% since fall 2015, moving from 36 to 48 participants.

Expanding and Strengthening our Local Nursing Workforce

Minneapolis College President Sharon Pierce

With a dozen years as a practicing nurse and twenty more years in nursing education, I bring a strong awareness of our challenges in health care to my new role as President of Minneapolis Community and Technical College.

While I am new to the Central Corridor Anchor Partnership, I am impressed with the Partnership’s commitment to embracing our health care challenges, and I fully share in the commitment to a vision of a more diverse workforce that reflects the community in which our anchor institutions thrive.  Having met with several of the Partnership’s leaders, I can already tell that we are working together on the right issues, at the right time, and in the right place.

At MCTC, we share a passion for

engaging students individually in planning their futures and careers, and connecting with the wider community of employers and education partners to help our students achieve their goals.

This Anchor Update highlights an MCTC student whose story causes us to reflect on the power of career pathways in helping students achieve their goals. Mursal Omar fled war-torn Somalia with his family as a political refugee, and eventually resettled in Minnesota. When Mursal made his way to MCTC, he found himself in the right place at the right time – he is finally able to think about his future.  Mursal’s transition invites us to think about the transformative power of career pathways support. C3 Fellows connected Omar to a network of professionals and is helping him achieve his goals, as this Partnership has done for many others at different stages of career exploration and job placement.

  I look forward to creating many more such inspiring stories in our work together.