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The Camden Collective Story

The Camden Collective was formed in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic to help Northside youth with distance learning. We opened in October 2020 with an all-volunteer team of tutors and offered free after school homework help. In January 2021, The Camden Collective moved to Salem Lutheran Church and started a weekly food distribution with the support of The Sanneh Foundation and later Second Harvest Heartland. As we grew, we expanded our hours and received a large grant to build a food shelf inside Salem Lutheran Church. By the end of June of 2024 we were serving food to around 250 families a week through our food programming two days a week. 

We continued our focus on serving the youth of North Minneapolis through a youth employment program. We received several large grants to pay Northside youth and between January of 2022 and May of 2025 we employed 14 youth from North Minneapolis. We also worked with many other young people as volunteers. Two of the first four youth we hired were bilingual in Spanish and English. The Executive Director also speaks Spanish so the three of them were able to organically build up a youth employment and food distribution program that operated completely bilingually and was welcoming to both English only and Spanish only speaking volunteers. Additional bilingual youth staff and volunteers were brought on as we grew.  On any given Saturday during a food distribution, you could come and see both languages being used together. We also had other immigrant volunteers who brought their languages and experiences to us as well.  We always felt that this was the heart of our program during those years. 

In June of 2024, we received notice that our 501c3 tax exempt status had been revoked due to a tax filing error on our end as well as a database error on the part of the IRS. 

Because of this, we would be unable to continue our large food distributions. At the end of June, we hosted a large neighborhood party to celebrate all that we had accomplished. 

But we did not end operations completely. In the Fall of 2024, we reopened with a small weekly food shelf staffed by two youth employees and we also put on two large events: our Fall Festival and a Thanksgiving Meal distribution. However, Salem ended our lease at the end of May 2025 and we ceased food programming completely and put our equipment in storage. 

In September 2025, we received word that our tax exempt status had been reinstated and is backdated so our tax exempt status runs from 2020 to the present. 

We still have a significant amount of resources available to serve the community. At this point, we are focusing on our major events such as our Fall Festival and bringing back our Winter Coat Giveaway. We are evaluating where we can best put our resources to use  to serve Camden and North Minneapolis. 

In general moving forward expect our focus to be on: food insecurity and feeding our neighborhood, community events and engaging youth. These have been our core programs since our inception in one way or another. We also intend to keep making our programming as accessible to Spanish speakers as possible by offering as much as we can bilingually.  We will likely be operating with mostly volunteers moving forward so what we can offer depends on who wants to help out. 

Thank you so much for your support as we regroup and find new ways to engage with and serve our neighbors. If you are interested in joining our board or have ideas about how we can grow and move forward, please reach out to: anna@thecamdencollective.org.

The Camden Neighborhoods

Camden includes the neighborhoods of Folwell, Lind-Bohanon, McKinley, Shingle Creek, Victory, and Webber-Camden.

Our Partners

Thank you to the individuals and sponsors who have supported The Camden Collective from its inception all the way to where we are today. A special thank you to Salem Lutheran Church for letting us create a home away from home in your space. Last, but not least, we are very grateful for the volunteers who dedicate their time and energy to helping us fulfill this mission.

Our Team

Anna Gerdeen

Anna Gerdeen
Executive Director

anna@thecamdencollective.org

Anna founded The Camden Collective in September 2020. Professionally, she is a licensed K-12 educator (Social Studies and ESL) and has experience in both management and program coordination. Anna’s education includes a BA (History, Global Studies and Spanish) and a Master's of Education from the University of Minnesota and a Master's of Divinity from Harvard University. She is bilingual in Spanish and English.

Anna is passionate about neighborhood collaboration and connections, youth advocacy and food and education policy. She loves living on the Northside and wants to bring attention to its many positive attributes while advocating for cultural and equity-informed change that will benefit North Minneapolis for decades to come. Anna served on the Webber-Camden Board of Directors for two years and currently sits on the City of Minneapolis Public Health Advisory Committee.

Anna has lived in the North Minneapolis neighborhood of Webber-Camden for ten years and has a 13-year-old son named Jacob. Her personal hobbies and interests include: fixing up her 100-year-old craftsman bungalow, everything cats, crossword puzzles and intensely following local and national politics.

Sami

Sami Ahmadyar
Food Share Lead

Sami arrived with his family from Afghanistan in May of 2022 and he started working at The Camden Collective two weeks later. Over the past year he has proven to be a great employee and now he helps to lead the Saturday Food Share program. He also works full time for CAPI during the week helping recent immigrants to find housing.

Sami is fluent in Dari, English, Hindi, Pashto and can speak at least 2-3 additional languages. 

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Jasly S
Student Employee

Jasly has been working with The Camden Collective since May of 2023. Her family is originally from Guatemala and she is 15 and attends Patrick Henry High School.

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Jett B
Student Employee

Jett is 15 and lives in the Webber-Camden neighborhood. She is a former student of The Camden Collective Learning Center. She has two dogs, chickens, and is a vegan. Jett is on Student Council at her school and loves the arts - especially theater, reading, and writing.

She likes working at The Camden Collective because she gets to help the neighborhood and interact with community members.

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Lizbeth F
Lead Student Employee

Lizbeth lives in the Near North neighborhood with 6 siblings and is in 11th grade at Armstrong High School. She has been working at The Camden Collective since March of 2022 and has been promoted to the registration manager. 

She is bilingual and speaks English and Spanish. She plays basketball and soccer and enjoys learning French. 

Her favorite things about working at The Camden Collective are the new friends she is making and that she has something to look forward to each week.

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Ale C
Student Employee

Ale is 16 and lives in the Folwell neighborhood. She has been working for The Camden Collective for over 1.5 years. She attends St. Louis Park High School and is bilingual in English and Spanish. She loves music and enjoys Jazz Band. Ale plays the piano, trumpet, guitar and the ukulele. She also likes tennis and rock climbing.

Her favorite thing about working at The Camden Collective is that she gets to help out and not sit around.

Bev

Bev Wiesner
Secretary

Bev has been a long time volunteer with The Camden Collective and she just joined the Board of Directors in January of 2023. She and her husband Larry have had many years of experience working in food shelves in the past. Bev loves to cook and sew in her free time. 

Jim Cain, Treasurer

Jim Cain
President

James H. Cain is the current president of The Camden Collective. He is a 65 year old retired IT Engineer for an international company and a lifelong Camden Community resident.
 
He attended the local high school, is a military veteran, and president of the local Camden Lions Club. He has been involved as a member of Lions for 20 years. Jim has also served on the board of directors of Brooklyn Center Little League for 27 years. He has been on the state advisory board for Special Olympics Minnesota and an event volunteer coordinator for them for 12 years running.
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Elijah Norris-Holliday
Director

Elijah Norris-Holliday currently serves as the founder and CEO of Project Restore Minnesota, a private nonprofit social enterprise serving young adults ages 18-24 residing in the Twin Cities. His organization dedicates its resources to the empowerment, development, and advancement of ADOS young adults and those impacted by the criminal system. He and his team provide a host of services ranging from professional development training, personal development workshops, job connection, mentorship, and wrap-around support to our community.
 
He prioritizes forming strategic partnerships with employers, community-based organizations, government entities, and the community to accomplish their mission and goals.
 
Elijah earned his bachelor’s degree from Winona State University in Public Administration with a minor in Political Science and a Master of Arts degree in Public Administration specializing in public budgeting and finance from Minnesota State University Mankato.
 
Elijah has built successful partnerships with public servants and private sector leaders to advance efforts to empower the ADOS community. He enjoys mentoring young adults, exercising, traveling with his partner, and connecting with the community in his spare time.
Kevin

Kevin Aldwaik
Director

Kevin Aldwaik has lived in North Minneapolis for over twenty years. He came to the United States as a Palestinian refugee as a teenager and has has run different businesses in the area. His current store is Webber Mart, located on 44th Ave N in the Webber Camden Neighborhood. 
 
Kevin has long been involved in everything that goes on on the Northside.  As a business owner, he has experienced a fair share of crime and has seen an employee shot and has even been shot himself. However, Kevin is always trying to make North Minneapolis better and safter for those he meets. Along with being a founding board member of The Camden Collective, Kevin has been a long term member of The Camden Lions, has served many terms on the Webber-Camden Neighborhood Organization, and is currently a part of the Upper Northside Business Association. 
 
He has two cats, Smokey and Maddie and also has another big bobCAT which he uses to help clear off neighbor's sidewalks in the winter. 
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Rafi Golberstein
Treasurer

Rafi is a commercial real estate finance veteran with over 15 years of experience in CRE structured finance, loan origination and equity investments. Prior to founding PLG, Rafi spent his career on Wall Street where he was a Managing Director at Ladder Capital, a publicly traded REIT. At Ladder, Rafi focused on CMBS origination, balance sheet and mezzanine loans as well as equity investments. Prior to Ladder, Rafi worked at Gramercy Capital conducting asset management and loan workouts. Rafi began his career at Credit Suisse in its large loan commercial real estate group. Throughout his career, Rafi has originated and closed over $2.5 billion of commercial real estate loans throughout the country. Rafi has a BS from Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York.

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In Memoriam: Erin Russ
First President of
The Camden Collective

Erin Russ was the first formal president of The Camden Collective. While her term was short we will remember her always.

Erin started volunteering with The Camden Collective in the spring of 2021 and joined the board of directors in September of 2021. She became our first president later that fall. Erin helped put on two amazing events that fall and collected hundreds of coats to give out to the community. 

Erin lived in the Cleveland neighborhood of North Minneapolis and was also on the Cleveland Neighborhood Association board and she also volunteered with the Backpack project.  In her spare time, she was also a full time professional architect and loved bar trivia.  She passed away very quickly of cancer in September of 2022.  

We remember her for her spirit of giving and for her love for everyone around her. 

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