our story

RCSN started with parents.

In late 2025, a group of parents at Richfield Dual Language School noticed something wrong: immigrant families weren't bringing their kids to school. ICE presence had increased across the Twin Cities, and families were afraid to leave home.

Word spread. A few families started helping other families with rides. By the height of Operation Metro Surge, that informal network was providing over 200 student rides across the Richfield School District. As more households sheltered in place, more volunteers stepped in, driving people to work, picking up groceries, and filling gaps as they appeared.

The need kept growing, and the mutual aid group grew with it. We became a 501(c)(3) so we could raise funds and offer direct rent support to families who'd lost income while sheltering in place.

ICE presence eventually declined. The fear didn't. Families were left facing unemployment, underemployment, and the fallout of an immigration system many were now caught in. So we kept adapting, offering rent assistance, legal process navigation advocacy, and food support that grew from occasional grocery runs to twice-monthly distribution across home delivery and pop-up pantries.

Today, we're doing something else that requires the same instinct we started with: listening first. Starlings, an immigrant-led tenant organization, is telling us what their community needs. We're showing up to support them, and will be ready to adapt and change for what's ahead, just as we always have been.

RCSN connects immigrant households in Richfield to the resources, people, and support they need to stay safe and rooted in their community.

We dream of a Richfield where every family has neighbors who know them, networks that can reach them, and someone to call in a crisis.

These are not listed in priority order. When two values conflict, that tension needs a conversation.

We fill gaps, we don't replicate systems

Our job is to do what formal systems cannot or will not do: reach people who fall through, build trust across language barriers, move at the speed of a crisis, and work in ways that center the community's own judgment about what it needs.

We actively refer people to other organizations when those organizations are the right fit. We do not build programs to replace what already exists. We build what is missing. When another org can carry something we started, we hand it off.

We protect belonging

Belonging is the goal. Families staying in Richfield, knowing their neighbors, participating in community life, and building something here without fear of losing it.

Immigration enforcement is the most immediate threat for many families in our community. But displacement also comes through eviction, economic exclusion, and isolation. Belonging is fragile when any of those are present.

We build with, not for

We are not a charity delivering services to recipients. We are neighbors building with neighbors. The voices of building captains, tenant organizers, and community members closest to the crisis should lead. We want to avoid replicating white-led charity models, even when those models feel more efficient.

We are more like doulas: present and skilled, but clear that the power belongs to someone else.

This value has a specific application to how we think about community events and relationship-building. Many people in our network want to get to know their immigrant neighbors. That impulse is good. And many have already been able to do so. But it is not RCSN's job to manufacture connections by planning social events and inviting the community we serve. 

The events RCSN plans on its own are volunteer fairs, trainings, and celebrations of our own network. Social events that include the broader Richfield community happen when Starlings is a partner, requester, or leader of those events. We show up alongside. 

Part of understanding our role is understanding that our network is predominantly white. We can leverage that privilege in service of families who need it. We should also be conscious of it. Showing up fully present in relationships is not the same as taking up space or making decisions for people who did not ask us to.

We are faithful with what we hold

Every dollar we hold belongs to the families we serve. We ask for verification and documentation. We do not cut corners on fraud prevention, even when it is slow. The community's trust in how we handle money is what makes the mission possible.

At the same time, we recognize the radicalness of mutual aid, which does not ask for proof of worthiness. We work to be faithful without trying to be gatekeepers. 

We are honest about limits

We cannot serve everyone, and we cannot ask more of people than they can honestly carry. We name our scope clearly and hold it consistently. A collective no is not a failure. It is how we stay viable for the people we have already committed to. 

The same is true internally. When a person or the team is at capacity, naming it is not weakness. It is information we need to make good decisions. We do not reward overextension. We do not penalize honesty about limits.

We recognize that it's the culture of white supremacy that demands perfection and urgency, driving us to overextend. We must resist that mindset in order to do this work with integrity. 

We exist because of the investment of time, energy, and resources of our community. Support our work by volunteering or donating today.