A Legacy of Community Love
When I was growing up, my family moved frequently. I say that I’m from everywhere—from the coasts, from the Great Plains, from the midwestern heartland of America. But the two places that I will always call home are Minnesota and Kansas. When I was a child, my two siblings and I would spend summers with my paternal grandparents in Atchison, a small Kansas town whose claim to fame is being the birthplace of Amelia Earhart.
My grandparents’ lives revolved around the church community in Atchison. For them, church wasn’t just going to service on Sunday morning or bible study on Wednesday evening. Being part of a parish meant hosting community functions, attending picnics, and just gathering with friends and neighbors. The epicenter of community life was a huge tree in the nearby park, which we called the Soul Tree. Underneath the Soul Tree, families would barbecue and children would play.
All that I know about community care and community service is what I learned from the example of my grandparents and my parents. They taught me that we each have a duty to use our particular talents in service of our people.
Since my grandfather was a chef in the navy and my grandmother was a kitchen manager for a nursing home, a major part of their contribution to the community was cooking. They would spend hours in the kitchen preparing meals to give away.
From an early age, I modeled myself after my mother, who learned from her parents. When I was four or five, I was always getting in trouble with my mom because I would give away food that we brought home from the grocery store. Any chips, candy, or other snacks were immediately shared with friends and neighbors. My mom would always scold me: “Stop sending my groceries out the backdoor.” To this day, I still give food out the backdoor.
Food was a key fixture in my childhood. All our meals were made by my mother from scratch. With the exception of a few emergency items, our kitchen was exclusively stocked with fresh produce, meats, and spices for preparing meals like meat in a loaf, pies, and pancakes. My brother and I spent hours in the kitchen with our mom, mastering the many techniques of working around the kitchen and creating new recipes.
My childhood home was always filled with friends and neighbors. They would all spend evenings playing cards together, and as a young child I was passed around from lap to lap. Even though we weren’t related, my siblings and I came to call these loved ones aunts and uncles.
My father is a professor of African American literature who studies Langston Hughes and Gordon Parks, two Black Renaissance artists with roots in Kansas. He is a well-known thinker, author, and lecturer with strong ties to the community of African American academics. Historic figures like Angela Davis, Toni Morrison, and Gwendolyn Brooks were an everyday fixture in my childhood, and it wasn’t until I became an adult that I realized that having these people sit and eat at my family’s dinner table was something out of the ordinary. Now, I cherish those memories.
I’ve always respected and loved my father deeply. As a rebellious teenager, though, I decided that I didn’t want to follow in his footsteps and pursue education. I did well enough in high school to graduate, and during my junior and senior years, I attended cosmetology school and became licensed in California to cut and style hair.
After graduating, I was invited by my sister to move back to Minnesota. I started classes at Minneapolis Community & Technical College with the hope of earning a degree in psychology. I was only 20 years old when I had my first daughter, but I knew that I had the support from my family as a young single mother. I rented and fully furnished my own apartment, but I ended up spending most of my time at my mother’s house just half a block away. On most days, it was dark outside by the time my daughter and I would make it back home.
Looking back at that time in my life, I realize in retrospect that I was dealing with postpartum depression. As someone who had always considered herself a mover and a shaker, it never even occurred to me that I could be depressed. Even though I spoke with my doctor and was prescribed antidepressant medication, I didn’t process what I was going through until years later. Now, I’m more grateful than ever that I had the support of my family at a time when isolation and loneliness would have been devastating. During this period of vulnerability, my family showed me that having a village makes all the difference.
I had two more children in my mid 20s, and my first marriage blessed me with seven stepchildren. Between my children, his children, my niece and nephew, and our neighborhood kids, we would have around 15 children in the house at a time. Having my home filled to the brim with all these kids truly increased my love of family.
18 years ago, I became Muslim. From the very beginning, Masjid An-Nur was my home masjid—I always felt a sense of belonging in the space, and I always felt welcomed and embraced by community members there. Sister Alana Ramadan was one of my first spiritual mentors, counseling me when I struggled with this new faith. She showed me through her counsel as well as through her own example what it looks like to be a strong Black Muslim woman.
Masjid An-Nur is also the origin of my own community service work. I’ve helped with children’s Islamic classes, I’ve volunteered at community gatherings during Ramadan, I’ve staffed the monthly food shelf, but my favorite way of giving back is to cook. I love working in the masjid kitchen and distributing meals to worshippers, community members with disabilities, or children on break from school.
Cooking is my love language. Whether I’m making a meal for my family, for my neighbors in need, or just for myself, cooking is how I express that I care.
It’s also become a practice of self-care, giving me space to tune out the world outside of my kitchen. I turn on the stove, turn on my music, get my knife and cutting board, and I’m transported to my own world.
The more meals that I gave away to the community, the more requests that I received for paid catering services. Whenever I hosted a dinner party or a holiday gathering, I would get questions from friends, family, and community members about how they could book me for their next event. I realized that this passion could transform into something more—that I could use my talent not only to serve my community but also to build my own business.
I wasn’t the only one in my family with this entrepreneurial spark—my sister had the bright idea for us to start a business together. She wanted to create her own floral shop, and our mother wanted to open her own cafe and bakery. Like we’ve always done, we came together and supported each other—we decided to make it a joint venture. We started our home-based business in North Minneapolis. Decadent Goodies by D'Tids was born, along with my sister’s floral shop, Bouquets n Such Gifts. I helped where I could with my mom and sister, and I had my own catering business that I called Northside Backdoor Kitchen. The name pays homage to my earliest days of sharing food with others, when I would sneak my mom’s groceries out the backdoor to the neighborhood kids.
After I got my catering business up and running, I was looking for something else to do—that’s the mover and shaker in me. RISE founder Nausheena Hussain invited me to serve on their board, which gave me an invaluable opportunity to learn about how nonprofit organizations function and how their boards operate. I found that I enjoyed working behind the scenes, supporting the backbone of the organization and making change without taking up the spotlight.
Serving on the RISE board opened new doors for me. Soon after I finished my term, I was invited to join the board for Sisters Need A Place (SNAP), a local Muslim women-run nonprofit whose mission is to provide a place for supporting sisters in vulnerable moments through sisterhood, education, and economic empowerment. All those lessons in nonprofit administration came in handy very quickly at SNAP—I learned that the house that SNAP owns was at risk of foreclosure because there were back taxes that had not been paid for several years. The organization didn’t have the funds on hand, so without knowing what else to do, I created a LaunchGood fundraiser and asked around my network for donations. The floodgates were open, and we heard from countless community members who had no idea that SNAP was still operating.
Not only did we raise enough funds to pay back the owed taxes, but when we re-opened the house to shelter women and families, we had an enormous increase in referrals. To serve our clients, I introduced new programming around women’s rights, mental health and trauma, and more. Thanks to our community partners, we transitioned these women and families into stable housing. We supported them in job placement with Strive Staffing. And we trained and coached them in financial literacy with Sakan Community Resource. It was a joyful time for the organization, and I feel like Allah placed me there for a reason and guided me through the challenges.
Another of my favorite memories of my time at SNAP is highlighting Black Muslim historical figures during Black History Month. I always felt like we overlooked these scholars and companions of the Prophet (peace be upon him), so I started putting out informationals about figures such as Umm Aymn and al-Midad ibn al-Aswad. These ancestors remind me how proud I am to be both Muslim and African American. When other Black Muslim women ask me for advice, I tell them that if you know who you are and have faith in Allah, you’ll always win.
The legacy that I’ve continued from those who came before me is all about giving, caring, and loving our community.
My parents and my grandparents taught me to share what I have and give away what others need. I hope that my children, my grandchildren, and the generations following in my footsteps will carry this legacy forward—loving their people and loving themselves, long after I’m gone.
Tuere Tidwell is a Minnesotan and a mother of three, with two grandchildren and two grand-pets. She enjoys cooking, baking, and helping family, friends, and the community. She has an AS degree in criminal justice with the hope of completing her BA in the future. She believes that serving the community is a duty and a blessing.