New MinnDak Youth Outdoors nonprofit will get rolling with inaugural ATV/UTV Fun Run fundraiser – Grand Forks Herald

ALVARADO, Minn. – They’re off and working.

A brand new nonprofit group geared toward getting extra children in Minnesota and North Dakota exterior looking and fishing held its inaugural fundraiser final Saturday, Sept. 6.

Some 30 ATVs and UTV side-by-side autos, about 70 individuals in all, participated in MinnDak Youth Outdoors’ ATV/UTV Fun Run. The occasion, which was headquartered on the Lightning Bar in Alvarado, included stops in Warren, Argyle, Stephen and Oslo earlier than returning to Alvarado for gun raffles, meat raffles, a 50/50 drawing and raffles for quite a few different prizes, together with a smoker and a Blackstone grill.

Participants paid $20 for the journey and the chance to purchase raffle tickets. For a first-time occasion, the day went nicely, stated Brian Nelson of East Grand Forks, treasurer and chief working officer of MinnDak Youth Outdoors.

Nelson and his spouse, Michelle, shaped the group in March after parting methods with Pheasants Forever in 2024 over philosophical variations. Despite receiving quite a few accolades from Pheasants Forever for fundraising and volunteer efforts to advertise faculty trapshooting groups and different youth applications,

the Red River Valley chapter wasn’t giving sufficient cash to PF’s habitat mission,

the Herald reported in June 2024.

As a end result, Pheasants Forever suspended the chapter in February 2024 and stated it could search new management. The chapter stays in limbo.

Brad Dokken / Grand Forks Herald

Launching MinnDak Outdoors and attaining 501C3 nonprofit standing has been fairly a journey, stated Michelle Nelson, the group’s secretary. The course of takes attorneys, accountants and cash, however the funds raised from final weekend’s inaugural occasion will assist get the group on monitor, to the purpose the place MinnDak Youth Outdoors quickly can start fulfilling its mission: Creating “a world where all young people have access to transformative outdoor experiences. Fostering a lifelong appreciation for nature, conservation and the great outdoors.”

“With all of the legalities and different kinds of statuses, it’s going to be close to a year (since they founded the nonprofit in March) before everything is really in place,” Michelle Nelson stated. “We have everything filed now (through North Dakota and Minnesota). Everything is pending, but everything is approved.”

Unlike their roles with Pheasants Forever, through which Brian and Michelle spent greater than 25 years as volunteers with the Red River Valley chapter, the Nelsons are paid workers of their positions with MinnDak Youth Outdoors.

“We said we wouldn’t do this again unless we got compensated for our time,” Brian Nelson stated. All of the board members and officers, a few of whom additionally had been concerned within the break up with Pheasants Forever, agreed, he stated.

“Somebody needs to get paid to run this organization and do all the things that you need to do, and run the errands and make the phone calls,” Brian Nelson stated. “So, we said we would do this because I didn’t want to lose 27 years of knowing how to raise money and just throw that away.

“We think we’ve got it figured out how to raise money.”

Brad Dokken / Grand Forks Herald

That was readily obvious in the course of the inaugural fundraiser. While Brian Nelson was peddling raffle tickets at each cease alongside the route final Saturday, the precise raffles had been held again in Alvarado, the place the group had its gaming allow.

“Everybody had fun,” Nelson stated Monday, Sept. 8. “We ate at two completely different locations, the fundraising went OK. We raffled off fairly a little bit of meat and bacon, we ended up raffling off seven weapons and a cooler stuffed with bison burger and another coolers and a griddle.

“The event was good for us.”

Riders got here from as far-off as Fargo and Casselton, North Dakota, he stated.

Brad Dokken / Grand Forks Herald

“We’re very happy with the turnout for the first time – very happy with the support, the donations and the people that were there to help,” Nelson stated. “I got money to put in the bank (for MinnDak Youth Outdoors) this morning, so that’s good.”

As with any first-time occasion, there have been a couple of hiccups. Minnesota legislation requires that anybody beneath 18 put on a helmet whereas driving an ATV or UTV, and Department of Natural Resources conservation officers issued a quotation for a youth not carrying a helmet and one other quotation for a driver who rolled via a cease signal at a railroad crossing on one of many gravel roads alongside the route, Nelson stated.

Heather Keena of Alvarado, a volunteer with in depth expertise organizing ATV enjoyable runs, helped with planning the route, contacting authorities in Marshall County and dealing via a few of the different logistics concerned with organising the fundraiser, Brian Nelson stated.

“We’re just going to have to pound it in everybody’s heads that we need helmets on kids, make sure your tabs are paid, make sure you have insurance on your vehicle,” he stated. “Go through everything thoroughly and maybe have (a DNR officer) there to go through ATV safety before everybody takes off.”

Going ahead, MinnDak Youth Outdoors hopes to have a gun raffle on the finish of the 12 months – in all probability in North Dakota – and maybe one other ATV/UTV Fun Run subsequent spring, Nelson stated. Organizers bought one gun from the Hardware Hank retailer in Thief River Falls, which dealt with the paperwork for the gun raffle winners, he says, and so they purchased the meat bundles and bacon from Jim’s SuperValu in Park River, North Dakota, which donated ham, turkey, wieners and brats to feed journey members.

Brad Dokken / Grand Forks Herald

It received’t be lengthy earlier than highschool trapshooting groups and different children throughout the area as soon as once more profit from the efforts of the Nelsons and different MinnDak Youth Outdoors management.

The Fun Run was “an event for us to get our name out, to get people aware that we’re a new group just starting,” Nelson says, and a great begin to “replenish the checkbook” and pay for the attorneys, authorized charges and accountants required to launch the nonprofit.

“We’re very happy about what we did, as a point coming from the organization,” Nelson stated. “People supported us very well throughout the day, so we were very happy about that.”

For extra data on MinnDak Youth Outdoors, name (218) 230-4364, e mail

[email protected]

or go to

facebook.com

and seek for “MinnDak Youth Outdoors.”