West Metro Cities Join Together for Beyond the Yellow Ribbon Effort

Six west metro communities are coming together to form a Southwest Hennepin County Beyond the Yellow Ribbon group.

“We’re going to be combining forces and the power of all six of our cities,” said Jason Gadd, a Hopkins city councilman who attended an informational meeting about the effort Wednesday.

The participating communities are:

• Edina
• Excelsior
• Hopkins
• Minnetonka
• St. Louis Park
• Wayzata

The Beyond the Yellow Ribbon program is a campaign that creates awareness and builds support networks for members of the Minnesota National Guard and their families.

“We don’t have a Fort Benning (GA) where all of our soldiers and military families are collocated on one base. We’re all over the place,” 1st Lt. Adam J. Kedrowski, a yellow ribbon outreach coordinator for the guard, . “We’re 20,000 service members strong across 86,000 square miles. To have the infrastructure that a normal base would have to support that many people over such a wide area is just logistically impossible. But these resources do exist. The resources on a military base exist within our communities.”

There are currently 31 Yellow Ribbon cities—including a couple that include multiple municipalities.

The program does not create new services, Gadd said. It brings together support networks that are already there—joining cities, businesses, civic groups, health organizations, faith groups and others.

“Instead of each one trying to do something on their own, it unites everybody together so that, when a family has a need, they can just connect to the Yellow Ribbon (group),” Gadd said.

Receiving the Yellow Ribbon designation takes about a year. Each of the communities will next take up resolutions in support of the campaign, Gadd said. Hopkins could vote to approve its resolution as soon as its next meeting, May 1.

Afterward, the group will issue a press release formally announcing the organization. Participants will then get together for a steering committee meeting June 28.

“It’s going to just keep growing,” Gadd said.