Mankato Free Press (April 2026) — MANKATO — On a windy Mankato day, local philanthropist Tim Huebsch stands proudly in front of a large mural on the side of the Mankato Youth Place building.

Huebsch, vice chair of the Mankato Area Foundation Board of Directors, is also an adviser for the Marian Anderson Fund.

The fund, a subset of the foundation created in the early 2020s to honor the southern Minnesota artist it’s named after, donated $8,000 last February to help make the mural possible.

But Huebsch’s connection to the artwork goes beyond that. He was Anderson’s longtime friend before she died in 2021.

“When she passed, she used the funds from her estate to create (the fund), which really is to invest dollars back into the community around visual arts,” Huebsch said.

“Her passion was artwork, and she also really had a huge love of teaching kids art and getting them excited about art. That’s why that combination of being able to do the mural but also to engage the students from My Place in the mural really felt like it fit a lot of things that Marian always loved.”

My Place aims to remove barriers so families can access their academic, music and art programs and more.

That’s why Nancy Zallek, Mankato Area Foundation president and CEO, said getting kids involved in painting the mural “hit the nail on the head.”

“Something like a mural at MY Place that is dedicated to children and exposing them to the arts, it was just perfect,” she said.

Zallek said Anderson was heavily involved with creating the fund before her passing. The fund has now awarded well over $100,000 since it started.

Most recently, the fund awarded $25,000 at the end of last year toward Mankato Makerspace’s expansion plans.

“When individuals like Marian Anderson, who spent her lifetime embedded in the arts, and in particular with children and educating children and exposing them to the arts, has an estate that she wants to (utilize to give back) to the community, it perfectly makes sense that she would decide to target the same type of things that were important to her,” Zallek said.

Addressing food insecurity, more

As the Marian Anderson Fund invests in the importance of exposing more southern Minnesotans to the arts, the Mankato Clinic Foundation is working to support health and wellness in more ways than one.

To Feeding Our Communities Partners, receiving $5,000 from the foundation’s first quarter grants means additional opportunities to address food insecurity in rural areas.

Sheri Sander-Silva, Feeding Our Communities Partners executive director, said this quarter’s grant funding will specifically go toward supporting the Maple River School District.

“That includes our BackPack Food Program, our Power Pack Program and high school food pantry resources,” she said, adding the grant dollars help supplement student meal needs during weekend and school breaks.

She said FOCP currently supports nearly 100 Maple River K-12 students or over 10% of the school population.

She said the organization has seen a 25% increase in program enrollment from the Maple River school district compared to last school year.

“I think that rising costs in general, and the rising costs in food hits everybody, and of course for those that are living on a very tight budget even more so often,” Sander-Silva said. “What we hear year over year from the families that we serve is that most often, when budgets get tight, adequate food is the first sacrifice made.”

The Mankato Clinic Foundation approved a total of $161,693 in grants during its quarter one funding.

Marie Wood, Mankato Clinic Foundation president, said she’s seen a rise in grant applications related to food access and an increase in funding requests overall.

“A good example is, in quarter one of 2025, we had 21 requests and in quarter one of 2026 we had 26 requests, and the dollar amount requested was four times higher year over year,” she said. “Definitely, there’s been a notable jump in food security and access, so you can see that families and nonprofits are feeling that strain.”

Other local efforts that received funding during this round of grants include the Region Nine Development Commission’s food rescue program and PACT Ministries’ monthly food distribution, among several others.

But Wood said the foundation supports other basic needs such as housing, child care, education and employment. A Minnesota Valley Action Council project will use their grant funding to provide bike helmets for children in Head Start, and the Children’s Museum of Southern Minnesota plans to create a Healthy Me exhibit with its dollars.

“Our foundation helps us extend our care beyond the clinic and into the communities where people live, work and raise their families. By supporting these needs, we can really strengthen the overall health of our community,” she said.

In the last 10 years, the Mankato Clinic Foundation has provided more than $3 million in grants and scholarships.

The importance of giving back

In addition to his roles with the Mankato Area Foundation and Marian Anderson Fund, Huebsch also has had the opportunity to serve on Minnesota State University’s alumni and foundation boards.

He described what it means to give back to his community.