DULUTH, Minn. — Days after the Wall Street Journal published Minnesota billionaire Kathy Cargill’s disparaging remarks about Duluth and its mayor, a couple of community members are taking action.

And it’s a food fight, of sorts.

They launched the Duluth Cheerio Challenge, a call to ramp up donations to local food shelves and human services agencies in the final days of Minnesota FoodShare Month.

Chum, the Damiano Center, Union Gospel Mission and the Salvation Army are accepting dollar and food donations online and at their sites. Also, an additional drop-off is available from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. until Friday at the Duluth Labor Temple, 2002 London Road.

Cereal is one of the most requested nonperishable items at Chum. It’s also expensive and difficult to regularly obtain in large quantities, so the Cheerio Challenge comes at the perfect time, said Scott Van Daele, director of distributive services.

In Saturday’s Wall Street Journal article, Cargill described Duluth as a “small-minded community,” and she said Mayor Roger Reinert had “peed in his Cheerios” by requesting to discuss plans for several properties her entity, North Shore LS LLC, purchased and demolished in the Park Point neighborhood.

Community members responded on social media with memes. Comment threads stretched far and wide. Reinert eventually posted on X, formerly Twitter, “For the record … I’m more of a pancakes guy. #IYKYK,” with a picture of a short stack and bacon, as he prepared to ride along in a snowplow during a late-winter storm.

Duluth resident Chad McKenna published a blog post, “We take our Cheerios with almond milk.” Friends contacted McKenna, he believes, because of the blog post and because he has 16 years of experience in labor movement organizing. And he hit the ground running.

On Monday, McKenna created a Duluth Cheerio Challenge graphic, video and Facebook page. By Tuesday, the page had more than 700 members, and the video had been viewed more than 7,000 times.

McKenna said he and other organizers are amazed at how quickly the effort gained traction.

“This effort is not meant to be snarky. We’re being sort of playful with what happened,” said McKenna, an event organizer. “This shows Duluth is a big, small town in a lot of ways.”

Duluth’s never-ending can-do spirit and enthusiasm to help a neighbor in need impresses Van Daele, who said he continues to be proud to be part of this community.

Deb McLaughlin, a Park Point resident, said the Duluth Cheerio Challenge is turning something “negative and rude” into a really sweet and positive effort. McLaughlin and her husband are longtime Chum donors, and rather than sending cereal, she said they intended to support with an online contribution.

Asked if she’d heard the Cheerios phrase before, McLaughlin called it “the oddest thing” and said she looked it up in an online dictionary of idioms.

“If I remember correctly, it’s a phrase used to refer to when somebody’s already having a bad day, and it gets worse,” she said.

Whatever is the opposite of peeing in Cheerios, it’s clear Duluth’s doing that.

Chum suggests donations

Financial donations can go further than food. For every dollar donated, Chum can get $3 worth of sustenance through Second Harvest, wholesalers and distributors, Van Daele said. A $5 donation is four meals, and $10 feeds a child for one weekend during the summer.

If donors aren’t able to purchase cereal, consider these nonperishable pantry staples:

Canned fruit
Canned vegetables
Canned soups
Canned tuna
Peanut butter
Dry pasta
Canned spaghetti sauce
Macaroni and cheese

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