Airlea Defoe

Stories
of
Everyday
Heroes

Airlea’s Nomination Stories

I first became acquainted with Airlea through our mutual circles in the realm of community outreach, and was quickly impressed by her efforts to make a difference in the world. She’s been very vocal about her experience navigating different systems in connection with her own journey to positive health and wellbeing, and I think that her vulnerability and willingness to share her story drew immediate trust and support from the community at large. Through social media I was able to see some of her personal writing and reflection on this journey, and see how she’s motivated others to pursue better lives for themselves. She was single-handedly organizing awareness events to address the issue of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and hosting support drives to collect donations for unsheltered individuals.

On her own time she would bring these donations to different camps alongside meals for people to eat, and spend time being present with people going through hard times. She received an award for these efforts through the Minnesota Coalition for the Homeless and was invited to speak at their annual conference last year. Airlea also offered her help with some of the maintenance work on the Chief Buffalo Memo , which is a project that I am the director of that seeks to uplift contemporary and historical narratives of Ojibwe people in our region.

In all the work she does, I’ve seen her uplift Ojibwe culture and the resilience of our community ently, I had the opportunity to work with Airlea more directly when I asked her to be a part of a panel for my current project titled “Waiting for Beds”. The project consists of an art exhibit that features embedded community submissions and programming, all exploring the impact of long wait times for crisis care in our region.

She was featured as an expert alongside artist Jesse Switters, musician and mental health advocate Sam Miletich, and CHUM Outreach Worker Deb Holman. The audio from our conversation will be featured on an upcoming podcast episode of Duluth Stories, hosted by Zeitgeist Center for the Arts. In it, Airlea eloquently shares the story of her sobriety and calls attention to the challenges and support she had along the way. I invited her back to be a presenter at the Minnesota Coalition of the Homeless annual conference at the DECC, where she presented in front of a room full of social service professionals.

Though the work she’s done to better conditions in our community is commendable on its own, it’s even more incredible to see that she’s doing this work after a period in her life of struggle. She’s navigated the impact of generational trauma and historic oppression and emerged a powerful force of community change.

I truly admire Airlea for all she has done, both for herself and her community, as well as her young son. I feel like every time I cross paths with her, she’s doing something exponentially more amazing for the wellness of both herself and her community. She’s a vibrant leader and role model who I’ve learned a lot from, and she gives me hope for positive change in the world, exemplifying all the qualities of a good relative. -Wishes to remain anonymous