Stephanie Glaros’ Humans of Minneapolis portraits of park-goers remind us of the many powerful ways that parks can connect us, heal us and make us whole. This summer, her 10-image series is exploring how parks transform human life, as told through each person’s own words and Stephanie’s boldly compassionate lens.

Here, we’re reposting Stephanie’s 2017 series. View all images in this year’s series, and in 2016’s, via the Humans of Minneapolis category link

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Ahmed at Currie Park

“We have soccer tournaments here every weekend. I’m a coach. If you stay a couple more hours, it’s gonna be packed. Right now, the teenagers are playing and later on the young adults will play, too. It gives them something to focus on to stay away from trouble. Instead of hanging out on the streets or hanging out with bad people, we keep them together with sports. It’s a lot of fun for these kids.

This area is what they call Little Mogadishu, the Cedar-Riverside Towers. The majority of Somali-Minnesotans live in this area. Inside this park you see so many people. All of the residents come down here to sit and socialize. There’s a lot of kids biking. A lot of adults too, elderly men and ladies. There’s a mosque right there, so after they pray, people come out and walk around for exercise. They even cook their own Somali tea and bring it out here to share with snacks, like cake and biscuits, while the kids are playing. So that’s how important Currie Park is. Everybody’s enjoying it.

On Labor Day weekend, we’re gonna have sixteen teams competing here from all over Minnesota: Owatonna, Mankato, Rochester, St. Cloud, Minneapolis, on and on. In this little park. We support the parks because they provide a lot of opportunities for the youth, particularly in the Somali community.”

Listen to Ahmed’s story:

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Images and content are reposted with permission from Stephanie Glaros/Humans of Minneapolis.