MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. (KTTC) – The Minneapolis VA will recognize and honor hospitalized Veterans as part of National Salute to Veteran Patients week, the week of Valentine’s Day, from Feb. 9-15.

National Salute to Veteran Patients gives people the chance to thank veterans by sending them Valentine’s Day cards.

In fiscal year 2024, schools, community groups, and youth organizations nationwide sent more than 100 Valentine’s Day cards to the Minneapolis VA Medical Center. Additionally, more than 2,600 volunteers and community organizations contributed to events and activities recognizing hospitalized Veterans.

The Minneapolis VA is now accepting Valentine’s Day cards for Veterans. The cards will be distributed to inpatient Veterans during the week. Guidelines for cards can be found online.

Cards can be mailed to:

Minneapolis VA Health Care System Voluntary/Community Resource Service (135) One Veterans Drive Minneapolis, MN 55417

People can also schedule a time to drop off a donation or volunteer. They can contact the Center for Development and Civic Engagement at email vhaminvol@va.gov.

Learn more about volunteer opportunities online.

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MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Saturday was cold even for Minneapolis, but that didn’t stop thousands of people from tromping out onto a frozen lake to immerse themselves in art, make new friends — and try their best to stay warm.

The annual Art Shanty Projects drew crowds onto Lake Harriet for the first of four weekends of interactive, often silly and occasionally downright strange art events. The art was presented in or near shanties, a repurposing of the shelters often seen on Minnesota lakes for hardy souls who ice fish in the frigid depths of winter.

Minnesotans are passionate about water and view the state’s thousands of lakes as public spaces to enjoy, even during winters that would keep people elsewhere deep under the covers, sai Erin Lavelle, the organization’s artistic director.

“In the summertime you’ll see people in boats and swimming, in canoes and kayaks. And in the winter you’ll see people on the frozen lakes,” Lavelle said. “So they bike and ski and ice skate and ice fish, and we happen to make art on the frozen lake.”

In the 21 years the event has been held, Lavelle said it has been curtailed by warm winters a few times but never because it was too cold. On this weekend, temperatures weren’t expected to top the single digits.

That cold has frozen the lake surface to a depth just over 13 inches (33 centimeters) — plenty thick enough to support the commotion on the ice above.

This year’s projects include some elaborate and innovative displays, such as a knitting pavilion in which visitors weave hand-dyed yarn into panels to complete the roof and walls; a three-ring circus with music, poetry and clowning; a Cat World where people can be transformed into felines; dancing in a “Disco Inferno Hot Box”; and a film studio where people create their own short movies.

Plus there are singing and theater opportunities, ice biking and open air painting.

Although Minnesotans take pride in getting outside even amid the snow and cold, Lavelle said the event’s surveys show it’s the first time on a frozen lake for 10% to 25% of the roughly 25,000 people who typically attend the four-weekend event.

“Getting people to feel connected with friends and strangers and winter is the greatest thing we can do,” Lavelle said. “We just want to be a social place for the public to visit and feel like they’re a part of something bigger.”

The Minneapolis police union is seeking a voice in the latest plan for court-ordered reforms of the police department. The union on Friday filed a motion to intervene in the proposed federal consent decree.

Last week the city and U.S. Justice Department announced details of a federal consent decree, in which a judge would enforce major changes at MPD. The agreement is similar to a state-level settlement between MPD and the Minnesota Department of Human Rights that followed the 2020 murder of George Floyd.

Police Federation attorney Jim Michels said in a phone interview with MPR News on Friday that members are concerned about possible conflicts with their labor contract.

As one example, Michels pointed to language in the consent decree that details shift scheduling for supervisors.

“It calls for the department to schedule sergeants and lieutenants in certain ways,” Michels said. “And we have scheduling language in the labor agreement that talks about how sergeants and lieutenants are scheduled.”

Michels said that the union does not oppose the consent decree, but wants to have a say in its implementation.

“That’s the tack we’d like to take initially, is try to work together to collaborate to make sure everybody’s interests are taken care of. Because right now, unless the federation is allowed to have a seat at the table, the only interests being advanced are the interests of the city and the federal government,” Michels said.

Michels noted that federal judges overseeing consent decrees elsewhere, including in Albuquerque, have allowed police unions to intervene in the reform process.

The group Communities United Against Police Brutality, which has long advocated for court oversight of MPD, filed an amicus brief to participate in the case soon after the agreement was announced.

The consent decree will not be legally binding unless it receives the approval of U.S. District Judge Paul Magnuson.

Police reform advocates fear that the Justice Department under incoming President Donald Trump could scuttle the agreement unless it takes effect before his inauguration.

During his first term, Trump opposed consent decrees and called them a “war on police.”