CAC highlights programs to Rice County Commissioners

“Our mission is to promote a healthy, caring and just community for all people through resources, advocacy and volunteer effort,” said Senior Director of the CAC Anika Rychner. “People come with multiple needs, not just food and our job is to listen and respond to community needs.”

Child and Family Services Manager Chris Sammon watching as Community Action Center Senior Director talks to the Rice County Board of Commissioners about the partnership between CAC and Rice County during Tuesday’s board meeting. (Lauren Viska — Faribault.com)

While CAC has grown in numbers, that’s not their goal, it’s to help the community.

“In 2025 CAC is serving about 25% of the people in Rice County — which is an astounding number and is about over 16,000 individuals are coming to CAC every year for support,” said Rychner. “Our mission is to listen to what they need and respond accordingly. We’re not looking to franchise our services as we go, we really are just having to listen to the needs.”

Something the CAC has heard from schools in Northfield and Faribault are supports for their kids outside of the classroom, so they started programs to help: Recovery Support Services and Housing Advocacy and Stability programs. Rychner said the youth programs have emerged and grown of the past couple years and they have advocates in both the Northfield and Faribault school districts.

“I like to say they’re the backpack of resources of all CAC, so those staff, those advocates, have access to financial assistance to prevent eviction, access to those housing advocates to work through emergency shelter needs and access to recovery supports,” she said. “We’ve been able to kind of braid funding through these contracted services through Rice County in order to stabilize and provide those supports within those school walls so that kids can come to school and they’re ready to learn.”

There are three contracted services with Rice County that are there to help with this. The Families First Prevention Services Act and the Family Recovery Support Program help support the youth advocates across the county.

“There’s concern, and our job is to help prevent out of home placement for those kids, and so those youth advocates and advocates in our resource centers are able to help stabilize families, connect to resources and make sure that people have what they need and feel supported to be able to stay in recovery,” said Rychner. “In the last calendar year, our advocates worked with 178 individuals, about 70 adults who were struggling with substance use and whose children were at risk of being placed out of home, and we were able to provide a lot of financial stability, preventing homelessness, making sure people could get to work and a lot of referrals, whether that’s to treatment or to other mental health resources.”