In the city of Coon Rapids, while a council meeting was being held on the evening of February 17th, the city hall was also host to a vigil at which residents could come together and grieve the deaths of Renee Good, Alex Pretti and Victor Diaz.
The vigil was hosted by Transformative Circle, who earlier in June 2025 had done something similar for the shooting death of Rep. Melissa Hortman in the same location.
Betsy Keikhafer the Chair of Transformative Circle, said that a lot of people were expressing feelings of grief and trauma in the wake of what was occurring in the community after not only the shooting death of Hortman in June, but the recent deaths of two different Minnesotans-Good and Pretti-at the hands of ICE, as well as the death of Diaz while in custody in Texas.
“We just decided that the Transformative Circle would lead the vigil,” Keikhafer said. “A lot of the time, they will take place in a church. A lot of people don’t feel comfortable going to a church. We decided to put one in a community in a non-religious setting that people might feel more comfortable attending versus a church setting.”
The vigil featured a nurse honor guard that did a ceremony for Pretti, who was an ICU nurse in a hospital. Afterward, the event featured a poet, Maureen Skelly, who paid tribute to Good, herself a poet before death.
Diaz, who was also honored, had been taken by ICE at a restaurant in the Riverdale area in Coon Rapids alongside three Indonesian individuals. Per Keikhafer, he was taken to Texas and passed away in a prison in East Montana. Diaz had allegedly committed suicide according to ICE-but according to his family, this was unlikely, with a seven and fifteen year old to go back home to.
The vigil also honored every victim of ICE since 2025, with their names on a table.
Kiekhafer estimated that about 60 to 70 people attended the vigil, and held up whiteboards out in front of city hall before the Council meeting that same night.
The program ended with This Is My Song, otherwise known as the Finlandia hymn. Per Kiekhafer, the anthem was written in the 1800s while Finland was under the rule of the Russian Czar.
Lyrics were finally set to the song in 1940, after having been inspired by Russian censorship to be lyricless, by a poet from California.
Attendees also read a poem by William Stafford-The Way It Is-and cut off a piece of string-something that had been done at the vigil for Hortman. There was also a small circle discussion where people talked about how they were coping, what was helping and what they felt like they could contribute to help others.
Kiekhafer said that she never expected to do another vigil within the span of a year.
“I think a lot of people are saying, they’re not sleeping, they’re anxious, not really feeling safe in the community,” Kiekhafer said. “Even things you do to try and help. I personally have been delivering food to a food shelf. ICE will watch and follow you. It’s pretty traumatizing in that sense-they trap your car, they come to your house and sit in front of your property.”
Kiekhafer said that this felt wrong morally, and was unconstitutional, and that it felt like leaders had let people down.
Executive Director Lori Anderson said that Transformative Circle had been started thirteen to fourteen years ago, after the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri.
Working as the city of Coon Rapids’ facilities coordinator, Anderson said that she had a huge number of people come through the office who were immigrants, as well as people of color including african-americans and african immigrants.
“I was astounded and pretty naive back then,” Anderson said. “I never knew so many people lived in Coon Rapids, where I had already lived for almost 20 years. I thought, “Where have I been?”
Anderson thought about holding something like a cocktail party, where everyone could get to know each other. This eventually turned into a community conversation, where they would just sit and talk about community issues-including inviting speakers from a mosque, and discussing transgender issues, police relations and education.
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the group had to kind of start over, Anderson said, since not as many people came to meetings. Then, Anderson’s schedule got crazier, as she started caring for her father three days a week. Thus, Transformative Circle now concentrates more on special events.
On the situation with ICE that is unfolding around the country, Anderson said that she finds it horrifying.
“I feel sad,” Anderson said. “It makes me feel sad for my community and my country that these things are taking place, that people are dying because of their political beliefs.”
People who have attended the vigils that Transformative Circle has put on have expressed similar feelings, Anderson said. She also remarked that both times, people had been able to come together and grieve as a community.
“Caring for yourself comes first,” Anderson said. “People listen to music, people do yoga, people go out and take walks, they collect food, they distribute food, they are donating food and money to organizations that are helping people.”
Speaking on Inspire Choir’s presence at the vigil, their leader, Jenni Tanner, said that she had heard of the vigil through her mother, who knew Andersen. They then connected through a mutual friend.
Inspire Choir got its start right before Covid, before being shut down and re-instigated in 2021. Tanner said that the idea was to start a community group of singers who did not have to audition or have experience-something that people were looking for after Covid.
The choir has been going strong ever since, performing two concerts a year in December and May and rehearsing once a week.
53 people are part of the choir. Of that group, a women’s group of 11 represented them at the vigil.
Tanner said that at the vigil, they performed two songs. One was a cover of a Wailin Jennys tune, One Voice. The other wasThis is a Wave, written by Sarina Partridge with the Singing Resistance in the Twin Cities area.
One Voice, per Tanner, was meaningful and powerful with a beautiful message. She commented that someone stood up, and that everyone participated in the group singing.
“It was a way to express, even if you weren’t a singer…it was a unique way to process something together collectively,” Tanner said. “It felt pretty natural, and pretty organic.”
This is a Wave, the second song that was performed, was a way for Tanner to invite the choir and the vigil into a chant about community.
“We’re using it for longing, for community, for hope in weekly rehearsals as well,” Tanner said. “It felt like a natural step to go beyond our internal community, since we’ve been doing this for the last several weeks as well.