St. Louis Park community bakes pies to welcome, comfort Somali neighbors

ST. LOUIS PARK, Minn. (KMSP) - Upon hearing about a terrorist attack in Mogadishu, St. Louis Park police officers wanted to do something to show they cared—and what's better to convey that sentiment than baking someone a pie?

The Oct. 17, the bombing left a mark on Nadia Mohamed and many of her family members and friends.

“There’s a lot of people that didn’t know where their family members were, and it was just very, very painful,” said Mohamed, a member of the Multicultural Advisory Committee.

With the pain still running deep months later, the St. Louis Park police and community decided they wanted to help, even if in a small way.

Rose is known for her sweet potato comfort pies that bring people together, so that’s who they called to get the pies baking. Nadia, who knew nothing about sweet potato pies, was all in.

Tuesday was baking day, and they wrapped up 27 of them.

“This would present an opportunity to bring community members and police department and the city to talk and get to know one another,” said Lieutenant Mikael Garland with the St. Louis Park police.

“The amount of people that did show up and that made the pies and the laughter and the jokes […] I think that did surprise me in a very good way to know that St. Louis Park cares,” Nadia Mohamed said.

The funny part about it all is that Nadia and the lieutenant had never had sweet potato pie before, and they both loved it.