A police officer for 30 years, Grant Snyder got to know a lot of people surviving on the margins of Minneapolis. He’d bring them meals and blankets and just talk. Word got around the chronically homeless community that beyond Snyder’s badge was a different kind of cop.
In his last role as an MPD commander, Snyder also begrudgingly oversaw more than a dozen encampment closures. After retiring in summer 2023, he turned his attention entirely to his wife Melanie Snyder’s nonprofit, Involve, which feeds and mentors people experiencing hunger. His new chef’s hat has allowed him to be more candid about the city’s encampment response, the accusations of “enabling” lobbed at volunteers who deliver food to encampments, as well as what he’s learned from his own family’s dealings with addiction, homelessness and what people really need in order to feel human again.
Since October, Involve has worked out of the Agate Housing and Services Food Centre at 714 Park Av., a popular food shelf and kitchen that had been on the brink of closure earlier this year. Whereas Agate served one free meal a day to people facing food insecurity downtown, Involve has been serving breakfast, lunch and dinner since it took over. Involve also packs meals for local shelters and encampments, with its outreach staff using food to start conversations about moving forward.
Lasagna was on the menu for Friday night dinner. There were real tablecloths on the tables, and the mood was relaxed and respectful. While a sign instructed that everyone who came through the door got one token for one meal, in reality there was plenty for seconds. Melanie personally packed a cheese-free meal for one man with a cheese allergy.

“This is like a family service. There’s a difference. You’re not being made to feel like the cattle coming to the trough,” said Katy Creighton, who has been eating at Involve’s kitchen for the past month.
Quietly eating alone in the back of the dining room was Loren Brown, who’d known the Snyders for a long time. Brown had lived at the Wall of Forgotten Natives — Minneapolis’ first major encampment — in 2018. In the early days of that encampment, female residents complained about sexual harassment, so Snyder set up a tent among them and lived out of it for a while before his bosses told him he had to stop.
“He was one of the [cops] that actually was there, in person, and actually putting in hands-on work,” recalled Brown.
Brown said he would eat at Involve as often as he could, but sometimes he’d fall asleep on the bus and miss the stop. Before he got a phone last week, he didn’t have much concept of time. He wished the kitchen were open longer, and that he could stay there longer.