- [Narrator] Funding for Intersections is brought to you by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

(bright upbeat music) (upbeat Hiphop music) - AL: Jimmy what's happening?

My name is Al Sands.

I am known as the Haitian Temptation, a professional boxer.

(crowd cheers) (upbeat Hiphop music) So we are here at Front Street Training Center here in Barnum, Minnesota.

(punching sounds) So growing up, I played every sport out there.

I played hockey, soccer, we did football, state in track and field.

I was a long jumper and a triple jumper.

I just loved this sport.

It's given me a confidence that I never really grew up with and it's given me the ability to be the best version of myself and put that on display for many people.

With my past life experience nothing's been easy.

Nothing's ever been concrete.

So I was adopted at 18 months from Port-Au-Prince, Haiti to East Duluth Area.

(soft music) Things we're not easy.

Growing up in East Duluth as a person of color, you're kind of a raisin in the bowl of Cheerios, if you will.

And a lot of people don't understand some of the social things that you go through being that person in East Duluth.

I can't tell you how many times I've had the police called on me, just for walking, on a walk to a friend's house, from a very early age.

So, I mean, that's kind of traumatic at times.

Once we got to about middle school, I was put in my first foster home.

When you're young you don't understand why that is, but now that I'm older I have a bit of a better grasp on it.

And I've come to understand myself, like there's not always bad kids, it's just kids that have a different experience, you know?

Give them the chance to be the best that they can be.

Show them different things they can experience in life and whether it's working experience or maybe just a different way of doing things, you know?

I was very, very fortunate to be in a foster home in Floodwood.

My foster father, he was my football coach, he was a basketball coach and paid very good attention to everything that was going on.

And it was probably the best thing that could have happened to me.

The best thing that could have happened to me Now that I'm a father myself, I couldn't think of a better place to move back to.

(cheers) All right.

(alarm beeps) Then once I hit college, I was at Lake Superior College and they didn't have a sports program at the time, they had a gym.

At the time my roommate, he was very interested in boxing, Bernard Hopkins.

We'd always watch "B-Hop" fight.

- One two, one two, one two, one two - One two, one two c'mon.

- I gotchu.

- I thought, you know, maybe I could do that.

You know, so I went to the gym and I just, I love the workout.

I love the adrenaline.

I love the aspects of strength training and speed training and calisthenics and things like that.

(slow hiphop music playing) I go into the sport.

I love the training for that thing.

Didn't think of myself, I'd ever compete, but I just thought this is awesome.

I feel great when I leave, then I spared for the first time and whew.

Yeah, that was an eye opener.

It's a totally different game, when you start sparing.

After I got a little bit of experience, I thought, you know what, let's try this and see what happens.

What's the worst that's gonna happen?

You know (crowd cheering) Traveled the world multiple times, been to different countries, been a part of multiple world class training camps.

(punching sound) Minnesota is where we train.

(soft hiphop playing) And it's really, really been really been a fun opportunity and a really fun experience to go through a lot of these things.

I'm also personal trainer.I'm a kettlebell coach.

I have all of these other personal training aspects too, I guess my, to my training, that's really made it kind of secondhand to build your body up, mentally and physically, before you step into that ring.

Shoulders feel good and everything but, nothing compares to this.

Cause you're also battling how much energy you got in your tank ever sense of your movement.

- Yep.

- So many different finer points to this sport, I love it.

- Heck yeah.

- I started coaching almost immediately.

I wanna say I had my first fight and I started coaching right away because of my background and personal training and strength training, things like that.

I have a lot of that knowledge already in there.

I take some of the kids out to our field and we'd flip tires, we'd throw medicine balls and we'd do all kinds of all kinds of agility drills, and nobody else was doing it.

It didn't make sense to me.

My thing with the youth and my mentorship and things like that is so that they don't go through that.

Me being adopted, raising foster care, things like that.

I never really had a solid base.

Sometimes I've had kids that have had some experiences in life and they run to the gym.

First place they go, 'cause they know I'm gonna be there, and they know I'll have a conversation which will help 'em calm down.

And it's really, when you have those kind of experiences as a coach, it really solidifies your place and I guess your community and knowing that you have kids that have no experience with you, but they trust you to have that conversation and things like that.

It's really, really been an eye opener for me to be a coach and to be a mentor and be that solid figure and some of the kids like that might not have that solid base.

I never had it so I can empathize with them and I can tailor my, I guess my, my conversation with them to let them know I get it.

They're very surprised that I actually understand what they're saying.

There's some kids, they see what I've accomplished and what I've done, and where I've gone.

And they're like, "oh, you came from all that really?"

Yep, still right here, I'm still doing good, so you can go do good too.

That's kind of my thing just 'cause it started, you know, maybe in a negative or less advantageous place, doesn't mean that's the way it's gotta stay.

Steve Prefontaine, he said to give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.

I never had a lot, but I'll be damned if I don't give my best.

And it's great to see how things have turned out afterwards.

I live by that philosophy, do your best, every time.

Then you'll never be disappointed what the result.

( soft country music playing) - MEREDITH: My name is Meredith Kujala.

I was born and raised for the first 10 to 11 years, in Illinois, then I moved to Ohio.

I am a PR manager for Northern Lakes Rescue, which Northern Lakes Rescue is a foster based dog rescue throughout the state of Minnesota.

In the last, you know, year and a half to two years, we have had over 55 dogs, foster dogs in our home.

I think our biggest enjoyment with that is raising those puppies and seeing you know, their potential and then meeting these families who are super excited, you know, to have a dog.

And Hazel actually is the first one that we fostered through Northern Lakes Rescue.

My fiance and I have been raised with dogs, we've had dogs our whole life.

Northern lakes does provide a lot of resources for people who don't have experience with dogs or might need some brush up skills.

Hey, Princey, Prince, sit.

Thank you.

His full name is Princeton Royal Sherman.

He was named after our Minnesota artist Prince, because he was born on the day Prince died, and he thinks he's royalty himself.

And anytime we bring in a new foster dog, he kind of gives us this look like, "oh great!

Another one?

You're bringing another one in?"

Ajax is through Northern Lakes Rescue as well.

He was found in the woods as a little puppy.

We brought him in our home to foster.

We were not planning to adopt him one bit.

We fell in love with his personality.

So he is now part of our pack.

He has come so far and when he is in his regular element with his people and no distractions, he's super fun.

He loves to play and run.

And then if you turn in the corner, there's a litter right here.

Mama, you're okay.

She's sassy.

So this is Bonnie and the Griswolds.

All the puppies are named after Griswold characters.

And they're about, they'll be three weeks old.

Mama is already adopted, We just have to wait till she's done weaning, And two of the puppies have already been adopted too.

Just gotta wait till they're old enough.

This weekend, a family drove three and a half hours to pick out their puppy.

And they were here for over three hours, just, you know, oh-ing and eyeing over the puppies and you know, it's just, it's an awesome feeling, it really is.

(soft music playing) A, because it's a passion of mine and my families' and it's something that we unite about and B, these dogs have nowhere else to go sometimes and they need help, and you know, we need to spread more awareness.

There are millions of dogs out there that need homes.

I am a person that identifies with multiple disabilities, both physical and mental, you know, growing up, I would say before my teen years, I really didn't think anything of it.

You know, it something, just something that I have I've been born with.

It's not every day that you see somebody with dwarfism, you know, we aren't that common.

And so I think as I got older and I was just more aware of my surroundings and people seeing me it then started affecting me a little bit more about how I am different.

And you know, I think that hit right around my teen years and you know, when you're going through puberty and all that, you're already going through emotions.

So, you know, that was a little struggle for me, you know, mentally just, you know, figuring myself out in the world, but really took it as you know, "Yep, I have it, but I can't do anything about it.

So I gotta, you know, make the best of it."

And I was raise with the concept of, "I can do it."

I just might have to do it differently.

So I kind of took that and kinda moved forward and really, you know, taking it when people are, you know, giving me those looks or, you know, questioning taking as an educational time and talking about disability awareness.

I am a social worker.

I work for Arc Northland as their adult child and family services director.

(soft music playing) The mission that they have and the work that they do sparked me.

I just love it because they serve individuals with disabilities and as a person, myself with a disability, you know, I think that's huge, and I wanna help support that mission.

With Arc Northland, a couple of the major things that I do is I do school advocacy where I'm in the schools, working with families and students who receive special education or that are on 504 plans, and making sure that they are getting the adequate services that you know, is outlined in their state plans and making sure that, you know, they're getting equal access and accessibility to things.

So oftentimes I am meeting with both parents and the schools separately and then together to make sure that we are all on the same page and everybody is doing what best for the student.

We cover eight different counties throughout this state.

I could be anywhere in one day from up the shore, Two Harbors, to down to Pine City.

I also do a lot of work with adults with various disabilities by facilitating a self-advocacy group called "People First".

That's a group we meet a couple times a month, work on inclusion in the community, getting their name out there, working on various, you know, barriers they see as people with disabilities and barriers in the community that they have personally or as a group.

Just because somebody is different, doesn't mean, you know, they should not have equal access or be included in their community.

I mean, I realize some people, they have to take one job at a time or one passion at a time, but I can't, I just wanna, you know, do as much as I can with each passion.

I'm a firm believer, if I wanna do it, I better do it now.

I'm only one person, but I can still make a difference.

I can't sit down and watch frustrations happen or barriers happen without trying to fix it because I can't sit and complain about 'em if I'm not trying to fix 'em.

(indistinct chatter) - SERRANO: My name is Serrano Robinson, and my title here is boys restorative program coordinator, or I like to say youth restorative program coordinator.

Right now we're at Men as Peacemakers, physically located in downtown Duluth.

This organization does like one of multiple things.

One is, that we repair the harm that already exists in our community, another thing that we do is we provide preventative work.

And when you think about primary prevention in our agency, we're trying to prevent more violence and more sexual violence towards women and children, we try to ultimately prevent that.

So we have programs that actually help us lead down those paths, helping to prevent violence, but we also have programs that help us address right then and day and repair violence as well too.

So my part is this process falls in the place of preventative.

I work with young youth ages, eight to 12, basically challenging that messaging, challenging that we are all actually connected and that we all hit together.

And also having those conversations that do arise.

Youth's success and youth restoration is not always about academic success.

It's about the whole thing.

It's about like all four of the seasons, not just school it's about outside of school, family support the whole thing.

So with youth, we provide that support, we provide that programming that literally lets them challenge toxic behaviors, and we also talk about what it means to have like healthy behaviors around each other consent boundaries and things like that.

We actually do our programs at each school in the physical locations, the youth they'll come with their lunch trays.

They'll come sit down with us and we'll have a whole day of activities, discussions, snacks, and plans and stuff in them to do as well too.

So before this, I was working at Bethany crisis shelter, which was really, really cool.

I think that was actually where I learned like a lot of like my social, emotional skills from, it's out in Morgan park.

It literally is a placement shelter for young youth, literally zero to 17.

And I always say literally because we had like a two old baby like, barely fit her in like my hand.

You're there every day though, like in person with youth from zero to 17 so, if you're zero to five, you're literally changing diapers, you're literally taking kids to school, you're literally teaching two year olds ABCs, you're literally teaching them how to cope with emotions, you're teaching them how to be with other youth that age, if they're five to 10, you're teaching them how to go to school, how to get dressed, how to brush their teeth, how to be like social emotionally, like present.

And then if they're older, if they're teens, you're teaching them how to, again, how to go.

You're taking them to school, you're homework, helping with them, you're teaching them those deeper emotions as we get older and they become more complicated.

You're supporting them that people really love them.

So I was at the crisis center for a whole year.

So NYS is "Neighborhood Youth Services."

It's in Duluth as well.

And it's a place where youth can come to play games, they can come there like to get homework help.

They go there like until parents get home as well, acknowledging that for a lot of parents and a lot of people like in our community when the kids school that's like the prime time for the parent to be at work, but school and work are out at two different times.

So Neighborhood Youth Services works as a platform to be there for the youth, like almost around the clock.

Whenever the youth come in from school, they help 'em with the homework.

They'll literally give 'em dinner, food, and then they'll play games, have activities already lined up basketball, learning experiences.

I've also volunteered at the Valley Youth Center, which is also in Duluth.

That one is at the bottom of an elementary school, Laura Mac elementary school.

And that is also just another place.

I think I've been grown to love, like places that just support the youth, especially like after school and understanding that it's not just about the school.

When people think about New York and like Minnesota, for me, it was a platform or landing space, but I got engulfed in what I was raised into, kind of like a product of your environment, people say.

Growing up in the Bronx, New York, it was really hard.

So I kind of lean towards like gangs, I lean towards like violence, I lean towards not going to school, I lean towards everything that made me comfortable for the moment.

I didn't really talk to nobody about what I was going through.

I didn't talk to anybody about like, not having support, but for me it was a negative, it was going down a negative route.

So this is in 2011.

I was in like the 10th or 11th grade.

That was the years that us just stopped going to school.

And so my mom found out, so she had to find out like basically like three to six months later on a report card.

Me seeing her hurt, like mixed with her being upset in general is probably the big reason why I moved here.

Once she found that out, it was like the, probably like a week to two, all within that decision making to have me move from the Bronx, New York to Barnum Minnesota.

I moved to a place where me and my cousins were the only black people.

So from 16 to 18, I was really just trying to like finish high school.

But then after that, like I hit a part in my life where I simply just wanted to help you people.

I really didn't know how, I didn't know what I didn't really didn't know what I was gonna do, but a whole part of me was like, I want to help people.

Whatever I'm gonna do is gonna be with people.

It's gonna work with people.

So the reason why I stayed was to try to find that avenue to work with people.

'Cause once I got outta high school, I immediately went into college for a year, and then early I started, yeah, I started my work around like 2021.

So early on in my life, like I found the platform for working with youth, and that is a real reason why I'm here today.

(soft music playing) - JOHN: Learning to be a man is a complex, often contradictory thing.

Don't reveal weakness or emotion, but make sure your kids know you love them.

A lot of what men learn is tied up with violence.

- BOB BALDWIN: Succeed at all costs.

- JOE: Be aggressive.

- JOHN: Protect your sister and your mother.

- BOB BALDWIN: Never walk away from a fight and always win it.

- SERRANO: Initial history of this organization.

And it started off like just a bunch of like straight white guys basically wanted to be more a part of the solution rather than the violence, if that makes sense.

So a lot of people get confused and they think we're only like men only work here, but the truth behind the name is that men should, and men need to be more a part of peace making, more a part of solutions of violence and not just being a part of the violence itself.

- BOB BRENNING: I think historically in Western culture, we go back a lot of hundreds, if not a couple thousands of years in which, we look at male dominance in Western culture, and it's kind of in the air we breathe practically, we're born as males for example, we're kind of born into a culture that celebrates kind of our power, our privilege, the kinds of things that we have access to as males, and we never have to think about it.

- Do boys and men have to be more aggressive?

- What are the positive things to celebrate, about being a boy or a man?

- Why do we have such a hard time knowing and showing what we feel?

- What are men most afraid of?

- When do you feel like hitting someone or something?

- Does what we learn about being male, make violence more acceptable for men?

- I personally been doing this for about five years.

I kind of stumbled upon it.

I didn't really know what map was beforehand.

I was working with youth in a different setting, and I was just looking for a more consistent, a more full-time job at the time.

So I specifically was just looking for more youth development opportunities, which map really was one of those.

So we teach 'em a lot about like just social emotions, like how to understand people's emotions, how to be aware of your emotions, first of all, and how to know that people are okay being emotional, Right?

It's okay to be upset, it's okay to be angry, it's okay to be happy, it's okay to be insecure.

We have open and I mean open conversations about race and gender, because I feel like there's no activities you really should just have around that, like I don't want to make it like a phony topic.

So for those two, we actually I'll ask the youth like, what do you know?

What have you heard before about race and gender?

And they'll tell you, I've heard the white kid tell me like, "I've heard that I'm more valuable than you," or "I'm more valuable than somebody who's darker skinned."

So we actually have to access that because we forget that youth are in a learning spot.

I could never blame a youth for what they say because they got her from grandpa, from grandma, from mom, dad, teachers, people that they see in their world.

We first access what they know, then we challenge that.

I think in small towns and in places in general, like we feed out for the fact that we only support people we know, we only support people we agree with, we only support who look like us.

So our main question for the youth is "How do you treat people who don't look like you?"

So for us it's more about helping them understand like, that they're human, they're valuable, like I will never make them feel like they're not, Showing them that love also by showing them sternness, and education just doesn't always look fun, you know, sometimes we gotta talk about the hurtings, we gotta talk about the racism, the sexism, why we choose to as men see women as less than us, why we choose to, you know, see people as color, as different values as us, we have those conversations.

So when you think about like the demographic of people who are allowed to use their emotions, men are inherently gonna be right more violent, when you think about it, if a person is only allowed to use anger, but is not allowed to, to be sad, then that person is gonna use that anger as a, a tool, a tool for them to feel better, whether that's harming their partner, whether that's putting somebody down, whether that's stepping on somebody's toes.

It's not comfortable for a man to be emotional or to express those types of emotions.

So my opinion of encouraging men just comes from like, us opening that gauge of emotion, us just understanding that we do have an impact on the things that we do.

You know, going to jail and coming out is not really helpful if you never understand what you do has a reaction, has an impact on not yourself, but people, families, children, you never really know if you never access like that emotion of insecurity.

You never really know how you started to be violent in the first place.

'Cause I personally don't believe that nobody wakes up violent.

I don't have a knack of violent people, good versus bad, I don't believe in that.

A little higher.

(Chuckling) He's like I'm precise, don't worry about it.

(indistinct talk) (soft music playing) I stay every day because of the youth that I work with, the youth that I have worked with that I see now who are older.

- Yeah.

We're gonna the boat on-- - My description says like boys restorative program, 'cause that's kind of like the essence of we talk about is like, masculinity talk, masculinity you know, healthy masculinity.

How to challenge those things.

If you're a parent, you know, and your daughter or girl identified youth, comes home with a permission slip that says, boy, boy, boy, all over it, you're not gonna send that back.

You're not even gonna sign it.

So we wanted to look at how do we make our group actually more inclusive to the youth who are not just male, because we can all learn how to be more healthier, let's be honest, but it's not just a male center thing.

It's everyone who could learn about being more healthier.

It's everyone who could learn about how to treat people the right way, especially when they don't identify with how you identify.

We say kids are our future, but we don't really do anything with it.

Like it's like a cliche.

We'll say kids are our future, but we don't do anything until they're 18 and then it's like here, take a job, find a career, figure it all out right now.

But I want to be able to, support youth before they get there, to support them in their early childhood trials, to support them in things that they don't even understand, their emotions and just support them in ways that just didn't exist.

So MEGA actually was a way for us to get all the youth in the room.

It was a way for us to actually access and acknowledge all youth of all gender identities.

So MEGA just stands for Making Equal Genders Awesome.

It's also something that I believe in.

So this is a a saying, and now it's a part of our actual program.

Every kid who wants to be supported should be supported no matter what.

So that's really like what I've been doing for the past six years in general, it's just like yeah.

Being that person to be in front of youth development, showing youth like modeling the emotional like responses, just being the person that I am and assuring them that I'll be by their side, not in front of 'em not behind them, but by their side, through their life, whether they need me academically, whether they need me like emotionally, mentally, whatever that may, that may be.

(soft music playing) - Funding For Intersections is brought to you by the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.