(light music) - [Narrator] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

- "R-Town, the show about Rochester" learns more about the Olmsted County Community Health Assessment and catches up with the work of the Diversity Council.

We also sip and paint at a unique painting class and explore the vibrant mosaic work of a local artist.

Coming up next on "R-Town, the show about Rochester".

(bright upbeat music) - [Announcer] Coming to you from 125 Live in Rochester, Minnesota, "R-Town".

(bright upbeat music) - Population health is an important part of keeping a community healthy.

And thriving, especially.

We're joined today by Derrick Fritz to learn more about the county's effort to stay in the pulse of the health needs and address challenging health issues in the community.

Welcome, Derrick.

- Appreciate it, thank you for having me.

- Absolutely, so let's dive in to this.

What is the Community Health Assessment and Planning process?

- Yeah, it's really a collaborative process between Olmsted County Public Health, Mayo Clinic, Olmsted Medical Center, and a bunch of community partners and community residents.

And really, the process has three main components to it.

First is to really assess the health of our community, how well and how healthy is our community.

Next is to prioritize and figure out what are our top health issues in Olmsted County.

And then third is to really align work and address each of these different top health issues.

- And why do you think this is important?

And then I'm curious about how long this has been happening, doing this assessment.

- Yeah, the Community Health Assessment and Planning process, or CHAP process for short, has been going on since 2012 and it's every three years.

So 2012, 2015, and so on.

And really, the importance and why it's so important for our communities to understand what we're doing well, also understand maybe what we can do better around health and wellbeing with our population, and then really understand what are some of the inequities, disparities that populations face and our residents face here in Olmsted County.

And then lastly, I think being able to assign and align resources and people power to these various top health issues is so important.

- And what are the three top health priorities that have been identified in 2019 for the needs assessment?

- Yeah, in 2019, mental health, financial stress, and substance use were identified as the top three priorities or top health issues.

I mentioned it is a three-year process.

So we are evaluating this year in 2022.

So we're going through a process, prioritization process it's called, to really understand if those have changed or if they've worsened or gotten better and really, well, in October be able to share what those new priorities are.

- Yeah, that would be very interesting, especially with the pandemic the last couple of years.

Certainly, something related to those priorities will potentially have impact.

As you're moving into this third year and then doing the new assessment, how are you kind of wrapping up and transitioning to the next assessment that's informing your work?

- Yeah, I think it's really allowing us to continue to do the good work around those priorities.

Really, as you mentioned, around mental health and financial stress and substance use and all of those being impacted by the pandemic, being able to continue to align resources and have partnerships, being able to learn from our community and our residents around those priorities as well.

And again, really that opportunity for us to take a step back and evaluate and see how the pandemic may have influenced our various health outcomes here in Olmsted.

- This is wonderful work.

How is CHAP leveraging community members and amplifying diverse voices?

- Yeah, absolutely.

Community members are really involved throughout the process.

One part of the assessment phase, we call the community health needs assessment, is really allowing us to hear from community members themselves.

We have community surveys, we have focus groups with individuals.

They also participate in opportunities to share their insights on what they feel are our top health issues.

And then in terms of diverse voices, we really wanna hear from all members and everyone in the Olmsted County.

And we have some great partnerships with Diversity Council, Intercultural Mutual Assistance Association or IMAA, to really hear the voices from the immigrant refugee population, communities of color, geographically diverse communities, LGBTQ+.

So really being able to use our great connectors and partners we have here to hear a representative part of Olmsted County.

- Thank you so much, Derrick.

And how can community members learn more about it and get involved?

- Yeah, so if you go to the Olmsted County website and on the search bar on the top, just type in CHAP, C-H-A-P. - It's that easy.

- It'll be the first thing that pops up there, so.

- That's great.

- So yeah, then you're able to learn more and then there's also contact information if you'd like to help out or share your insight as well.

- Perfect, thank you so much, Derrick.

- Appreciate it, thanks again.

(upbeat music) - Be sure to stick around and we have much more coming your way on "R-Town".

We let our inner artists shine while we paint at Wine and Canvas and catch up with Dee Sabol, executive director of Diversity Council.

But up first, we learn how a local mosaic artist creates her vibrant work and finds inspiration in this week's R-Culture segment.

(gentle music) - Everyone always asks if I cut myself a lot or if I use a lot of band-aids or those kind of things.

And no, honestly.

I have, knock on wood, I've never cut myself bad.

Hi, I'm Debra D'Souza and I am a creator of glass mosaics.

I started out making stained glass, traditional stained glass windows.

I knew that I had that love for the glass and I like to be able to feel the texture of the glass because sometimes, on one side, it'll be real smooth and shiny.

And on the other side, it'll have more of a texture.

As an artist, you always are looking for some little niche of something.

I discovered that people were actually creating paintings or mosaics out of glass.

And so that's where I started and I did my first one on my own.

And that was it, I was hooked.

(gentle music) A lot of it is experimenting and finding your own voice of what you want your work to look like.

And I started taking classes and looking into it further and getting deeper and deeper into it.

And I ended up studying with, like masters all over the world.

I went to Italy and I've done residencies in Ireland and in Belgium and studied with artists in France and throughout the U.S.

The nice thing about mosaic is that there's a lot of different techniques.

You have a major color and that's where the bigger pieces come in.

And then you have the supporting colors where they're littler pieces, but they still are important 'cause your eye will mix them all together to get the color right.

The glass itself and getting back to cutting glass and working with the glass, it's really no different than painting.

You just mix it on your palette and lay it in.

With the mosaics that I do, I try to mix all the colors.

'Cause in nature and you learn this in painting, if you look at a green tree, there's every color in there.

So in order to make it realistic, you can't just use green.

You have to use purples and reds and oranges and mix the colors together.

Sometimes, they just build themselves, it seems like.

And you're just inspired and you just go.

(light music) My favorite part of creating a piece of artwork for someone else is getting it right, being able to figure out exactly what they are envisioning, and having our two visions be the same.

I just love the process more than the outcome.

And luckily, the outcome becomes good most of the time.

(gentle music) - For more information about this story and other "R-Town" features, connect with us on Facebook, Twitter, @KSMQ #RTown or ksmq.org/rtown.

(melodic music) - This is the "R-Town" Spotlight.

I'm super excited because we're talking pottery.

Jessica Taylor, welcome to "R-Town", The Spotlight.

- Thank you for having me.

- It's my favorite part because we get to talk about really neat things.

And one of your creative outlets is pottery.

Can you share a little bit more about Pottery by Jessica?

- So Pottery by Jessica, I am a local potter.

I do functional wares, which means that it's like mugs, bowls, plates, platters, kitchen gadgets.

I'm famous for my garlic greater plates and for my skull mugs.

- Yes.

- And your skull mugs, - Yeah.

- you were talking about that.

So let's talk about the element that I noticed, especially with this.

It's almost 3D.

If you look, there is this like part that is, you know, outside of the actual pottery that you do.

Share a little bit more about that creative process - Yeah.

- and why you got into it.

- Yeah, so I got into pottery to make friends and then I fell in love with it.

- You've made friends.

- And that was years and years and years ago.

But the process is I throw my mugs.

So they're hand thrown mugs.

You can hand build mugs too, but I throw mine, but then I add the additives afterwards.

So I use like a cookie cutter for the Minnesota mug.

For these, I use silicone molds that I've made and I, you know, use those, press into them like you would fondant if you're a cake maker.

And then I attach them once the mug is leather hard in the end to get the look of it.

- And it's so cool because I especially love this Minnesota one.

I have an affinity for Minnesota.

Rochester, Minnesota.

- Mm-hmm.

- And I just think it's so neat how the design kind of lays out.

You have an event coming up, share a little bit more about that.

- Yeah, so we're just doing a pottery popup at my parents' house in the manor.

It's myself and my mom.

Art kind of runs in our family, I guess.

And that's gonna be August 13th in the manor.

So you can go to my Facebook or my Instagram, which is Pottery by Jessica and find out more information about it there.

- Awesome, and I asked you, you know, do you teach this and that sort of thing?

Now 125 Live does offer classes.

And you had said, you recommend people to come here - Yes.

- if they wanna learn.

- Yeah.

So I don't teach, I also have a full-time job.

- Right.

You got a day job.

- I got a day job at the Even Hotel, but I always recommend people come out to 125 Live.

It's 18+ here and they have great teachers and I'm friends with some of the pottery teachers here and they do a wonderful job.

- That's awesome.

So last, I wanted to ask you a little bit more about some of these creations really quickly.

You know, what makes you decide what are you gonna make?

Is it your mood, or?

- For me, yes, it's totally my mood because I do have a full-time job.

This is more of like a stress reliever for me.

And so it's just kinda like what I'm feeling like doing when I get into the studio that day.

Like what inspires me and makes me happy.

- Awesome, thank you so much for being on the show.

- Yeah, thanks.

(upbeat music) - Hello again, this is Michael Wojcik with your "R-Town" Rundown.

It's getting hot outside and that means it must be time for the Olmsted County Fair.

The fair is going on through this weekend and I'm gonna give you some tips for accessing the fair and enjoying the fair.

It can be sometimes intimidating to try and access the county fair grounds.

There is parking on site that is paid and you can actually get a parking spot right across the street for 3 or $4.

If you're willing to walk a little bit, there tends to be a lot of free parking on the neighborhoods on the streets in the surrounding areas.

You can also take public transportation to and from the fair.

City routes 206 and 306 will go by by the fairgrounds from downtown and some other areas.

If you get an app called DoubleMap, you can actually see the bus routes and where the buses are in real time if you'd like that option.

It used to be quite challenging to access the fairgrounds by biking or walking, but significant improvements have been made to the intersection of Broadway and Highway 14.

And you can now access it pretty easily from Soldiers Field and downtown Rochester.

The Olmsted County Fair is a free fair.

The entrance is free.

You can go there, meet vendors, get all of your local Rochester swag.

There's also free live entertainment that's going on.

There's a number of additional opportunities with paid entertainment.

That can be everything from concerts to Demolition Derbies.

And if you'd like to see some more about that, you can visit OlmstedCountyfair.com.

The miracle of birth exhibition has become one of the more popular exhibits.

And it is exactly what it sounds like.

It is the opportunity to go and see livestock and see animals being born.

It's something that's fascinating for kids of all ages.

It was introduced a few years ago and it's become one of the more popular things at the Olmsted County Fair.

Like all fairs, there's food vendors and rides for the kids.

You can get a wristband and go on unlimited rides for a period of time.

The food vendors, when I was growing up, we didn't have so many local options.

Now we have a lot of local vendors with different kinds of food.

You can even go get great vegan food from a local vendor here in Rochester.

Finally, when fairs are at their absolute best, they bring people together.

We don't always see our suburban, rural, city neighbors, but this is an opportunity for everybody to come together, meet your old friends, make some new ones.

So I hope everyone gets out and enjoys Olmsted County Fair in "R-Town".

(light music) - This is Danielle Teal with "R-Town" Walkabout.

We're here with Wine and Canvas.

And we're gonna learn a little bit more about how to paint this.

We're here with Melissa and we're at the Centerstone Plaza Hotel.

And we've got a really fun thing going on right now, which is canvas painting.

Tell us a little bit, Melissa, about your business and what's happening in this awesome space.

- Certainly.

We are here to do our featured painting of the night.

We'll walk our painters through step by step to show them how to create their own painting.

They can certainly change it up, make it how they want it.

And every time we come, we have a different painting that we're doing.

- Awesome, and how often do you do events like this?

- You know, 10 to 20 times a month.

- Okay, wow.

- It really varies.

We do public events like tonight, anyone can sign up.

We do private events, birthday parties, bachelorette parties, team building, kids' parties.

- [Danielle] Really cool.

Melissa, how long have you owned this business?

- I have owned it, I think about six years now.

- Six years and- - been doing it for about eight years.

- Okay, and you've battled through the pandemic.

Have you seen a big influx of participation at this point?

- Yes, our private events are a lot busier than they ever used to be.

People just really wanting to get out there and do stuff with their friends.

A lot more bachelorette parties, I would say, than we used to have.

So just a lot of fun.

Just seeing how the paintings turn out every time, I love how, even though they're all the same, they're all different.

- Different, yeah.

- That's my favorite thing.

I always tell people, you know, mine will turn out different than mine and I did them both.

It's just the nature of painting.

- So I have very little artistic ability, but do you think you can turn me into a painter?

- Yes.

(Danielle laughs) - Very cool, Melissa.

- Try to make it very easy and break it down into shapes.

- That's great, awesome.

Thank you so much.

- [Melissa] Thank you.

(melodic music) - The Diversity Council has been a central part of diversity, equity, and inclusion work in our community for years.

Today, we're joined by executive director, Dee Sabol, to find out what's new and next for the organization and its efforts in the city.

Welcome back to "R-Town", Dee.

- Thank you, so pleased to be here, Danielle.

- Well, I'm excited to talk about some things that have been happening.

- Absolutely.

- The last time you were on here, there was a discussion about the $1 million grant and with plans to roll out Project HEALINGS.

How's that going?

First of all, share a little bit more about that in case some people are not familiar with HEALINGS.

- Sure, absolutely.

So Project HEALINGS is a collaborative effort to address health disparities throughout the state of Minnesota.

And it was infused with a million dollars in federal funding to address vaccine hesitancy and increase vaccination rates among minority populations around the state.

We are in the final month of a year, right?

12 months of delivery on that project.

And it has been amazing, Danielle.

We had hoped to, it may have 250,000 unique touches over the course of that year and we have exceeded 300,000.

- Oh, that's great.

- So amazing.

If you think about that, really, if you think about the minority population of Minnesota, we've reached more than 25% of the individuals with really critical information about the importance of COVID vaccination, right, about with actual resources that are community-identified and community-specific.

And that money flowed through Diversity Council out to grassroots organizations around the state.

- That's awesome.

And so that's what I was gonna ask about, the technique.

- Yeah.

- So how did you reach that population?

Was it social media?

Was it in person?

- What we did, Danielle, and it was unique, I think, to our application nationally, we're the only recipient in Minnesota, is we said we're not gonna make those decisions.

We're gonna allow people deep within community who have trusted relationships to connect through us, to the resources that they need and then utilize what they know works best with folks.

And by example, we had individuals more than a year into the pandemic who were still getting their best information in the most right, you know, accessible way from their countries of origin.

And you can imagine how different that information was than what we were, you know, seeing here in Minnesota.

This allowed us to address that and reach people the way they needed to be reached with the information that community, you know, that they determined themselves was most valuable.

And thousands and thousands of vaccinations as a result.

And just very proud of that effort.

- That's amazing.

So will that project wrap up then?

Does it have an end date or is this gonna be ongoing until funds are used?

So this aspect, the funds are expended, believe it or not.

A million dollars - Wow.

- goes quicker than you think.

- Oh, it sure does.

- Yeah.

We were just like, getting to the last $3,000 and getting kind of those expenses paid out.

But project HEALINGS itself was always meant to form a structure on which we can lay information about health disparities, access issues, communication issues around health and utilize that network and that structure to continue to work together.

And there are new funding, you know, pools of funding, that have come forward that will help us to do that and maintain those incredible relationships.

- That's great because COVID's not gonna go away.

There's still gonna be, you know, things that are needed for that.

So what are some new initiatives that are happening with the Diversity Council and what do you have on deck?

- I'm so glad you asked this question because we are really in a place where we're shifting, right?

We've spent, you know, I've been here six years now and we've spent a lot of time establishing, right, grounding, connecting in community.

And everything that we do, Danielle, is based in community-identified need.

Where do we need to be doing our work?

We have heard loud and clear that continuing to work in educational equity, civic equity, participation issues, and health equity, that is critically important to community.

How we do that work is shifting, continues always to shift in response to community.

But one of the things I'm most proud of that we have been part of in, you know, kind of Rochester and southeastern Minnesota is looking at a different way to establish public policy, public programs, public spaces, social contract, right, that ensures that there is equitable participation, both in the design of and the benefit from those things.

And toward that end, we've been working on a community co-design process that is in use now within Olmsted County, in the city of Rochester and in other organizations and spaces where we are thinking about how do we make sure that things that are happening are equitable for everyone?

And that they're not just designed around our social and cultural norms, but they include the social and cultural norms of all people that call Rochester home.

- So I just wanna call out one thing that you mentioned and it was about education.

- [Melissa] Yes.

- And you know, critical race theory has been such a hot topic.

- Yeah.

- You know, there's been a lot of participation from the community in different regards related to that.

- [Melissa] Yeah.

- How has the Diversity Council moving into this space to have a conversation around that and really build some understanding?

- Yeah, you really hit it because what we see our role as, is to ensure that there is both space for conversation and that people can come in to conversation and dialogue with good information, right?

So how do we collate, curate and present information on different topics that help people to understand what issues are, and to be prepared to think and listen, and, you know, move forward on topic.

So we're participating in a greater campaign in the region around, first, listening, right?

What voices can you listen to that you have not heard so that you have a different perspective as you think about, you know, critical social, cultural issues that are, you know, happening around us and then learning, how do we take it upon ourselves, right, to learn, to educate, to find resources, to balance what we hear and how we learn and then to take action.

Those three aspects are really important and it kind of simplifies the approach to diversity work, right?

We know that the people feel a sense of anxiety, - Yes.

around difference - Right.

and change and human identity.

- And things that they may not know.

- That they don't know.

- Yeah.

And it's important to hear those perspectives.

Where do you see diversity in the future in it's role in the community?

- Yeah, so for 35 years, really this organization has existed to address equity through, you know, understanding bias and hate and prejudice and discrimination and addressing those issues.

I think our shift and where we're headed in the future is really to involve more people in that dialogue and in that landscape.

- That's wonderful.

Thank you so much for being here today.

- Thank you for the invitation.

- Thank you, appreciate it.

Thank you for joining us today.

Coming to you from 125 Live, I'm Danielle Teal for "R-Town, the show about Rochester".

For more wonderful content produced right here in Rochester, please be sure to check us out on Facebook and Twitter at #RTown.

We'll see you next time.

(upbeat music) (light music) - [Narrator] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.