(soft music) - [Man] 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, finds out what's new at SPARK Children's Museum and learns about an interfaith initiative to support immigrants in our community.

We also check out a disco dance party and hear from a singer-songwriter.

Next on R-Town, the show about Rochester.

(upbeat music) Coming to you from 125 Live in Rochester, Minnesota, R-Town.

(upbeat music) So we're here at 125 Live today, catching up with the new executive director of SPARK Children's Museum, Heather Nessler.

Welcome to R-Town, Heather.

- Thank you.

- So last time we got to catch up with the children's museum, you were just building your new space in the Apache Mall.

Can you tell us a little bit about what the space looks like now and what your newest exhibition is?

- Yeah, we are really, really excited about the space that we're in.

We have 17 interactive exhibits.

So it's much bigger than the previous space, if someone were to remember that and we have different programming every single day, I think we've done about 750 programs this year.

- Wow.

- Yeah, it's been fantastic.

Our newest exhibit is SPARK City.

It is an interactive city.

It's a game where children and adults get to work together in terms of solving to keep the city happy, in terms of solving for fuel issues, for instance, which we all know about right now.

- Sure.

- And traffic jams and water pipes leaking.

- Oh that's awesome.

- Yeah.

- I love this idea of folks working together.

Can you talk a little bit about the ways that you're engaging across generations?

So not just the kids, but families.

- Yeah.

- In general?

- Yeah.

Access and equity is top of mind for us.

And so, we have a lot of different programming options that address both of those, for instance, discovery play.

We do that once a month and that is an opportunity for families of all different abilities to come in to the museum, it's at no charge and explore the museum on their own terms.

We also do different free family nights.

So, we work with Family Service Rochester, Families First Head Start and around McDonald House where we can bring families in and they can explore the space at no charge to them.

The other thing that we really like to focus on are grandparents for that intergenerational play.

And so, we do grandparents play for every single Tuesday.

And so, grandparents coming into the museum, I mean, there's a ton of research out there that talks about how grandparents or intergenerational play will bring down blood pressure, will help with memory loss, will help with communication styles amongst different generations.

- Oh, that's super exciting.

You know, I was talking to you earlier about this, but the pandemic, obviously it impacted families, it impacted children, it impacted all of us.

What role did the Children's Museum play in just being a place for people to be able to go to?

- Yeah.

I mean, there were times when we had our doors closed, where people couldn't come in because of COVID, but we really have filled and bridged that gap for families in general when they need to get out and experience new things.

Whether it's working at a light bright or it's playing in the water table.

The important thing is that families could interact with one another.

And so they weren't so isolated.

I think that was one thing that really struck home with some of our visitors.

- For sure, and you talked a little bit about this, we have so much diversity in our community and it's so important to be able to have programming that meets the needs of different families and children in our community.

In what ways are you ensuring that the needs of our, I guess, children of all backgrounds and families are being met at the museum?

- Yeah, as I mentioned before, access and equity is super important.

Thinking about culturally relevant programming as well is top of mind for us.

And so we've been really focused on how we can make the-- Continue to keep, I should say, the museum a safe and welcoming place and a safe place for play for all families, no matter your ability, no matter what your cultural background is.

And so, those are the things that we continue to focus on with programming.

- Wonderful.

So you have a fundraiser coming up.

Can you tell us a little bit about that fundraiser and then how people can attend?

- Yeah.

We have play for all coming up on August 11th.

It is our annual fundraiser from 5:00 PM to 9:00 PM.

Anyone can purchase tickets at SPARKrochestermn.org.

And the goal of the fundraiser is to raise money that we can put back for a play for all program.

Which is our program that breaks down barrier for families that maybe are socioeconomic status.

They can't afford to come to the museum.

And so, another programming things.

- Wonderful, is there a theme to the fundraiser and what can people expect when they attend?

- Yes, it's a carnival themed fundraiser.

So we will have a lot of fun games, carnival themed games, carnival themed, food, drinks.

It's an adult only event.

It's at SPARK, but it's both inside and outside SPARK.

So there's an opportunity to mingle with others.

Come and go through the inside and outside of the museum.

We're also gonna have a character artist, a magician, a DJ, and lots of other opportunities for people to engage with each other.

- Oh, that sounds like it's gonna be super fun.

Thank you so much for joining us, Heather and we can't wait to hear what's new and next time at the SPARK museum.

- Great.

Thank you.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - Be sure to stick around.

We have much more coming your way on R-Town.

We boogie down under the disco lights with the first ever disco dance party at 125 Live.

And we learn about the work of the Southeastern Minnesota Interfaith Immigrant Legal Defense.

But up first, we grab a guitar and sing with a musician, Emily Whitcomb, in this week's R-Culture segment.

(guitar playing) ♪ You were 19 ♪ ♪ I was naive when you met me ♪ - Growing up, it was kind of a prerequisite to be a musician in my family.

There was always music in the house.

A lot of times it was my sister and I fighting for practice time.

I started with violin when I was four.

Music's always just been a big part of my life.

And I've been really grateful to have a lot of opportunities to learn about it, to perform and to teach others.

I'm Emily Whitcomb and I'm a singer/songwriter, living in Rochester, Minnesota.

My music it's influenced a lot by lyric driven artists like Sarah Bareilles, Amy Macdonald's, Vanessa Carlton.

I really value having a lot of storytelling components in my songs and a lot of real life scenarios as well.

A lot of the songs I write are based on things I've gone through in my life.

And that's really important to me.

It also helps me cope with all that life is thrown at me.

I try to keep it positive, but I definitely have a lot of sad songs, but hopefully they're at least catchy, sad songs.

♪ We told secrets ♪ ♪ And no regrets ♪ ♪ About a thing ♪ - She did really eloquent job of sort of putting the humanity in the lyrics and connecting with people.

Emily has more ideas than my brain would know what to do with.

(chuckles) She's excellent at making the songs her own and also reaching out to people through them.

- One of my focus is also is on shining lights on subjects that aren't sung about a lot.

So I have songs about PTSD, about breast cancer, about cystic fibrosis, about suicide.

And I've been really honored to have been able to perform those songs in different capacities at different events, and hopefully bringing some people healing and hope that go through those things.

♪ The was is over ♪ ♪ But he's still fighting ♪ ♪ Height is pain in camouflage ♪ - I perform a lot of my music very simply, I think.

I mostly just accompany myself on guitar.

Sometimes I perform in a duo and there's some harmony, some other small percussion instruments.

- My name is Megan Kleven.

I'm a musician in Rochester and I'm in a group with Emily called, Going Up.

We describe ourselves as an acoustic pop duo.

So we try to play fun acoustic songs.

We do a lot of covers and then we play a lot of originals too.

So she's got a lot of songs that she's contributed and I throw some in there too.

- Megan is great.

We've been able to collaborate a lot throughout the years.

She's really a fun person to collaborate with because we have such different musical tastes.

We always joke about how, when we come to like a practice session, her group of songs that she knows, and my group of songs that I know are totally separate.

Like the Venn diagram does not cross, ever.

She and I have had really great opportunities to perform at the State Fair, at the Mall of America and as well as places around town here.

♪ We are a done like a final chapter ♪ ♪ Unhappily ever after done ♪ ♪ We are done like our last round ♪ ♪ Shots fired ♪ ♪ Bullets out ♪ ♪ Done ♪ ♪ We are done ♪ (audience clapping) - [Woman] For more information about this story and other R-Town features, connect with us on Facebook, twitter @KSMQ#RTownrtown or ksmq.org/rtown.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - Hello, this is Danielle Teal with the Spotlight, and we have a guest here today that runs the Rochester City Lines.

Dan Holter, welcome.

- Hello.

Thank you.

- So glad to have you, and you were just telling me a few seconds ago about how Rochester City Lines got started.

Can you share a little bit more about that?

- Sure.

It was the summer of 1966.

Rochester was without city bus service and the Chamber of Commerce director came up and actually sat on my parents' living room.

I remember him coming and he asked us to come to Rochester and start running buses.

And that's really the start of Rochester City Lines and city bus service under our ownership.

- And not to be confused with the Rochester bus, but this is different.

And how is it different from the main bus transportation?

- Well, we were the city bus service till about 10 years ago.

- Okay.

- When the city took over ownership.

So that's Rochester Public Transit or RP Tried, as they say, but we're Rochester City Lines.

So we do group events, charters and tours.

We do athletic transportation for all the local high school teams and civic groups, corporate events.

We take people wherever they want to go, whether it's one person in one of our specialized vans or 60 passenger deluxe motor coaches.

- Wow and it sounds like you have some really cool transportation opportunities in the works.

One of those being the Olmsted County Fair.

- That's right.

The Olmsted County Fair, Well, not the Olmsted County Fair.

This Minnesota State Fair.

- Oh, the Minnesota State Fair.

- Right.

Oh, wonderful.

Well, that's even that's further.

(laughs) - Yeah.

So 125 Live, we're working with them.

- Okay.

- To take couple different buses up to the Minnesota State Fair.

It's August 29th and September 1st, there's bus service up right from 125 Live to the Minnesota State Fair.

- That's wonderful.

And you mentioned that you take high school students to sporting activities.

What collaboration are you doing with 125 Live then?

- Well, the state fair.

- State Fair.

- Right.

- And then is there anything else in the queue for that you have going on for events?

- Yes, we've done some other things in the past, whether it's going to a theater or to a say the Arboretum a day trip out to enjoy the weather, the whatever the scenery is for that season.

- What is your favorite memory that you've had?

You've seen lots of people.

- Come through.

- Oh man.

I just enjoy serving people.

Getting those SMIILD on their faces.

People are so appreciative of taking care of them, giving a great ride and seeing many things and just a fun time.

It's so much fun to travel in a group.

- That's wonderful.

Thank you so much, Dan.

- You're welcome.

- And for more information, you can check out the link below.

(upbeat music) - Hello again.

This is Michael BoJack with your R-Town rundown.

First of all, a big R-Town, congratulations to Med City FC, which is advanced to the Midwest Regional Semifinals for the first time ever.

They will be playing in that match this weekend.

A lot of events going on in Rochester this weekend, and a lot of them are free.

There is a pedal party put on by We Bike Rochester and Bike MN.

That's going to be at the Rochester Art Center from one to four on Saturday.

Also going on this Saturday, Citywide, is the Citywide Chalk the Walk event.

That is where citizens are invited to go out and do some coloring on their sidewalks with Sidewalk Chalk.

It's gonna be going on Citywide and you can read more about it online.

Going on every Saturday through the summer on the Peace Plaza at 10 o'clock in the morning is fresh air fitness.

That is on the Peace Plaza and you can go out and enjoy some free exercise with the community down there.

Also coming up on Sunday night, another one of our free concerts in Rochester, Mavis Staples is playing.

And if you're gonna go see Mavis Staples, don't miss Mike Munson who will be opening at about 7:00 o'clock PM.

These concerts are fantastic, and this is going to be a great one.

The Heritage House, which is the historic home in Central Park in Rochester, is offering free tours, that is Tuesdays and Wednesdays through August, from 11:30 to 3:30 PM.

And finally Kiss me, Kate, an emergent youth theater presentation will be going on at Rochester Civic Theater this Friday and Saturday night at 7:00 PM.

Tickets are available online.

Thanks again for watching and hope to see you out and about in R-Town.

(upbeat music) - This is Danielle Teal with R-Town walkabout.

I'm super excited because there's a disco in there.

We're at 125 Live about to have a good time.

(disco music) There is a disco going on in there, Alex.

Can you share a little bit more about that?

- Sure.

So a few months ago we recognized a need for our programming and we really wanted to include our members that have exceptional abilities.

And so one of the things that we do is every single week, we do a different topic, whether it's art, whether it's a movie.

Today we're doing a disco dance party and everyone's really having fun.

- Do you love the disco?

- I do.

- What's your favorite music?

Is it fast or slow?

- [Anthony] Rock and roll.

- Rock and roll?

I like rock and roll.

Do you have a favorite dance move?

- Yeah.

- Can you show me?

And how often are these activities?

- [Alex] Once a week.

- [Danielle] Once a week?

- [Alex] Yep.

- [Danielle] Same day?

- [Alex] Yep.

- [Danielle] Time?

- It's every Thursday at 3:30.

Again, the activities vary each week, but it's always on our schedule, as far as we have it up.

We wanna be known as a place that is open to everybody.

Like I say, we saw a need for additional programming and the response has been good.

We're really excited about being able to offer that in the community.

And we hope that people will see us as a place they want to join and have fun.

- And how often are these activities?

- Once a week.

- Once a week?

- Yep.

- Same day?

- Yep.

- Time?

- It's every Thursday at 3:30.

Again, the activities vary each week.

- You ready to go in there and rock?

I'm ready.

Let's go dance.

(laughs) I'm gonna go dance with him.

All right, let's go dance.

(gentle music) - So we're joined today by Phil Wheeler, from the Southeastern, Minnesota Interfaith Immigrant Legal Defense.

To learn how SMIILD is ensuring the availability of immigration legal services in our city and across our region.

Welcome to R-Town, Phil.

- Thank you for having me.

- For sure.

Can you tell us a little bit about what the mission of SMIILD is and how did it start?

- Our mission is, as you said, to provide immigration legal services to anyone who lives or works in Southeastern Minnesota.

Which is 11 counties, Dodge, Fillmore, Freeborn, Olmsted, Homestead, Goodhue, Wabasha, Winona, Fillmore, Houston, Rice and Steele, I got 'em all.

And how we got started was way back in March of 2017.

We had a meeting at Peace United Church of Christ, a number of people from local faith communities attended and found out that children of undocumented people in Olmsted county, in this region, were being the-- There was a session with volunteer attorneys, helping the parents of those children arrange for alternative custody in the event that they got deported.

And so we thought this is an egregious situation.

This child separation from families happening right here in our area.

So, we were encouraged and we looked into it to help with establishing sanctuaries.

And two faith communities ended up creating sanctuaries over the next six months, Peace UCC and the church I belong to, the Unitarian Universalist Church.

Those sanctuary opportunities are still there except for the fact that Peace UCC had a very expensive fire, but, we realized very soon after that, that among the things that people in sanctuary, if we ever had somebody in sanctuary, would need, would be legal defense.

Looking into it, it turns out that if you remain in detention and do not have an attorney, mostly because you can't afford one, your chances of avoiding removal are about 3%.

If you can get out of detention and get represented by an attorney, your chances increase to just under 75%.

- So ,it makes a really big difference to be able to have legal defense?

- Yeah it's huge.

- So, recognizing that well over half of the people who are in detention have no criminal offense whatsoever.

All of the immigration issues are civil matters.

We thought this is clearly an unmet need.

In our area about 54% of the people who end up in immigration proceedings can't afford an attorney.

And so we tried to persuade Olmsted county to do as Hennepin County and Ramsey County have done.

Create a local fund for doing this.

After a year of that effort, we decided we should go ahead and create our own effort.

So with the fiscal sponsorship of the diversity council and the legal assistance through advocates for human rights and Immigrant Law Center of Minnesota, we entered into agreement that if we could raise the money, they would provide representation.

And by August, we had enough money to enter into a contract with those two organizations.

After a year, we amended that contract to add Rice County to the region and to add bond defense and habeas corpus defense, because it turns out we needed that because we had people who were eligible for bond who were being denied bond and people who had won their case, who were not being released from detention, while ICE considered whether or not they wanted to appeal.

And that consideration of appeal of our victory was taking six months.

We had one case where somebody won their case in March, and wasn't released until the following March.

A year in detention for a person who had, essentially, won his case.

So, we're keeping at it.

We're now in our third year of contract.

And we have added legal defense for people who are not detained to the list of services that we provide.

- And so what would that look like?

So if it's not in a sort of a detention situation, what other services would you be providing?

- Well, you'd still have to go through immigration court.

So you may have been released from the detention sometime ago, but you still can't afford an attorney and you still have to go through either the bureau of immigration appeals or some other court proceeding in order to actually establish a legal right to remain here.

- So there are many in our community that are facing some sort of immigration justice issue.

In terms of just numbers, I mean, do we have a sense of how many undocumented immigrants we have in our city or in the region that you're serving?

- Well, we only have estimates.

Based on data from a migration policy institute article, or research at state and county level nationwide.

We estimate that there are 7,200 undocumented people in Southeastern Minnesota.

Well, four counties account for half of that total.

Olmsted County has the largest number, partly because we have the largest number of foreign born people.

So, in Southeastern Minnesota, we have 33,000 foreign born people, about 40% of those are naturalized citizens, who are still at risk, of course.

- [Nicole] Right.

- And of the remainder, 7,200 probably don't have legal status.

- Yeah, I mean, you made the really important point that a lot of the immigration issues.

I mean, it's a civil issue, not a criminal one.

Could you talk a little bit about what it means to be undocumented and kind of what that impact that status has on individuals and families?

- Well, I should, first of all, point out that over 4,000 children are legal citizens here, who have at least one undocumented parent.

- So, they're no big status family.

- So that adds to the number of people at risk.

But if you are undocumented, you can't get a driver's license, for example.

On the other hand, if you are undocumented or you are ineligible for a number of social services supports.

And so you're pretty much-- To live here, you have to have income, to have income, you either have to have somebody willing to pay all your costs, or you have to work.

If you work and you can't drive legally, you have to drive illegally.

So you drive without a license.

And if you have a taillight that goes out and you get stopped, you can be brought into custody and then turned over to ICE and then deported.

So the penalty for driving without a functioning taillight for an American citizen is trivial.

- [Nicole] Right.

For an undocumented person, it's life changing.

Not only life changing it's life threatening.

So these are major problems for simply living a normal life.

If you are a DACA kid, the... - Deferred Action.

- Yeah.

- So, you may be the only person in your family eligible to drive.

And so you'll get off work or school, and your family will need a carton of milk.

You're the one who has to go get it.

That can interfere with things like studying.

- For sure.

Certain responsibilities.

- [Phil] Right.

- Well, thank you, Phil so much for sharing a little bit about what SMIILD does and the services that you're providing in our community.

And we hope to hear more from you in the future.

- Well, thank you for having us.

- Yeah.

And thank you all for joining us today.

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

Coming to you from 125 Live, I'm Nicole Nfonoyim-Hara for R-Town.

The show about Rochester.

We will see you next time.

(upbeat music) ♪ Beat beat beat ♪ ♪ Feel that cold ♪ ♪ Nashville heavy ♪ ♪ Same place going in the heart ♪ - [Man] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.