(gentle 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 catches up with the Rochester Downtown Alliance and we hear about an upcoming program hosted by the Rochester branch of the NAACP.

We also grab some roller skates as we celebrate all things funky, sparkly, and fun and learn more about the handcraft handbags at Hanson's Leather Company.

All that, coming up next on "R-Town," the show about Rochester.

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

Today, we're catching up with what's new with the Rochester Downtown Alliance.

We're joined by Katie Adelman, director of Content and Communications, here to tell us what RDA programs and initiatives we can look forward to this upcoming winter season.

Welcome to "R-Town," Katie.

- Thanks, Nicole.

- So winter came upon us early, we're still in the fall obviously, but as we're heading into the winter and the holiday season, what upcoming programs and events could we look forward to?

- You're right, we kind of did hit the holiday season, especially with the snow, early, but we're looking forward to Here Comes Santa Claus and Small Business Saturday, both on the same day this year.

So Here Comes Santa Claus is a beloved Rochester tradition where we rescue Santa off the roof of Old City Hall, which is totally weird, but uniquely Rochester.

And then we're coinciding that this year with Small Business Saturday, which is a day to support local businesses in downtown.

- You know, the last couple of years that we've talked about these two events, we've been in sort of the pandemic, in the thick of pandemic.

Can you tell us a little bit about what people can expect that might be different than the last couple years?

- Yeah, I mean, we've had to really adapt the last two.

In 2020, we had kind of a non-traditional drive through parade with Santa being the stationary and all the cars driving past him, which is kind of a reverse parade kind of thing.

So, and then last year, we were somewhat back to normal.

There was still a high level of transmission with COVID within the community.

So we had photos with Santa outdoors and tried to limit people's indoor activities.

But this year, we're back to normal.

In 2019, we had all of our, you know, activities indoors with Santa's magical workshop indoors, some photos with Santa in Galleria, those are back.

So looking forward to a normal year.

- Can you remind us what date that event will take place?

- Yeah, so Here Comes Santa Claus is from two to five on Saturday, November 26th, and Small Business Saturday is the entire day that day as well.

- Fantastic, so RDA is continuing to obviously support and work with local downtown businesses.

What can we do as community members to continue activating and engaging our downtown spaces, especially as we recover from the pandemic?

- Yeah, I mean, Small Business Saturday is one of the easy ones.

If you're obviously holiday shopping, downtown is a great place to do that.

There's a ton of unique gifts that you can find in downtown, places to eat, get gift cards if you're like, not wanting to cook during the holidays, that's a great way to do that.

And as well as any services that you need to have done before the winter season, that's another great opportunity to go in downtown.

- Fantastic.

You've also been supporting some new events and programs through granting, grant making.

Can you tell us a little bit about the startup event grants and the ways that they're encouraging more community engagement with downtown?

- Yeah, people may know the RDA as kind of the events people, the people that put on Thursdays Downtown and Social Ice.

But we're trying to get the community more involved in having their ideas presented in the downtown community and for the greater population of Rochester as well through our startup event grant.

So that's one that people can apply for up to $3,000 to bring their unique event, activity, or program to downtown and provide to the community.

- That's open to any community member.

- Any community member.

So you can be an individual person or associated with a business or organization, it just has to be hosted downtown.

And what we're looking for this year is more weekend activities, especially in the January to March timeframe, anything that utilizes public spaces, alleyways, intersections, public spaces, that kind of thing.

And then we're also giving an additional $500 for design and marketing assistance, if that's not your strong suit, we are able to help with that as well.

- For sure, I'm sure that's really helpful to organizers who've never done something like that before.

- [Katie] Exactly.

- Can you tell us just about some of maybe one or two of the ones that stuck out in your mind from this last year?

Some of the startup events.

- Yeah, actually, this past year, we funded 12 startup event grant recipients throughout downtown.

So that included things like the Night Market again, Ethiopian Heritage Day, the Pickup Truck Opera in Peace Plaza, there was a Burlesque on Broadway show, and just a host of other activities as well.

- Fantastic.

I know that I'm gonna be having a lot of family that's coming to visit downtown.

Do you have some tips about just kind of, as people are thinking about the holiday season and having visitors, what are some of the things that people can get downtown?

- I mean, there's a wide variety that if you're looking for activities with kids, there's always Art Rochester, Art Heads Emporium has kids classes that you can take your kids to on a weekend and do a painting or kind of creative class with them.

Otherwise, there's, you know, family friendly dining or nightlife, like there's karaoke at LC's Venue, which is a new business downtown.

So there's a wide variety of things and I would- - [Nicole] A little bit of everything.

- Highly recommend checking out our events calendar for everything that's going on during the holiday season in downtown.

- Thank you so much for joining us, Katie.

I'm sure it's gonna be a busy time for RDA and we look forward to catching up with you at some of the future events.

- [Katie] Sounds great, thanks Nicole.

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

We catch roller disco fever as we check out the outdoor roller rink set up in downtown Rochester earlier this fall.

And we also hear from the Rochester branch of the NAACP about an upcoming event celebrating black-owned businesses.

But up first, we learn about Hanson Leather Company and the artisans behind it in this week's R-Culture segment.

(gentle music) - Now that we've been doing this almost eight years, people come to us years later with a wallet that they had for five years and it's got the most insane patina.

That's really cool, now we're starting to experience people that have had a bag for a couple years to see that our work still holds up after a bunch of years.

At Hanson Leather Co, we design and build leather bags and accessories with a minimal aesthetic.

A friend of mine challenged me to make myself a belt.

He showed me the tools that I would need and walked me through the store and showed me the leather that I would need as well and the hardware.

And then I made that belt and I still use it today.

After that challenge, I just kind of continued so I had a couple friends come up to me and say, can you make me this wallet or this book cover?

And I would, like, "Yeah, I'll do that."

So I would try to figure it out and I started getting curious about how people made other products.

I would make mistakes and learn from my mistakes.

Eventually, I made my wife a tote bag, which she would carry around and we were at a local store here in Rochester and the man complimented on her bag and Bri's like, "Oh, he made this bag for me."

And he was like, "Oh, you need to set up a booth at Oktoberfest coming up here soon."

And so that was our first opportunity to get in front of other people and showcase our work so that's kind of where the business kind of took off.

The things that I'm passionate about with leathercraft would be the fact that I can take a flat material and just about make anything out of it.

It starts with an idea you think that would make a beautiful bag, and then you sketch that idea down.

Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

But then you tweak it a little bit and then sometimes you get a totally different creation out of an idea that you had in your head.

And then you spend a lot of time on that pattern and you make the thing and then at the end, the satisfaction you get from looking at a product that you made is phenomenal.

Brianna has been a very big part of the business even from the beginning, even though I did most of the designing at the very beginning, she was always giving me tips on, "You should maybe change this a little bit about the bag so I would actually wanna wear it" (laughs).

- I saw scraps of leather just sitting in a pile in his workshop and I was like, "No, we can't let this go to waste, so what can we do with it?"

So I made bracelets and earrings and that morphed into necklaces as well.

And that started a whole new part of what he was doing and it kind of helped make it more of a business and not just my husband's hobby.

Seeing our customers or explaining our products to people who have never seen us before, that is such a vital part of our business.

Online sales are great and the website is great, but being able to show a customer a bag and let them feel it and let them see how great we know it is, is just amazing.

And getting to hear feedback from customers and hearing what they think.

I don't think we could make it to where we are now if it wasn't for those in person events.

- I had kind of stumbled upon them at Forager Fest.

and this was probably five years ago.

This was the very first pair of earrings that I purchased from Hanson Leather.

I just was drawn to who they were and how in love they were talking about their products.

- We have a website, HansonLeatherCo.com, that has our full range of products and on our Instagram and Facebook, we'll be posting where we're going to be in the next events and markets and things like that.

- [Nicole] For more information about this story and other R-Town features, connect with us on Facebook, Twitter @KSMQ, #RTown, or KSMQ.org/RTown.

(upbeat music) - Hi, I'm Danielle Teal with R-Town Spotlight.

And our guest today is Johnny Key from Johnny Key Catering and More.

Thank you so much for being with us.

- You're welcome.

- Awesome, so tell us a little bit more about your catering business and what got you started.

- Well, growing up in Chicago, you know, grandparents always cooked and always kinda watched 'em cooking and kinda got into cooking.

- And grandparents are amazing when it comes to that, right?

- Yes.

- So you went from cooking with grandparents and observing and you were in Chicago and then what happened?

- Yep, I moved to Minnesota and kinda just started cooking and kinda worked around town at a lot of different locations.

And every time I brought my food in the lunchroom, people was always interested, like, "Hey, who got the barbecue?"

- And barbecue really brings people together.

I mean, there's a connection moment, almost a spiritual moment when it comes to barbecue, right?

- [Johnny] Yes.

- So share a little bit more about the barbecue that you make.

- Kind of more homestyle ribs and stuff like that.

Homestyle mac and cheese, cabbage, and homestyle made.

- And people have said that the mac and cheese is one of their favorite things that you make.

Can you share why it's so special?

What's the special ingredient in it?

Other than probably a lot of love.

- Yeah, just, you know, just always called it the razzle dazzle.

- The razzle dazzle, I love that.

- It's nice and creamy and cheesy.

- [Danielle] And homemade.

- Homemade.

- And homemade.

And the holidays are just around the corner.

You offer this catering business.

You know, what are some special things that you might be making for the holidays as they're coming up?

- Probably some ham, smoked turkey, some cabbage, just whatever.

- Just whatever, and why was catering something that you decided to do?

'Cause I know some of your background has been in some other professions.

What made you really want to get into the catering business?

- It just working around town and the people that come from everywhere.

They just wanted some nice place to eat, more different variety of food.

- And the convenience is that it's catered, it's all ready to go.

What is the process?

Do they pick it up or do you deliver?

- Yep, both, they pick it up, I could deliver it to 'em so it's optional.

- What is one thing that your grandparents made so special about it that really inspired you?

- Just, it's like everything they made, it was just wonderful.

My grandfather had a community garden down on the street.

Everybody was able to come pick things out.

And just holidays came and all the family came together and it was a good time, good food.

- Good time, good food, and that is a perfect message, especially leading into the holidays.

Where can people find out more information about your catering business?

- Website.

- Perfect, awesome, that's a great pathway to do that and I'm looking forward to potentially having some barbecue myself there, Johnny.

- Yeah, looking forward to serve you.

- Awesome, thank you so much.

- [Johnny] You're welcome.

- Thank you so much, that was R-Town Spotlight.

I'm Danielle Teal.

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

This is gonna be our last show for a while so I reached out on social media to ask folks what's going on this holiday season.

And wow, I was not disappointed with the responses, I can't get to all of the more than 100 items, but I'm gonna highlight a few that you might be interested in.

The Olmsted County History Center is currently selling tickets for the Mayowood Holiday Tour, and that is going on every day that they're open through December 18th.

If you've never done that, that's a really interesting thing to see at the holiday season in Rochester.

Also, on November 26th, Here Comes Santa Claus will be going on again in downtown Rochester.

That's going to be from 2:00 to 5:00 PM.

We will see if once again this year, Santa Claus gets stuck on the roof of Old City Hall or if he's learned otherwise.

I'm pessimistic once again.

Bring the Sing will be going on.

This is recently announced and it's going to be on the Peace Plaza, December 3rd, and that is from 4:00 PM to 5:00 PM.

It's a fun event 'cause it is truly the only way that I'm ever going to have a musical performance on NPR, so come join in the fun.

The Rochester Symphony Orchestra is doing their Fest of Farewell concert, and this is actually gonna be Maestro Lance's last set of concerts with the Symphony Orchestra, and that's going to be December 10th and 11th at Lord's High School.

Recently announced, the World Cup is coming and from the quarter finals through the finals, you'll have the opportunity to go watch the games in downtown Rochester on the Peace Plaza.

The game times are what you would expect them to be based on the schedule.

Again, that starts in the quarter finals, so it's gonna be mid-December when you start seeing these.

As always, we appreciate our hosts here at 125 Live.

And on December 1st from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM, they will be doing their annual holiday gift fair.

Feel free to stop by and see some of the handmade wears.

The holiday season is always an exciting time.

It's a great time to get out there and meet with friends and family that you haven't seen for a while, particularly after the pandemic.

So I hope you have a wonderful and safe holiday season here in R-Town.

(upbeat disco music) - All right, here we go, we're in downtown, Rochester, and we have got the roller disco going on.

Holly Masek, how are you doing?

- I'm doing great, how could I be doing poorly?

We've got a roller disco in the street.

- [Danielle] It's sunny, it was raining a few moments ago, but it's sunny, it's gorgeous, people are starting to pile in.

Tell us a little bit more about what's happening.

- Absolutely.

This is the second year we've done this.

Last year we gave it our first try, Roller Disco in Peace Plaza.

This year, we wanted to make that rink a little bit bigger, so we're gonna have it here on South Broadway.

We are, like I said, it's a bigger rink and now we have two nights, last year we only had one, so we'll be here until 10:30 PM on Friday night and then tomorrow as well for families and then again into the evening.

It is free skating, free skate rentals.

We have a bunch of amazing local food vendors here, super fun time.

- [Danielle] And it's amazing because you have a family timeframe, and then you have?

- [Holly] And then we have Disco After Dark.

- [Danielle] After dark, are there neon lights?

- [Holly] There will be lights, there will be disco balls, there will be skating, all the good stuff.

- Perfect, and so what is your recommendation for people that may not know how to skate?

- My recommendation is go gently.

We do have skate aids if you wanna hold on.

And then skating group coming down from the Twin Cities, Twin City Skaters, who are gonna do performances and lessons so that should be something really fun to see as well.

- [Danielle] The Rochester Downtown Alliance throws these events on.

Tell us where we can find out more about other events and what's happening.

- Absolutely, you can check our website, DowntownRochesterMN.com.

We have our events and then an events calendar of everything else that's happening downtown.

- All right, I say we go roller, go roller, whatever you call it.

Roller disco.

This is Danielle Teal with R-Town Walkabout.

(upbeat music) - We're joined today by Wale Elegbede, president of the Rochester branch of the NAACP, here to share more with us about the work of the NAACP here in Rochester and about an upcoming event highlighting black-owned businesses and community.

Welcome back to "R-Town," Wale.

- Thanks a lot for having us, for having me.

It's been a while, it's always a pleasure.

Enjoyed the last time I was here, and so just also thank you and the whole team for all that you do.

It's important to be able to get messages like this out and you guys definitely provide a great service to the community, so thank you.

- Thank you.

So speaking of messages, you recently shared a message about building trust, promoting equity, and addressing discrimination.

And ultimately, how we can support and thrive together in Rochester.

Can you share a little bit about the message and what prompted you to share it?

- Yeah, you know, sometimes, we look at things politically, you look at, you know, I'm a Democrat or Republican.

And you know, I just wanted to share a message with our community.

You know, I've been seeing a lot of distrust in the community.

I mean, when you look at our African American community and people are thinking about, well, how do we ensure that there is not, you know, that tension?

'Cause the tension is still there, whether it's a tension with law enforcement or whether it's a tension with health disparities or just job opportunities.

And, you know, I felt the message needed to be said that, look, it's gonna take all of us, but social distrust, you know, is really key, you know?

And how do you build trust?

Well, first of all, you have to know that you can trust somebody and also not trust somebody, right?

It's not like an either or.

And so just wanted to use that opportunity to educate folks.

But then going into the solution, how do we do this?

Well, number one, we need to take personal accountability.

What can you do for yourself?

You know, I typically hear from some community members, "Well, I did not cause racism," or, you know, "These disparities has nothing to do with me."

Well, yes, it may be true that it has nothing to do directly with you, but you're part of this community.

And so what are you gonna do to make sure that you're not ensuring that those, you know, disparities are ongoing?

What can you do to make sure that your black brothers and sisters or your Latino brothers or sisters are in a society where, you know, they're able to achieve their dreams, right?

Because of systemic racism.

So that was more from a individual perspective.

From a organizational perspective, what can organizations do?

You know, it's not just about saying that, "Hey, we believe in this," you know, you have to put in the work.

And so wanted to share that.

And also just to talk about, you know, even from a community aspect, there a lot of things that cause social distrust, so, you know, even where people live.

If you're living in a neighborhood that is not getting supported and you're not having good facilities and it's dirty.

Or even in Parksdale, let's say, a lot of black folks use, I mean, all of those are signals that, you know, we are telling a certain segment that you don't really matter.

And it goes into recognition.

And so those are some of the things that we need to really worry about.

And if we can start to do that, if we can start to listen to one another, if we can start to really tackle, you know, equity, inclusion, diversity.

Even in our schools, you know?

And I'm glad that the Rochester Public Schools, they've really been really at the forefront, I think at least the last year, in terms of making sure that equity, diversity, inclusion is there.

And this supports, this is helpful for everybody.

So it's gonna take a lot of us to do this, but wanted to make sure that that message got sent, regardless of whatever the outcomes of the elections were.

Because we know that we are all in this together.

And for us to be able to make sure that everybody feels welcome, you know, we need to put in the work.

- As you know, you have an upcoming event happening.

I'd love for you to share a little bit about the significance of that event and how you're hoping that it will reengage community.

- So NAACP, again, largest, oldest civil rights organization, and just because we're old does not mean we're slow.

We're bold and we're doing a lot of great stuff, also locally.

So this event is called our Freedom Fund Banquet, and it's really the primary means where we are able to, you know, get funds to be able to support our mission, right?

And so this is something that actually started in the 1950s across the entire country where basically it's mainly, it's a fundraiser, but it was also came out at a time where we wanted to make sure that, you know, the local branches had the funds to move their mission.

In Rochester this Saturday, we're gonna be focused on, you know, the theme is the celebration of black businesses.

So going back to social trust, you know, how do we make sure that people in our community are well supported?

Well, we have, you know, black businesses, how do we ensure the whole community support them?

So we're gonna be celebrating these black businesses.

We're gonna have a role call of black businesses.

There's a keynote that we're bringing in, Mr. Epps, he's gonna be talking about, and he's well versed, he's done this for a long time.

He's gonna be talking about things that Rochester can consider in terms of just making sure that the environment is ready, you know, and supportive.

And we are also gonna be giving some awards.

You know, there's gonna be an Entrepreneur of the Year award, there's gonna be a business that's been really engaged in the community, there's gonna be a legacy business award.

And these are awards, and we know a lot of businesses are doing great work, right?

So, but these are also awards for those businesses that are doing great work, but also been engaged with the NAACP, so we're gonna use that time to really celebrate them.

We're gonna have a great entertainment, you know, LaSonya Natividad and DSievers are gonna be there.

Great food, just a great entertainment, and you know, it's also an opportunity to network.

So this is, you know, a way for us to make sure that, we're contributing to the solution, right?

So earlier this year, we did the Rise for Youth program, which was tackling, you know, education disparities in Minnesota, focused obviously from a Rochester standpoint.

Now we're a little focused on business, you know?

Making sure that economic equity is something that becomes a reality.

So, really excited, but it's gonna be a fun event so we want people- - [Nicole] Well, in our last few seconds, can you tell us if people can still get tickets.

- Yes.

- [Narrator] And where they can stay connected with the NAACP?

- Yeah, they can get tickets, it's a long URL so we'll provide it to you, you can put it down, but it's also, if you go to our NAACP webpage, you're gonna be able to see it.

It's a hundred dollars per person.

And again, great entertainment, great speakers, and so we just want people to just come and support us.

We need people's help, we can't do this alone.

- Thank you so much, Wale, always a pleasure.

And thank you for sharing this update with us.

- [Wale] Thank you very much.

- 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 at #RTown.

I'm Nicole Nfonoyim-Hara for "R-Town," the show about Rochester.

Be well and stay safe and we will see you next time.

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