- [Male Announcer] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

(upbeat music) - [Female Announcer] Coming to you from Rochester, Minnesota.

♪ Hello, come in, goodbye ♪ - "R Town".

♪ If it's finished ♪ - In a time when history is being made every single day, it's important to remember where we've come from.

With us today is executive director of the History Center of Olmsted County, Wayne Gannaway, to talk about how they've been handling the pandemic.

Welcome, Wayne.

- Thank you, glad to be here.

- Okay, so one thing I wanna point out really quickly is the lovely logo behind you.

It looks like you've had some enhancements in the background since we last connected.

- That's right, yep, we've got the new logo and we also have a new website where we've splashed the logo all over it and it's a lot easier to use this website so we hope people will visit it.

- Very cool, we'll have to share that at the end of the segment.

What has been the biggest changes to your operation given the pandemic, obviously the website is probably definitely an asset.

What are some other changes that have been made for the History Center?

- Well, like a lot of people, we have moved a lot of things into the virtual space and we've, Zoom is like my middle name now and like everybody's middle name.

And so a lot of our programs, we've actually got a really robust and great set of programs that are done all through Zoom.

And we found that the demand for 'em is really great.

So that's the main thing.

And we even did a live video cocktail party last October.

So everything's moved to the virtual space but we're a face-to-face organization.

And so we can't wait to get back to face-to-face.

- Yeah, I bet.

Next time you have one of those cocktail parties, definitely let me know.

(lady laughs) - Oh yeah.

- We need those social connections and the History Center is a great hub for that.

What is coming up for the History Center and what is open to be seen in person and what are you offering virtually?

You can give us a high level overview of that.

- Sure, well, in person, and we are open right now and there's plenty of elbow room, no problem there, we are getting ready an exhibit that shows the origins of Olmsted County.

And we've got a artist, a local artist who painted a mural all over our exhibit wall to show a landscape from the 1850s.

So it tells about all the crazy stories from those first settlers coming in.

Once the native Americans were pushed out by the treaties, the settlers came pouring in but we tell the story of how the people who owned the land or the white folks who were trying to attract settlers here, were putting out all these crazy advertisements and flyers trying to get settlers to come here.

And it's a little bit like a carnival if you will in trying to attract the settlers.

So we tell that story.

The other thing is, we have, we're extending our Women's Suffrage the Onward March of Suffrage Exhibit.

It's too important of a topic to have been buried by the pandemic.

And so we're brushing it up and we're adding a few things and we want people to see it because they need to learn about these incredible women who helped create civic engagement.

So, hugely important, that's in the exhibit.

And then I can tell you about some of our virtual offerings.

We've got a really great lineup, especially coming for March, which is Women's History month of course.

We've got one called, it is called Alice In France and it is about Alice O'Brien.

She was a World War I volunteer in France and Nancy O'Brien Wagner's going to give a talk on March 5th, sorry, March 4th, at 5:00 PM.

And again, you can just write from your home, log in on Zoom, and members get it for free.

Otherwise it's $5, so a great deal.

And then after that, we have World War II heroes, women from Minnesota.

And this is by our very own Jenny who is a local Virginia write who is a local author is written several good books about women in Rochester.

And that is on March 25th.

I mean, and then really, even though it's in April, we have another great virtual talk.

This one's by Joan Growe, and it ties into our Women's Suffrage exhibit.

Everybody knows who Joan Growe is.

She's the former Secretary of the State for Minnesota.

In her book "Turnout", she's gonna be talking to us along with Lori Sturdevant, the coauthor about "Turnout".

And you can actually order a book through us and kinda read along.

It's gonna be a terrific program.

That one is going to be on April 22nd.

So those are some really, really exciting programs that relate to women's history.

There's another one going on I wanted to tell you about, you may have heard about "We Are Water".

Have you heard about that?

- I have not, no.

- Okay, it's an initiative that the city is spearheading about making people aware of the fact that our environment is based on water.

And so we are doing a program, an exhibit on that to compliment the programming that's gonna be happening by other organizations throughout the city.

So a lot's coming up here.

- Really cool, Wayne.

Well, we appreciate you being on the show and for sharing all those fun details, the virtual and the in-person, and we can share how folks can connect with the History Center and find out more details on that.

Thank you so much.

- Yeah, you're welcome.

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

We check in with one of the creators of Shrpa and we visit with Chao Mwatela to discuss her new role in the city.

But up first, we visit with a Sundanese doctor who came to America with big dreams i this week's Our Culture segment.

(gentle music) - [Reporter] Elsamawal Ali won the lottery, not a money lottery, he won the immigration lottery in his home country of Sudan, an opportunity to come to America for a better life.

And it came as a complete surprise.

He hadn't even applied for it.

- I don't know about it because a friend of mine, he applied for me.

In the beginning, it was like, are you serious?

It was really very exciting for me because I didn't expect myself to win.

- [Reporter] Ali immigrated to the United States in 2000 and he married his wife Hanan in 2007.

He has consistently sent money to support his family back in Africa providing enough support to put his two younger siblings through college.

Today, Ali and Hanan have five kids.

And Hanan works as a teaching assistant in Rochester's public schools.

When asked what are the most profound differences between the U.S. and African countries, he says the wealth of the United States and our access to technology means people in the two regions live very different lives.

- Life is very easy because of technology, for example like now, we are in like this just learning for our kids over there because they don't have like the facilities they cannot provide laptops, iPads for the students, so the students are off school for like maybe six or seven months now, they didn't go to school because of the coronavirus and the lack of technology.

- [Reporter] Ali not only are internet connections unreliable in Africa, so is electricity.

Power outages happen there regularly.

He also says the poor African economy means fewer job opportunities and much lower paying jobs.

- Financially you will not be, you will not be covering all your needs over there, but in here, if you work one job, you can cover at least your needs.

Over there it is not easy to find a job, number one, number two, after you find the job, the salary is very low.

So the needs are higher than the salary.

(earnest music) - [Reporter] In Sudan Ali was a trained doctor.

So when he learned he'd won the immigration lottery, he set the goal of becoming a doctor here.

- When I came here, actually the story get a little bit different because I need to support my family back home financially.

So I need to work and study at the same time which is not easy.

So it took me a longer, longer, longer time to finish my tests.

In addition to that, United States medical licensing exam are very expensive.

So you need to save a lot of money beside to pay for these tests.

I took them and I passed them.

- [Reporter] Despite passing the tests, he says, it's very difficult to get into a residency program if several years have passed since you graduated from medical school.

Today, he's working as a medical interpreter at the Mayo Clinic.

(gentle music) He likes being in the field, but he still has dreams of becoming an American doctor.

- My goal is to be as a physician in USA.

(gentle music continues) - [Reporter] Today many of Ali's dreams lie in the futures of his American kids.

- My son will, how much he is now, nine years old.

Yeah, he's very good at writing books and in drawing illustration, he is like a phenomenon.

So I hope, I hope one day I see him as an author.

What I didn't, I keep for myself, I will keep it for my kids.

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

(gentle music) ♪ We're always planning, planning ♪ - Well, we are moving into a new segment, The Spotlight, learning about different happenings and organizations in our community.

And I have Brandon Helgeson from the Rochester executive, director for the Rochester Fest and Big Bang owner, welcome, Brandon.

- Well, thank you for having me, I appreciate it.

- And you've had a lot of barriers with the pandemic, I'm sure and planning for Rochester Fest.

Can you give us a bird's eye view of what the Rochester Fest is gonna look like and is it in the same location this year?

- So the plan is right now, we're going to try to move forward like we're doing a normal Rochester Fest like everybody's seen and everybody's familiar with.

That being said, we need to be proactive, we need to be responsible for our community and make sure we're following the Minnesota department of health guidelines whatever the governor's restrictions might be at the time.

So we are kind of, we've got some backup options in place.

So a lot of 2020, people looked at me like I was a little nuts doing drive-in this, drive-through that, drive-up this and part of the reasoning behind that was to learn how those things might work because if we did need to come back and be able to adapt something like Rochester Fest in 2021, we wanted to know the ins and outs, the kinks, what did work, what didn't work.

So we're hoping that it looks just like normal.

The last number I heard was Olmsted County was about 23% vaccinated.

I'm hoping we're at 75 at the end of June obviously, but if we need to, we will be ready to kind of shift some things.

The plan is right now that Soldiers Field is still our hub.

We're gonna expand that area out a little bit to obviously keep some more social distancing in place but we're looking to bring back everything that people know and love and a few extra things on top of that.

- Very cool, can you mention one thing that's gonna be new this year?

- Well, the one new thing that we had that we were working on for 2020 was a family fun field or a little bit of an extra activation area.

There was a empty field just off to the side of the track that hasn't been being used, so we're gonna try to activate that with a safe space for kids to be able to do some different activities and use that as an activation area for area non-profits so that they can come out, they can have a night where they can talk about what it is they're doing, what they're passionate about, you know, potentially help them do some fundraising while there.

So we'll kind of feature different nonprofits throughout the week.

- Very cool, well, we're gonna share how folks can locate information about Rochester Fest.

We appreciate you being on the show.

Thanks for tuning into "R Town" Spotlight.

This is Danielle Teal, your moderator with KSMQ public television.

Huge, thanks to 125 Live for hosting.

You can catch up with us at Facebook or Twitter at ksmq#RTown.

(gentle music) Some exciting news, I would like to introduce a new face to "R Town".

With us is Michael Wojcik to present The Rundown.

That's right, we're not doing it anymore.

Michael Wojcik is, take it away, Michael - Name is Michael Wojcik, I am a proud resident of my adopted hometown, Rochester, Minnesota.

And this is your "R Town" Rundown.

The Rochester City Council recently met to discuss the quality of our sidewalks in downtown and found them to be somewhat lacking.

We see far too many falls in part due to the poor condition of the sidewalk.

A number of local projects are making improvements, things like the Peace Plaza Discovery Walk and the forthcoming rapid transit project but there are still gaps in places like South Broadway.

They're working to identify funds to get projects together to quickly make downtown safer and more accessible.

So hopefully we can all be outside enjoying it together this summer.

The League of Women Voters recently met on the topic of redistricting.

There is a fantastic presentation that you can view by going to their Facebook page.

And if this is a topic that interests you, consider joining the League of Women Voters and get involved and make sure that we all have fair maps that are drawn.

And we, as we enter this period of redistricting the Rochester Arts Center is celebrating 75 years.

You can learn more at rochesterartscenter.org and you can visit their amazing galleries in person or online.

Black History Through a White lens is gonna be put on by Rochester for Justice this Saturday at 10:00 AM.

Feel free to check that out, you can learn more at their Facebook page.

Again, that's Rochester for Justice.

Corey Hill Nature Center and The Bee Shed are putting on the ABCs Of Bees.

Learn more about this educational series.

check out thebeeshed.com.

Finally, St. Patty's Day is coming up and Riverside concerts has something for us live from Med City, RavensFire.

So go ahead and check out some local music.

I always like to point out the great things that are going on in our community, great food and beverage.

And this week I am enjoying something called Main Boss.

It's an Imperial stout from both Fair State and Pulpit Rock.

I highly recommend it.

And that is just a little bit of what's going on in Rochester.

(gentle music) - I am Amarachi Orakwue with "R Town" Walkabout.

Today I'll be speaking with Mr. Chris Lukenbill, who is the co-founder of Shrpa.

- So, Shrpa is a site that helps people to be able to share and discover all of the different ways that they can explore new community.

So we started here in Rochester, Minnesota about two years ago.

And so a lot of the content that you'll find is here based in the Rochester area.

And now we're just beginning to expand out to the rest of the state and the rest of the region.

- What has been the most popular Rochester activity?

- A lot of our content really works well with getting outside and exploring somewhere outside and then maybe finding a good restaurant to go with it.

And so that's the nice part of it is all of these adventures are multi-stop.

And so people are discovering fun places that they can go to and be able to partner that up with another business and be able to get to multiple locations in the same community.

- Especially in this pandemic that, you know we wanna travel, but we're stuck at home.

- The challenge of being able to find somewhere to go to be able to get out of your house and do something, right?

But then also making sure that you feel informed about what's safe to do, and a lot of the times it's just having the information.

And so that's what we're able to provide through these itineraries is it's giving you the information of how long it's going to take, what you can expect when you get there, what you should bring with, all of that information makes it easier for people to be able to get out and explore at a time like this when maybe we're a little bit more unsure about that.

- What inspired you and your co-founder to create it?

- It's the local discovery side of things.

And so in Rochester, we have a lot of different things that you don't necessarily find out about unless you have the right group of people that have gone out and found it as well.

- Thank you, Mr. Chris Lukenbill, and this has been Amarachi Orakwue with "R Town" Walkabout.

♪ We've been floating ♪ ♪ Floating ♪ ♪ Floating ♪ ♪ On waterfalls♪ - I'm especially excited for this segment.

We're connecting with Chao Mwatela, incoming diversity equity and inclusion director, new incoming director, by the way, City of Rochester.

We're super excited to have you here Chao.

Just a true honor.

Welcome.

- Thank you.

I'm excited to be here actually.

- Yes, so let's dive right in because I know a lot of people are curious about your role.

It's a new role within the city of Rochester, but first can you share a little bit about your background and why this new role appealed to you?

- I don't know how far back we can go but I'll start off with my first professional job, right?

And I was a high school teacher in Florida, and I remember, you know, nothing prepares you for the classroom, obviously but I remember that first year learning so much more than I learned in a textbook, right?

Having that realization on the stock differences there are for marginalized populations and students compared to other majority students and then trying to figure out how we could bridge that gap.

And everybody likes to talk about it as if it's an achievement gap.

I like to talk about it as if it's an opportunity gap, right?

But once I got to learn and talk to the students, the area that I was in, it was a lot of migrant students.

So a lot of English language learners, I got to know them but I got to know their families as well and their stories.

And they had such rich stories, amazing culture.

But as I got to know them, I realized that a lot of what they were navigating were things that were difficult.

And we realized our educational system obviously was designed to help specific students succeed.

So, as I said, of navigating all of these, I realized, yes, we could do what we can as educators in the classroom.

But there are other things outside of the classroom that have a huge impact on students.

So fast forward many years, and I'm in Rochester, Minnesota working at a community college as a multicultural advisor, job of my dreams, right?

I got to do the same thing where I was diving in deep and trying to understand what kind of barriers in terms of access, opportunity that a lot of these students were navigating and their families.

And so when I saw this job come up, the City of Rochester talking about we want an equity and inclusion director, I thought to myself this is a wonderful opportunity to be able to address all of those external factors that we couldn't do or address as an institution or as education single-handedly.

Because I think a lot of these things are intersectional, right?

Some of them are in policy, right?

Some of them are social and in the environment that we live in.

And I think this is a good opportunity to delve into those areas and see how we can eradicate some of those barriers for students and for families and people in the community that have typically always start keeping marginalized.

- Well, that is a perfect segue for my next question for you.

Why do you think this position is so necessary for Rochester and especially in city government capacity?

- Well, I think it's necessary in every city, right?

And in every city government.

And I think because people tend to look at equity as this external thing that happens on the side.

But I think that when we're thinking about equity it has to be infused into every thing that we do, right, it's everyone's responsibility.

But sometimes when things are everyone's responsibility, they turn out to be nobody's responsibility, right?

Everyone's responsible, someone is thinking well, that person's doing it, that persons do it.

So I think it's important to have one person who has a really focused point of view, right, and who is helping everyone navigate this.

I think it's important as a city to have a person or department that is focused on driving professional development, that is looking specifically at old policies and new policies and thinking through how those policies will affect different populations and people navigate, so that we can consistently have the equity lens.

So I don't perceive this necessarily as a job that I'm gonna do on my own, right?

I'm looking at this as an opportunity to infuse an equity lens into everything that we do specifically in this community.

And especially as we're looking at things that traditionally have been various for certain communities - Since this is an entirely new rule, it's brand new, you're coming in, what is going to be your approach with this new position?

- Wow, that's a good question.

I've been thinking about this for a month, right?

So I think one of the things that's important to do and that I've been doing already is trying to figure out and find out where we are on several different levels, right?

We are thinking about housing, we're thinking about education, we're thinking about access to business and finance, right?

We're thinking about all of these different areas.

And like I said, I know that there is work that is happening.

So where are we and what, what exactly is happening?

How far along are we in different areas.

But the other thing that I'm really interested in is and our community needs survey and I know that different areas, for example healthcare has done those needs surveys but I'm really interested in figuring out how we can, how we can have that community needs survey that specifically targets populations that are traditionally marginalized, sorry, and very much populations that are not represented in city government.

And so those perspectives are usually not seen.

So it's a priority for me to engage those particular populations.

It is very easy to go in and decide that you're gonna speak for everyone but I hope to never do that, right?

I hope to be able to reach people, I hope to be able to have conversations with everyone, and I hope that the community will assist me in prioritizing what would be most important for different groups.

- Chao, you mentioned the equity lens, you know, that's, I think an important perspective, especially, you know, in a community, how are you going to lift up voices in the community, diverse voices, ensure representation but also create opportunities that are teachable for those that may not understand the experience that, you know, minority or marginalized individuals experience every day in the community.

- So I often think about representation and the example I sometimes give is very personal.

So I have a daughter, right?

She's 14 now.

But I remember when she was about two or three years old.

And as parents, you always look for those teaching moments in every opportunity.

And I remember getting her all these table mats.

I don't know if you've ever seen them, some have a world map upon them, some have this and that.

Anyway, one of them had all the presidents and I thought, oh yeah, I'm gonna give her a head start.

She can start on these presidents, and she would kind of look at them and read the names.

But one day she says to me, "Mom, can a woman be president?"

And I'm like, "Of course the woman can be president.

Why do you ask it?

And she looks down at her mat and says, "Well, none of these are."

And it was such a light bulb moment for me where I thought, I thought I was teaching her something wonderful but I also accidentally taught how something else, right?

Made her question whether this is a possibility for a woman to be president.

So to segue to your question, when you say, how do I hope to do this.

I hope to do this in things that are visible, right?

And things that are invisible.

How do I develop relationships with communities that aren't represented so that they feel safe and comfortable?

How do I make sure that I'm going to those communities as opposed to expecting them to come to me in city government, right?

Making sure that even as we decide, you know, sometimes we create committees or task forces or et cetera, that the people who are in those groups, right?

Are representative of a community that we live in and that they're not excluded for giving their input into different things.

So I think my hope is to be able to do that, right?

And also your other question was how do we then navigate that conversation with people who typically maybe might not be very comfortable with that conversation.

And I think a big part of that is a professional development, right?

Thinking about, we can't have the expectation that every employee would have an equity lens if we are not providing the tools, right?

And the mechanism to do that.

So we want that built into everybody's job.

Like I said earlier, it's not one person's responsibility, it's everybody's responsibility.

So making sure that that is infused into every everybody's job, I think is important.

Does that answer your question, Danielle?

- It does Chao, and in fact, that is the perfect, I think, ending to the segment in that, you know, being able to be heard but also learn in the same process is certainly something that Rochester I believe is up for the task and appreciate your role in the community, and what you do.

Thank you for your service.

- I am excited, thank you for having me.

- Yes, and for our listeners and viewers, thank you so much.

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

We'll see you next time on "R Town", the show about Rochester.

♪ Let's go floating ♪ ♪ Floating ♪ ♪ On waterfalls ♪ ♪ Floating ♪ ♪ Floating ♪ ♪ Floating ♪ ♪ On waterfalls ♪ ♪ We've been floating ♪ ♪ Floating ♪ ♪ Floating ♪ ♪ On waterfalls ♪ ♪ Floating ♪ ♪ Floating ♪ ♪ Floating ♪ ♪ On waterfalls ♪ ♪ Floating ♪ ♪ Floating ♪ ♪ Floating ♪ ♪ Floating ♪ (gentle music) - [Announcer] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.