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

(upbeat ambient music) ♪ No more sunny days ♪ ♪ No more sunny days ♪ ♪ I got a heart that won't be hate ♪ ♪ I got a mind gonna make me insane ♪ - Coming to you from Rochester, Minnesota.

♪ No more sunny days ♪ ♪ No more sunny days ♪ - R-Town.

♪ You got a black cloud over your head.

♪ - The Rochester Pride was just recently rescheduled to May of next year, but planning is still underway for a safe event next year.

We're joined today by Julie Winters from the Pride Board to tell us more.

Welcome to R-Town.

- Thank you for having me.

- For sure.

So why is Rochester Pride so important for the LGBTQIA community and also just for our community members at large here in the city?

- Well Rochester Pride from our view is, it's extremely important for the LGBT community because it gives us a sense of visibility and a greater sense of community and an opportunity to meet other people like ourselves who identify like us, who are sympathetic to our days and are just who we are as people and value us as people.

It's a great place to kind of break out of our insular little bubbles, because of the nature of our community, we tend to kind of congregate in very little, very small little cliques and niches, and it's a great opportunity for everybody to mingle and get to know each other and see what other people are up to.

You know, it's also a great opportunity for the broader community to show their support for the LGBTQ community by coming down by bringing friends and family who may be want to learn more, maybe wanna meet some people from different backgrounds or just generally show their support.

- Wonderful.

Can you tell us a little bit about just the history of the event itself and just sort of building community around Rochester Pride each year?

- Sure.

So Rochester Pride has quite a history actually behind it.

It's been going on for about 20, 25 years.

Very recently, the Rochester Pride non-profit board took over planning for Pride from GLCS, which is a previous LGBTQ community group, 'cause they were kind of overwhelmed with the planning of Pride, given all their other scope that they had to do.

So we took it over and Rochester Pride, put on its first version of Pride in 2019 at Mayo Park and it was a great success.

We estimated about a 1000 attendees.

- Are there other community partners that you work with as you're putting together Pride each year?

- Absolutely.

I mean, we work with tons of different community businesses, we have a number of sponsors that were both present at our very first event in 2019 and are continuing into 2021/2022 here.

Obviously we partner with the city, the Mayo Civic Center in 2019 for the venue, to facilitate getting the venue and just the logistics of planning a large event.

We've had a great buy-in from pretty much all the major faces and names in Rochester.

- So Julie, what opportunities are there for people to get involved either with the planning of Rochester Pride or just generally in the community?

- Well, in the broader LGBT community locally, there are a few social clubs, there's a few Facebook pages that people organize groups, ask questions, use to meet new people.

I don't have the names off the top of my head.

If you kind of ask Crowd, it's a quite a large group, so hopefully someone you know will know someone (chuckles) who knows more than I do about those specific groups.

But for Rochester Pride, even though we had to postpone our September event, which was supposed to happen this past weekend, we are still having our monthly meetings.

They happen the third Thursday of every month, I believe, and we give about a week's notice on our Facebook page for the information about how to dial into meetings for anybody who's interested in either participating or just kind of seeing the process in general.

They're all remote right now, so no need to worry about getting access or figuring out where to go or anything like that.

And second, with a pre-pitch for December meeting, which is when we actually will be looking for new board volunteers, I think we have a couple of openings because we have a couple of board members that are going to be departing.

So anybody's interested in getting involved in actually planning Pride, pay attention to our communications, our Facebook page, or Twitter, our website towards the end of the year and there'll be great opportunities to actually get involved in the actual planning of Pride.

Short after that, if you don't wanna join the board, we're always open to having volunteers because it takes a ton of effort, a ton of people to get things in place and organize the day of Pride, which like I mentioned has been postponed until May 21st, 2022.

- Oh, well thank you so much, Julie.

Thank you for all you do, we will certainly be catching up with you closer to the actual May event, but for now, thank you so much for joining us.

- Great.

my pleasure.

Thank you, and I hope to speak again.

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

We check out the ping pong led installation at the Peace Plaza and disabled from the Diversity Council shares about the grant funding they just received.

But at first we meet Lina Choung, a dance instructor specializing in traditional Cambodian dance in this week's Our Culture segment.

- My name is Lina Choung.

I was born in San Bernardino, California, raised in Long Beach, California.

My family, before I was born, my family had came from Cambodia and because of the Khmer Rouge that was happening back then, my parents had came for a better life.

Being in California, I was taught dance and it was more of discipline because it was very strict, you had to listen, you had to abide by the rules, you couldn't get any scratches on your body because you are a dancer, you are very fragile.

And me back then, I didn't appreciate it at all because I was kid, I was seven years old and I wanted to play and I wanted to get muddy, I wanted to get dirty and I wanted to fall of bikes and stuff, but that didn't happen because I was busy being in class and my parents were busy working.

When I moved to Minnesota, the temple in Rochester actually, I actually danced traditional dances for them and when does this new temple today first was built, I was one of the first groups.

I'm fortunate because some of those back home didn't make it and they don't live to tell the story.

So now I understand that the reasoning why my parents put me through that is because in real time, Cambodian traditional dances are dying and not a lot of people understand the meaning of it, the ceremonies and each hand gesture that is done and all the blessings that's done before each performance.

And not a lot of people understand how much hard work, how much detail is in these traditions until you grow up with them.

So I started teaching and the first dance that I taught was the flower blessing dance.

And it was until they perform, that's when then and there that I realized that I'm doing something right, because I saw the looks on the audience faces, the parents, some people were in tears and that's when I realized that I took traditional dance for granted and I didn't realize what I was being taught and how important it was.

I remind them each time that they do a performance that this is for your family, this is for your parents and you're doing this because this is in your blood.

and you're giving good luck, prosperity, and hope to your family.

And I don't ask them for anything but their attention and they enjoy it.

And so when I see the parents and they see their kids, that's what does it.

It's like, I understand parents get tired, they're bringing their kids over here so I can teach.

And you know, everyone's busy, it's just when they perform and when they're in their costumes and wardrobe, when the parents see them and they see them perform and they're videotaping, it's an emotional thing because not a lot of kids now can say like, I know how to dance traditionally.

That's why I'm teaching at the Rochester Temple and it's through nonprofit.

And I love it.

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

- Hello, I'm Danielle Teal, your moderator for R-Town, The Spotlight, the segment covers organizations events and happenings across Rochester and we would like to thank 125 Live for lining up our guests and hosting the segment.

Today, we have Jeremy Felder and he is a Kali instructor in Rochester.

I asked him how to pronounce it, that's how he said it's pronounced.

So Jeremy welcome.

- Thank you, thank you for having me.

- And did I pronounce it correctly?

- Yes, yes, yes.

(chuckles) - Good, good.

If you could please introduce yourself a little bit and share how long you've been an instructor in Rochester.

- So my name is Jeremy Felder.

Actually, I've been studying martial arts for over 15 years.

I've been training at Kali for the past seven, and my affiliation comes from the Minnesota Kali group in Minneapolis and they've been involved in martial arts for over 30 plus years.

And so my instructorship comes from the Minnesota Kali group, where I go and train there for at least two to three times a week, and I teach here in Rochester two times a week as well.

- So I have never heard of this martial arts technique.

Can you share a little bit more about it?

- Mm-hmm.

- I am truly intrigued by this.

So share a little bit more.

(chuckles) so Kali is a Filipino-Indonesian martial arts, and it's a really a bladed martial arts, but instead of using blades, we use sticks.

And so a lot of the movements involves sticks, involves coordination, a lot of movement, not only with the sticks, but also to you're learning to not only move with the stick, but kind of move with your partner as well.

So there's a lot of benefits cognitively to Kali, as well as coordination.

And we also like to think too that we're helping people build confidence and learning something new and being a part of like a cultural thing, because it's, again, it's the national martial art of the Philippines.

So we're also learning about the culture and a lot of what the Filipino Americans brought with them as well as with Kali, so.

- That's really cool Jeremy, now where can people find out and sign up to participate?

- Well, actually this kind of came on this Saturday, we are having a free seminar at the Martial Arts Fitness Center on South Broadway.

I think it's 6849 South Broadway.

So we are doing just a free come check out Kali, get a good workout in from 11 to 12:30.

- Hmm, I'm gonna have to check my.

- And so we we'll do there.

Yeah.

- I wanna check my calendar, and see if I can make it.

- Yeah, and I think for people who just maybe just, for people who are a little bit reluctant, if you just wanna come and just kind of see what we do because not only is Kali beneficial for all the physical, mental, cognitive aspects, it just looks really cool.

(chuckles) So.

- Awesome.

- So if you wanna just come take a look and see kind of what we do, that'd be great.

- Very cool, thank you so much for being on the show today.

- Yeah, thank you.

(upbeat ambient music) - Hey Rochester, this is Michael Wojcik with your R-Town rundown.

Those of you that know me know I love crunching numbers and the census was recently completed and it was a huge success for the State of Minnesota.

We were widely expected to lose a congressional seat, but by just a handful of votes, we were able to etch out New York State for the very last congressional seat to be a portion.

That means that we're maintaining our eight congressional seats, and that actually means a huge amount of dollars that will come to the state that otherwise wouldn't, because that determines the amount of funding that comes.

Additionally, the city of Rochester continues to grow.

We are at about 121,400 people right now and Olmsted County is at 163,000 people.

What does that mean?

While Rochester has become such an enormous part of the Olmsted County that five of the seven county seat should be entirely within the city of Rochester, and the sixth seat would be about 25% within the city of Rochester.

This is very different than in the past.

Additionally, the city of Rochester is now about the size of threefold state house seats and Olmsted County is about the size of two Senate seats.

As your population grows, you get more representation at different levels of government, and that's important for the people that live here as well.

If these issues interests you, I encourage you to check out the League of Women Voters as redistricting and fair elections is something that they care deeply about.

In addition to that, a lot of cool things going on, Evil Dead the musical is going to be at the Rochester Civic Theater, the Rochester Rep is putting that on.

It's been delayed by COVID in the past, I'm excited for that.

At Rochester Civic Theater, there is pride in exhibition of queer art, come out and support the diverse creative folks in our community.

Additionally, a new venue for me, Apache Mall's hosting Cirque Italia Water Circus.

That's going to be on October 3rd and I'm interested to see how that's gonna turn out.

Little Thistle is celebrating October Fest on October 2nd.

I hear that there'll be beer there.

And finally, the UU Handcrafted Bazaar is on October 2nd.

Thanks as always for watching and this is just a little bit of what's going on in Rochester.

(upbeat ambient music) - Hello, I'm Danielle Teal with R-Town Walkabout and I'm here with, as you could see, more than one guest, we have Tim Massaro, Peter Shabino and Jon Gullixson to discuss the LED ping-pong art installation.

Welcome.

And I know there was one other person involved, and who was that?

- Sure, Colin Masterson also participated in this.

- And what was the inspiration behind it?

- We are not artists, but we thought of this thing, we thought it would be fun to do and it would be considered an art installation.

I'm a computer programmer, most of these other guys are actually electrical engineers and the engineers.

- Very cool.

And John, can you share a little bit more about what is this led ping-pong art?

- We try to give it several different features from displays of geometric shapes, game of life, a wacky mirror, and a number of other things that people can check out.

- But I think the enjoyment of it is just, it's visually pleasing, like a lot of TV displays and stuff, it's not a harsh light, the ping pong balls really diffuse it and due to the low resolution, it's more abstract than most displays you'd see.

- How long will it be displayed?

And the other question I had was is there an interactive component to it?

- What we ended up doing with interaction is a Twitter mat, what you do is send a Twitter message, anything sprinted from one mode to the other.

So for example, if you wanna see the Green Bay Packer mode, you know.

- No one wants to see that Tim.

(laughing) - It's located right in the heart of the Peace Plaza across from the Chateau Theater, it's gonna be available there through at least the 10th of October, and then after that, we got asked to move into the Rochester Arts Center.

- Awesome.

Well, I appreciate you all putting out something that is beautiful, that people can enjoy.

♪ I wanna get into your circle.

♪ - Recently the Diversity Council was awarded federal funding for its ongoing health equity and vaccination efforts in the community, here to tell us more as executive director of the Diversity Council, Dee Sabol, welcome back to R-Town Dee.

- Thank you Nicole, so glad to be here.

- So congratulations, first of all, and secondly, what is this funding going to allow the Diversity Council to do?

- So, thanks on the congrats, it's a big amount of money, a big chunk of change for a Diversity Council to manage, but this is really to active aid workers from deep within population groups in communities in Minnesota who kind of finish up, right, final stretch of some important vaccination work, addressing some ongoing hesitancies and really bringing people and vaccines together.

- Can you bring us a little bit up to speed on somebody efforts the Diversity Council has been meeting this year with regard to vaccinations?

- Yeah, thanks.

We've been involved with the county and many other entities in our region on efforts to kind of mobilize different population groups and make sure that as we're communicating about vaccination and as we're providing vaccine access points, that those are reaching people in culturally competent ways and that people have opportunities to engage in their own languages with content experts and providers and others, so that we can think about and address hesitancy and really find ways to connect people and vaccines together.

- Well, you mentioned that to me, culturally relevant, why are culturally culturally relevant practices so important in promoting vaccinations, but also fostering stronger connections to local health ecosystem here?

- Yeah, absolutely, and I'm glad you brought that up because really this federal grant fund for us isn't just to continue work on the pandemic response, but also just strengthened some of that infrastructure and those connectivities and bridges between population groups and systems that provide services.

You know, if you think about the cultural competence aspect of this, one of the things that we learned early on in our work on vaccine was that people need to trust the source of information, they need to feel that the information is meant for them and that it's consumable by them, right?

So if they come from an oral tradition culture, right, is it not just translating a piece of paper and hoping that we're reaching people authentically?

We did hear from many individuals who are more recent immigrants to our region and to the United States that lacking a local or even a statewide media source or information source that they trusted, they were going to their countries of origin, their home countries for information on vaccine.

And as you can imagine, that probably wasn't the most current or relevant message for them to be consumed in.

- You mentioned in your opening question that there was a focus on really sort of empowering kind of a local, I think you mentioned like workforce or community.

Can you talk a little bit about what that means?

I know in a lot of health equity spaces, the word promotoras or people that are sort of embedded in the community.

- Yeah.

- Is really popular.

Can you talk about what that means in the context of this project?

- Yeah, very, very similar to the concept of promotora.

Right, so this means how do we find people with trust, established trust and connect them to the resources, the access points, the connectivity, the messages that they need, and the compensation, right, to be able to functioning and concentrate on this effort and trust them, right, to move out into the spaces with people who they identify with and really do the work, that is the foundation of Diversity Council's work in so many ways, this idea of eliminating the middleman, right, and right, refocusing lived experience as the most valuable expertise and kind of aligning resources and content experts with the solutions that are brought forward by communities.

This is paying people directly on the ground, in the spaces where they're trusted and comfortable to do the incredibly important work of kind of that final push toward vaccination.

- Thank you for that.

Yeah, it's really important work and I imagine it takes a lot.

I know the Diversity Council is often a convener and a facilitator of all those community partnerships.

Can you talk a little bit about some of the community partners that you're working alongside as part of this project?

- Yeah, absolutely.

You know, we have the incredible good fortune to have partnered with HACER out of the twin cities, a Hispanic Latino serving organization and Asian media access out of the twin cities to be our implementation partners.

And so Diversity Council is kind of managing the administration of the grant funds and the training and how to utilize the federal systems, which are fabulous in this instance.

And (indistinct) access is managing messaging and translation and right, taking some of the large, very formal messages that are given to us by the CDC, or the Minnesota Department of Health and kind of boiling those down to consumable and palatable soundbites for organizations, they do that right with the outward reach workers.

And then HACER is managing the evaluation of the program as well.

So great partners and them, we're focused not just in Southeast Minnesota, but in all of the major population areas in the state and in the indigenous communities.

So we have grassroots on the ground, small organizational partners in all of those spaces that are receiving funding to move their efforts forward.

We lean to amplify what they're already doing to stabilize underwrite, secure and build a cohort so that we really can be working as smart as possible in this.

- As we're wrapping up in our last few seconds here, could you tell us what the timeline for the project is and how the community can stay connected on the progress throughout the grant period?

- Absolutely.

So we do have information available through Diversity Council and there is a website, a Project Healings website that's directly linked to the efforts and we received the funding, we started hit the ground running August 1st, and we have only 10 months to complete the distribution of these funds, the expenditures, and really moving the vaccination message.

- Thank you so much D for telling us more about the Project Healings and as always (upbeat ambient music) for just giving us wonderful updates on what the Diversity Council is up to.

- Thank you Nicole.

- And thank you for joining us today for more wonderful content produced right here in Southern Minnesota.

Please be sure to check out Facebook and Twitter at #rtown.

Be well and stay safe, I'm Nicole Nfonoyim-Hara, R-Town, I will see you next time.

♪ Something dramatic always up my arm ♪ ♪ Headlines beat behind my eyes ♪ ♪ In my mind, in my mind, in my mind ♪ ♪ I wanna get into your circle ♪ ♪ I want an invite to your house show ♪ ♪ So I'm gonna get into your circle.

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