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

(upbeat music) - Coming to you from Rochester, Minessota, "Rtown" (upbeat music continues) Every February, the nation honors the rich cultural legacy, invaluable contributions, triumphs, and struggles of African Americans throughout Black History Month.

The year 2022 marks almost a hundred years since an observance of Black history began, first as a week, and now is a month each February.

Here to tell us about how the Rochester community is honoring Black History Month is Wale Elegbede, president of the Rochester chapter of the NAACP.

Welcome back to our town, Wale.

- Thanks a lot for having me.

I'm really excited to be here, Nicole.

So just thank you.

- Well, the NAACP has an exciting program this month.

Can you just walk us through the series of events that are coming down this month?

- Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

So we have a jampacked series of events.

Basically every Saturday in the month of February, the Rochester branch of the NAACP is gonna be hosting events from 11:00 AM to 12:30 PM.

And so in terms of the events, you know, we're gonna start off with racial covenants and housing, you know, I mean, when you're thinking about housing discrimination and you're thinking about some of these racial covenants, a lot of folks may not even be aware of what they are.

And so we're gonna kick off the session with just more educational opportunities, you know, and obviously focus more locally.

And then we'll also talk about redistricting and then the next Saturday we're gonna be talking about Destination Medical Center which is really important for Rochester, you know, and the state.

And, you know, the title, I think it's "DMC, What's in it For Me?"

So we're gonna have folks from the city of Rochester, folks from Destination Medical Center, a panel, just having questions and just trying to let people understand what is it, you know, what's in it for them, essentially.

You know, if you're a person of color, a black person, you know, how is DMC gonna benefit you?

So that'll be a really crucial, important conversation.

The NAACP, I mean next week we're gonna be celebrating our 113th birthday.

And it's also important to really just celebrate, you know, people that have actually, are heroes of our past.

And so we are also gonna be having, you know, a memorial where we're gonna be honoring, you know, people like a General Colin Powell, you know, Sydney Poitier, you know, just leaders, but then also people that have lost their lives to police brutality and other issues, right?

So we're gonna just take some time to really honor them.

And then we're gonna end the series with a conversation on black arts.

So we're bringing in Mr. Najee Dorsey from Black Arts in America.

And we're doing it a little bit different, you know?

We have all these important and more serious topics, but then arts is a way where you can actually, it documents history, you know, what's going on in the culture, you know, in the environment.

And so we're gonna have an important conversation with Najee Dorsey and also an in solidarity performance by Archai.

And I mean, they've done, you know, stuff at Julliard and, you know, just other, Lincoln center, you know, Ted and so, and they're colleagues at Ted, colleagues of mine.

And so we're just appreciative that they're gonna be doing something for us.

And it's, I believe they're gonna be doing a performance called "Letters From COVID" You know, again, we're still in COVID and you think about everybody that we've lost, and so it's, so they're gonna be doing a celebration in honor of Black History Month, but then also just for our whole community, just to, for us to reflect a little bit.

So, it's a packed full event, and we just hope the folks can join us.

It's all free, you know, it's gonna be on Facebook Live and yeah, so we're really excited.

- Thank you so much, Wale.

Happy Black History Month.

And I will stay tuned to the events that are coming out throughout the month.

- Thanks a lot.

(upbeat music) - Be sure to stick around.

We have much more coming your way on "Rtown".

We continue our double feature with Gray Duck Theater and coffee house owner, Andy Smith.

And we welcome the Rochester Public Library Foundation to discuss all they're doing to support the Rochester Public Library.

But up first, we meet Mackenzie Roberts, a local piano teacher in this week's "Rculture" segment.

(piano playing "Music of the Night" by Andrew Lloyd Webber) - I have been playing piano for, goodness, about 16 years now.

And I started when I was six years old.

My favorite thing is being able to pour emotion into music and be able to communicate using something other than words.

"Music of the Night" from "Phantom of the Opera", it was written by Andrew Lloyd Weber.

I'm very clearly drawn to emotional, dramatic music.

That's kind of where I lean.

I was vehemently against teaching before I actually started.

I was gonna be a performing artist, I was not going to teach, I was not gonna be a teacher, or a worship leader, and I was adamant about it.

And then I had an opportunity to be a contracted piano teacher.

I taught that way for a few years and learned that I really loved kids.

And I really loved getting to teach them.

- Being able to connect emotionally well with Ms. McKenzie.

I always have a great time.

- Let's do the same thing, but this time we're going to do it with G major.

- That's probably my favorite part.

Being able to just be with someone who understands my, like, love for music.

- Espressivo is?

- Expressively!

- Yes.

I was very passionate about getting to see those light bulb moments and just see the joy that I felt in music come alive in someone else was just beyond what I thought it would be.

I really got hooked on it.

I didn't think I was going to stick with this long term when I started but it turned into a passion of its own.

If you can double check them, I would guess that you can get through a lot of it.

- My favorite thing about playing the piano is when everything in the piece, all the practice that I put into the piece, finally comes together and it makes the song sound beautiful, and I feel like my hands are just dancing over the keys.

That's got to be my favorite part ever.

For me, it's just having someone that I can look up to.

I have this one person that I haven't known for a while, but I can understand them well because of our similar interests.

- Five, six, one, two, three.

(piano music) I love getting to connect with her just in a very real way, just a very honest way.

(piano music continues) She's very passionate about it.

So I can throw some really complicated stuff at her.

Just complicated to play, complex ideas, complex music theory, and she'll get it.

She's just, she's an amazing student.

Good job.

- It sounds so pretty.

I love it.

- Good job, Bre.

- Hello, I'm Danielle Teal, your moderator for "RTown Spotlight".

This segment covers organization's, events, and happenings across Rochester.

We'd like to thank 125 Live for hosting today's segment and lining up our wonderful guest.

And today we have Eman Abdu Malti with Seto Bakery.

Welcome.

- Hi, how are you, Danielle?

- Good.

I'm so glad to have you.

I've heard all about you from your daughter, and I know that you make amazing baked goods.

So let's talk about your bakery.

So how did the bakery get started?

- I just started in the bakery here in Rochester, during the pandemic last 2020 December.

So I start online bakery.

So in this time I can't get a place.

And in the meantime, I want to test how the people would like the food because it's, most of them is new, something new I just introduced here in Rochester.

I just, I participate in Rochester downtown, all the events day.

It was very, very successful.

And I know, I been on more, so, I have customer increase more, and more, and more, and more and give me confidence.

- Yes, because - to open a place.

- Yes, because you are very good with the baked goods and, you know, people rave about Seto Bakery, too.

Can you share, what do you offer for baked goods?

- Actually, I offer most of the item is a very famous Mediterraneans baking items.

Some of them dessert, some breads.

So like, I just offer a baklava in a different way, it's not the traditional baklava.

I do it my own.

And I find that the people love it too much.

- They want it too much, which is a good problem to have, right?

- Yeah, yeah.

I have too, I, something called basbousa it's very famous, sweet.

Very, very famous sweet in Egypt.

And I surprised that people love it here also.

So baklava is very famous, but basbousa is, I think no one will love it, but it's become to have many order.

- And you have an online, you have an online store that people can, you know, get this, we'll add it to the end of the segment so people know where to reach out to you.

Thank you so much for being on the show.

- Yeah, yeah.

And you can go to www.myseto.com.

- Wonderful.

- Find and you can order from me.

- And there's wonderful pictures on there and everything.

Thank you so much for being on the show.

- [Eman] Thank you.

(orchestral music) - Hey, Rochester.

We at "Rtown" are gonna do something a little bit different for the next few weeks.

We're gonna talk a little bit about the Minnesota state legislative session coming up.

Now, this is the second year of a two year biinium.

And typically in the first year, the major budget bills are passed, and the second year the focus is on bonding bills and the capital projects.

It's obviously going to be an interesting session because we come into that session with about an estimated $7.7 billion state surplus.

Now, as recently as a year and a half ago, that number was a negative number, so it does shift very quickly, but it does give the legislature some opportunities to perhaps some reduce taxes, or invest in other parts of the state.

At "Rtown", we're gonna look at the state legislature from a Rochester perspective, seeing what's going on there and how it's going to affect the people of Rochester, and our communities.

Now, I spent parts of three decades in local office, so I have some experience working with state and federal officials.

And it's important with these sessions, a lot of times, it's easy you to just gloss them over, but there is important be work being done that affects the communities that we live in.

And I know not everyone has that same extensive background.

So here's a little information about how our legislative process works.

We have ,obviously, Governor Tim walls, and then we have a total of 67 senators and 134 representative.

Each representative represents about 40,000 people, each Senator, about 80,000.

Each Senate district is made up of two house districts.

There are six legislators who represent parts of Rochester in the Senate.

The north side of Rochester and surrounding areas are represented by Senator Dave Senjem, the south part of Rochester and surrounding areas by Senator Carla Nelson.

Our representatives, Tina Liebling and Liz Boldon both represent mostly the city of Rochester Proper.

Parts of the west and Northwest are represented by representative Quam, and the southern part of the city, and areas surrounding on the south are represented by representative Nels Pierson.

Now, you can follow the link and see exactly who represents you at different levels of government, but in general, when folks are interacting with elected officials as a local unit of government, you're typically reaching out to the delegation, asking them to work as a team to get things done.

And that does make it helpful that we have both Democrats and Republicans representing the city of Rochester in the only state house in the country that is split between Democratic and Republican control.

We are fairly early in the session, but already some interesting bills are coming out.

In the house, there's a fair repair bill that's been introduced, and this has gone around the nation with pretty broad bipartisan support.

And this means that whether it's your smartphone, or a half million dollar tractor, there should be competition in terms of who can fix it.

You shouldn't be locked into the original manufacturer that drives up costs and decreases the ability to get things done quickly.

In addition, there's a big focus now on removing lead from water supplies.

There's a bill in the house to do this, and obviously part of the infrastructure bill is aimed at removing lead from public water sources and the states looking at private ones as well.

Lastly, there's a going to be a constitutional amendment proposed coming outta the house on gender equity.

In the Senate, a lot of the bills that have come through appear to be focused on infrastructure.

There are a couple of bills that would take a look at reducing taxes, or eliminating taxes on social security distributions, even if you have additional income.

Also bills have been introduced to provide some funding for various infrastructure projects in the local area.

I'm always interested in what local priorities are and how decisions in the state legislature are going to affect us here in Rochester, I reached out to my county commissioner, Sheila Kiscaden, who was kind enough share with me some of her thoughts.

The county has identified some key infrastructure projects that they're looking at.

This includes the ability to do a major expansion to allow more efficient processing of waste at the waste energy facility, a major interchange west of Rochester, and also some additional facilities at Graham Park.

But even though it's a bonding session, there's probably going to be some additional focus, and as we've dealt more and more with the homeless issue, and with issues of mental health, some of the state reimbursements aren't necessarily doing what they need to do and there's hope that some of that can be changed to be more equitable to count these.

(intense music) - Hello, I'm Danielle Teal with "Rtown Walkabout" and we are talking with our guests remotely.

Again, we have Andy Smith from Gray Duck Theater.

Andy, welcome.

- Thank you, Danielle.

It's good to be back.

Second time.

- Gray Duck Theater is a gem in Rochester.

You were last on "Rtown" about two years ago.

How has it been going?

- We had an amazing first seven, eight months where every month we were, the word was getting out, people were coming a lot more.

And, if you remember in 2019, the best picture winner was "Parasite", which we had for a long time.

Obviously, like every business out there, we had a really tough 2020 and 2021.

Up and down and all around.

But what has stayed steady is people have really valued what we bring to the community and have supported us in any way they can.

- I hear there's a new projector and new sound system.

- At the end of 2021, we were at the point financially where we felt like we could really, splurge is not the right word, but we could invest in a really good system.

So we have a brand new projector system, we got two extra channels in our surround sound system, a couple new speakers, as well as a whole new server system.

In fact, we primarily, still do indie films, but we now have the capacity to do larger films.

So it really gives us a lot of flexibility, especially with Oscar season coming around the corner, we'll be able to get any film we want that's Oscar nominated.

- Is "Cinema Paradiso" one of your favorite movies?

- I mean, I love, film about film was my favorite genre.

My personal sort of film that really encouraged me to get into the industry is "La La Land."

- Thank you so much for being on the show again, Andy.

- Yeah, absolutely.

I love coming on the show and we at Gray Duck love offering this to the community.

So thanks for having us.

- This is Danielle Teal with "RTown Walkabout".

(upbeat music) - Libraries are vital to communities.

They offer essential resources, well beyond a good book.

We're joined today by Brenda Carduck, Adam Dickinson, and Catherine Davis of the Library Foundation of the Rochester Public Library here to tell us more about how the foundation works to support our library and how we can get involved.

Welcome to "RTown", everyone.

- Thank you.

- Great to be here.

- Brenda, let's start with you.

Can you tell us a little bit about the mission and the purpose of the library foundation?

- So, yeah, thank you, that's a great question.

The mission and purpose of the library foundation is to support the library beyond the budget that the city gives them.

So when they have big priorities that aren't in the budget, or new things that they wanna try, our foundation raises the funds to support those programs like "Rochester Reading Champions" was one of them when we had hotspots at the library, and this last year, because of the pandemic, the awning for the book mobile.

So we allow them to do things that they wouldn't be able to do without the foundation.

- Awesome.

Thank you so much for that.

I think a lot of folks, I think we understand public libraries are publicly funded and really why is it important to also raise those private funds?

You talked a little bit about some of those programs, could you tell us a little bit more about the importance of sort of having that compliment to the public funds?

- Absolutely.

You know, the library in our community is wonderful, they're award-winning and they have such a wonderful programs, but at the same time, they will see needs in the community that aren't being met and so then they come to us to ask us, you know, can you help us with this?

We bring it to our volunteer board and they, as much as they can, they say, yes, we wanna say yes, we wanna help the community and the library in every way we can.

- You named some of those programs that you helped fund through the foundation, what are some things, I know this past couple, well, three years now, into the pandemic, there's been so much going on, so many in which the library has served to be such a vital resource outside of its normal functions, can you talk a little bit about maybe some of the programs that, yeah, have come up over the last couple of years that have been really important and funded through the foundation?

- I would just love to toss that to Adam if he wants to answer that one.

- Yeah, one of the things that library, they're there to serve everyone in the community.

We found there's a lot of people that don't have internet connections, don't have stable internet at home, and the internet is such a vital piece of what they're doing.

So, creating the hotspot program is something we partnered with the library and they're continuing to grow that, the technical route for the community.

We've helped them find additional resources to help grow, again, the library does a better job than almost anyone I've been associated with of listening to the community, of asking what's important to you, and then responding quickly.

And so that's where the foundation can really help is the quick part of redirecting funds quickly to help them support some of these key initiatives that are very vital.

When COVID shut down the needs changed overnight as far as staffing and both hardware, and people, resources that they needed to support the community through the change.

- What are some ways that potential donors can give, some of the pathways for giving and connecting with the foundation?

- Oh, that's a great question.

So, you know, you can donate through RPLmn.orgé\donate.

People can use disbursements from their 401k.

We always welcome volunteers, book donations go to the friends, but that also helps the library and everybody in our community.

So those are some ways quickly that I can tell you, but you can also go to RPLMN.orgé\foundation and look at all of the other ways that you can get involved or support the library.

- Awesome, I'll be sure to link to that that.

Thanks so much, Brenda.

Catherine, you're the the event chair for the foundation, and I know, I think last week you recently hosted "Wit, Wine, and Wisdom", can you tell us a little bit more about that event and then what other events are coming up that you're working on?

- Great.

Thank you for that.

Yeah, "Wit, Wisdom, and Wine" is really one of our premier events for the Rochester Public Library Foundation and it's really root in what the library stands for, which is like we're providing a space for people to come in, and learn, and open their minds.

And so for us, that's just what we focus on when we look at planning this event.

This is the second year we've been virtual.

We were virtual with it, which per provided some additional opportunities for us that we haven't been able to do in past years.

And so this year we had two days of events for people with everything from learning about politics from Tim Penny, discussions about whiteness from John Bewin, to experiences such as cooking along with Sherry, "Spieced up Mom" and experiencing wine tasting and improv.

So really trying to do a little bit for everyone to bring people in and celebrate the richness of our community.

As of right now, we don't have anything on the docket in the near future, but we are always thinking and looking for ways that we can continue to bring people together, learn about the library, celebrate, and encourage people to really, to continue to give.

- Well, thank you so much for that.

That sounds really exciting.

I know everything moving into the virtual spaces offered obviously opportunities as well as challenges, but that's fantastic.

And I think I really resonate with what Adam was talking about just in terms of the digital sort of equity and the importance of that, and the access that that's allowed us to kind of, yeah, facilitate really.

We're running up on time here, in the last few minutes, can you maybe all chime in a little bit about ways that community members out there that are watching this could be thinking about supporting the library and, or the foundation?

- Wow.

You know, that seems like again, supporting the library and foundation, you can donate, you can volunteer, you can attend our events, you can reach out and ask us for ways.

I did have a volunteer last year who said that she was a graphic designer and helped us with one of our letters.

So we always want to meet somebody who's volunteering in the way that is most meaningful to them, where they feel like it's a good fit for them, but we appreciate everything that people are able to give so that we can help expand programs.

One of the things that we're really excited about being involved with this year is the social worker who's gonna be at the library part-time, Allison Carpenter.

And I just had a lovely conversation with her in the halls of the library.

She's so excited about the people that she's able to help connect to resources now.

And that's just another wonderful way our library goes above and beyond to give back to this community.

They're always looking for new ways to help people make their lives better.

- Well, thank you so much, Brenda, Adam, Catherine, thank you so much for all you do to support the library and thanks to the library out there for all that you do to support the community.

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.

Be well and stay safe.

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

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