Todd - Strategic Planning for the Club. If you haven’t expressed interest already, please let Todd know by email and he’ll add you to the scheduling Doodle.
Dave B. - Rotary Foundation District Happy Hour - Monday 2/1 - 4:30-5:30pm.
Krista D. - Join the Y!
Jim P. - There is tremendous need for volunteers at the CAC! Many opportunities are during the workday. CAC has been very careful about COVID protocols. You can visit the CAC website to volunteer.
Beth K. - There is pre-work for our meeting on 2/4 - Watch the first three episodes of Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man before next week’s meeting.
HAPPY NEWS
Bruce - was invited to be a panelist on Climate Justice hosted by the Minnesota Humanities Center: Climate Justice: The People's Role.
Dick - Just reached $5 Million goal.
Scott - Gets to watch grandson play basketball in person soon for the first time in a year.
Charlie Cogan - After FIVE days with no heat, they have a new heater and boiler working today!
Vicki - Is getting a knee replacement on Feb 8.
George D - Was so impressed by the Northfield Shares Evening of Entertainment and they’ve raised 114% of goal to date.
Jim L. - Both of his front-line worker daughters, and both his parents, have now received their COVID vaccines
Cecilia Cornejo, At Home as a Perennial Outsider. Last week’s speaker was Cecilia Cornejo, artist, filmmaker, and educator (Professor of Film and Media Studies at Carleton College). In Cecilia’s presentation called At Home as a Perennial Outsider, she shared her experience as an immigrant living in Northfield, her residence since 2010. Drawing on her ongoing project, The Wandering House, Cecilia discussed how she finds both a sense of purpose and belonging in a community-engaged artmaking practice. Hosted & Introduced by Jean Wakely.
Cecilia is originally from Chile. We know her from the past when she filmed The Key and the Skate Park along with Rotary’s involvement in those things.
Born and raised in San Antonio, Chile. Parents were teachers and artists. Home was filled with music and interesting people. When Cecilia was 7 (1973), the military dictatorship began in Chile. At 17, she was an exchange student in Grosse Pointe, MI. When she moved to the US, she moved to Long Beach, CA, but wasn’t very impressed - oil rigs, parking lots and McDonald’s. She moved to Iowa City and completed a second bachelor’s degree (in film). (Chile education didn’t entirely transfer). She went to graduate school (in film and video) in Chicago (gradating in 2004.)
In the bigger communities, she never questioned whether she belonged, but in Northfield she questioned her belonging more. For the first year in Northfield she didn’t have a job and felt that she didn’t have an identity outside of being a wife and mother. So, she asked herself - what skills do I have that can be of service to people in Northfield? She connected with The Key, became a member of the adult board and got involved in the skate park. She found teens that hadn’t been successful in finding their home here. She trained them in using equipment and made a documentary with them about the development of the skate park (took 4 years to make.) Through this she met George Zuccolotto and he asked what she wanted to do next. She wanted to make a film about the Latinx community in Northfield. She realized that she was exploring and mapping the marginality in Northfield. This project became Ways of Being Home. (2016-2020 project)
Both films really ask “What does it mean, and what does it take, to belong?”
This idea turned into a project to ask all of Northfield, “What does home mean to you?” - The Wandering House. She was also inspired by Miazakyi (Howl’s Moving Castle), Chilean houses on stilts, and MN ice fishing houses. She purchased and had a neighbor help to transform a small fishing house to a place to ask this question.
Participants got a questionnaire and stayed for as long as they needed to record their thoughts. The house moved around Riverwalk/Bridge Square, The Key, CAC, Northfield Retirement Center, Viking Terrace, Laura Baker, and the Lanesboro Arts Fair in 2019.
Fifty days of interaction, 270 recordings resulting in 46 hours of material. Participants from 2-91 years old.
She asked people to complete the sentence, “I know I am home when…” This has inspired “The Embroidery Project”. Individuals in Northfield and Lanesboro have embroidered responses. Kits were provided with materials and sentences/responses. Kits were all claimed in less than 10 days and there was a Facebook page and Zoom gatherings to provide community for those working on these pieces. The embroidered pieces are being assembled into a community quilt. Quilt and Sound Installations will be exhibited at the Guild in April/May.
“How does a community create the conditions for EVERYONE to grow and prosper?”
COMING UP
Cal Mann
February 11 — Cal Mann, A Rotarian’s Peace Corps Volunteer Service Adventure in North Macedonia 2017 - 2020. Cal will share his experience as a Rotarian serving as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Eastern Europe. He was among the 7,400 global Peace Corps Volunteers who were evacuated in March 2020 due to Covid-19. Hosted by Ann Richards.
February 18 — RCAT/Peter Fiekosky Founder and Chair Emeritus, Foundation for Climate Restoration, Foundation for Climate Restoration "F4CR." Hosted by Lee Dilley.
Jennifer Barrientos
Natalia Marchan
February 25 — Jennyffer Barrientos, Growing Up Healthy Director, Northfield and Natalia Marchan, Growing Up Healthy Director, Faribault, Reducing Energy Burden in Rice County Mobile Homes. Growing Up Healthy, the City of Northfield and the City of Faribault are collaborating to connect low-income, Latinxs residents living in Faribault and Northfield mobile home parks with Xcel Energy's Home Energy Squad initiative and weatherization supplies, in order to help families improve the energy efficiency of their homes.