Saint Anthony Park : Innovation + Job News

In schools, it’s common for there to be a divide between the administration and the student body that’s hard to bridge. Local schools are trying to reach out, shown by the Minneapolis Board of Education’s decision to give a student representative a nonvoting seat on the board.

For students, though, that move rung hollow: a token position that didn’t have voting rights. Looking to improve its own interactions with students, St. Paul Public Schools (SPPS) is taking a new approach through Student Engagement and Advancement Board (SEAB), a 13-student group that researches and recommends changes to improve the educational experience.

SEAB, now in its second school year, was formed under the guidance of Shaun Walsh and two of her peers. To mitigate the popularity factor of an election, Walsh and her peers chose an application process and interviewed students, grades 10-12, from St. Paul schools.

The first year SEAB established a framework. This year’s agenda is action focused. To improve student inclusiveness, SEAB recommends three changes: The ability of students to choose to wear cultural garments at graduation; to examine the district’s disciplinary programs; and to adjust the district’s social studies program to better reflect the diverse student population of St. Paul schools.

Last year, graduating senior Chandra Her was asked to remove a traditional Hmong stole that violated an existing rule against personal modifications to the graduation uniform.

“Many of the other students had their cultural items physically taken off of them and confiscated,” says Skyler Kuczaboski, a senior at Harding Senior High School. “I think this is extremely disrespectful and I want to make sure none of this happens ever again.”

This disconnect between student emotions and the Board of Education is what inspired Central sophomore Rajni Schulz to join SEAB this year. “It confuses me that decisions in SPPS are not made by the people ultimately effected by them; the students,” she says. “The diversity present in the SPPS community is a beautiful thing,” she adds, which is why the graduation rule has become one area of focus.

While the experience gives its participants valuable leadership and community building experience, the purpose of the group is to improve the student experience for all 60,000 SPPS students. They research and identify issues, taking suggestions from the Board of Education but making their own decisions on topic, tone and recommendations, and speaking with the general student population.

Walsh recalls a presentation at the close of the 2015-2016 school year as evidence of SEAB’s influence on students’ lives. “[A SEAB student] was in a meeting with a board policy work group with kind of cantankerous adults and she really held her own,” Walsh says. She’s also proud that the students followed her advice and requested the right to evaluate their facilitators. In other words, the students can fire her.

The purpose all along was “to take the power to the people,” Walsh explains. Students are standing up for themselves, using their power in constructive methods that are bearing results.

“I’ve been surprised at the receptiveness with adults,” she says, citing a presentation from late last school year where SEAB members used their own experiences as students to describe challenges to their learning environment. “Different departments have used that phrasing in their presentations [this year],” Walsh says, showing that when SEAB speaks, educators listen.

“They still only represent 13 students, they don’t represent the student body,” Walsh admits, but she sees SEAB as a foundation for more effective student-education board interaction.
 

 
 
It’s a world in which the rugged coastline of Lake Superior’s North Shore is rendered in brightly colored forms and tribal motifs, and populated with T Rexes, octopi and UFOs. National parks receive the same treatment, swirling in ribbons of pattern and color; places where silvery robots and furry Bigfoots camp and fly fish with their dinosaur pals.
 
If you haven’t guessed by now, this is Auslandish, worlds created by St. Paul artist and illustrator Sarah Nelson. She recently hosted her first pop-up art sale in the Creative Enterprise Zone of St. Paul, in conjunction with the opening of an online store featuring her work and collaborations with other artists. A hot item during the pop up was a new bag designed by Ashley Duke of Viska, a Minneapolis company, festooned with one of Nelson’s whimsical images.
 
The story begins when Nelson was working at a café and her boss told her to take a Sharpie and draw on the walls. “So I did,” she says. “And a style emerged.”
 
“The art I do is primarily whimsical and illustration based,” she says, “and incorporates a lot of detail, pattern and story.” Why the UFOs and dinosaurs? “I like to take moments and natural places that are magical and bring in the otherworldly, to reflect what’s being experienced in your mind and heart at the moment. Weird whimsical creates help commemorate that feeling.”
 
In 2013, Corner Table restaurant in Minneapolis commissioned Nelson to create a hand-illustrated, custom wallpaper for the space. “People strted resonating with the work,” she says, “and I started getting commissions,” including from City Pages. “I realized this could become a business. I decided this work was bringing joy to people.” So mashing up words like outside and outlandish, while referencing her Austrian upbringing, resulted in Auslandish. An early show of her work sold out in less then 24 hours.
 
Nelson creates from her studio in the Midway neighborhood and she’s seeking out new collaborative opportunities. She’s currently working on a local band’s album, exploring innovative work with textile artists and still designing wallpaper.
 
The online store includes prints, originals and hand-crafted goods created in collaboration with other artisans. Auslandish next pops up at the Women Artists + Entrepreneurs Holiday Bazaar, November 10 at Woodford Sister Photography in the California Building in NE Minneapolis.
 

Knight Cities Challenge, a massive social enterprise contest supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, announced the 37 winners of its 2016 competition last week. Two innovative concepts hatched in St. Paul made the cut, taking home more than $250,000 (of the contest’s $5 million total prize) between them.
 
Front Lawn Placemaking Platform, submitted by The Musicant Group, won about $82,000 — payable over the coming year — to support its goal: “Transforming front lawns from empty expanses of grass to vibrant places full of life through the development of a toolkit that encourages residents to create community hubs on their doorsteps.”
 
I’m Going to Vote Today, submitted by the University of St. Thomas (UST), won about $170,000 — also payable over the coming year — to put an updated spin on the age-old “I Voted!” trope. Instead of distributing “I Voted!” clothing or bumper stickers at polling places, the initiative hands out “I’m Going to Vote Today” stickers to eligible voters.
 
The goal, according to UST associate professor for marketing Aaron Sackett, is “behavioral intervention.” In an article released by UST, he explained: “First, sending out this sticker should serve as a reminder for people to make a plan for how and when to vote…[s]econd, the sticker and accompanying message serve as an indicator that voting is a socially desirable action, and that by wearing the sticker they can show both themselves and others that they engage in this desirable action.”
 
By labeling themselves voters, Sackett added, people wearing the sticker positively affect the behavior of “people who generally have a positive attitude toward voting but who don’t always follow through and vote” — rendering them more likely to vote. Now that his concept is funded, Sackett plans to test it across St. Paul, which has tens of thousands of registered voters.
 
These two initiatives were among more than 500 submissions. Following a rigorous review, Knight Cities Challenge narrowed the pool down to about 160 finalists, a significant increase over previous years. Knight then subjected finalists to a further round of view before settling on the 37 finalists. According to the organization, Challenge winners hail from 19 cities around the country — most of the markets in which Knight operates.
 
According to the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, Knight Cities Challenge contestants must “focus on one or more of three drivers of city success: attracting and keeping talented people, expanding economic opportunity and creating a culture of civic engagement.”
 
The Florida-based Knight Foundation, which has an active presence in Minnesota but invests nationwide, is sometimes confused with the Minneapolis-based McKnight Foundation. McKnight invests heavily in sectors such as clean energy and sustainability, arts, education and community building, training most of its firepower in the MSP region and surrounding parts of the North.
 
 

Eureka Recycling, a homegrown, progressive recycling nonprofit based in Northeast Minneapolis, is upping its “zero waste” game. The company is sponsoring MSP’s first-ever Zero Waste Summit on September 18 from 12:30 pm to 6:30 pm.
 
Brave New Workshop, an all-purpose venue and gathering space in downtown Minneapolis, is hosting the event. General admission tickets are $20 for adults and $10 for students. Scholarship tickets, which include the cost of admission, two drink tickets and an admission scholarship for another attendee, are $100. Anyone who arrives by public or active transportation (bus, LRT, bike or foot) earns free admission to a future Brave New Workshop event of their choice.
 
“We want attendees to get information and thoughts from the people who really live the vision of zero waste,” says Lynn Hoffman, Eureka Recycling’s chief of community engagement and principal event organizer. “Equally important will be the time to connect and collaborate so we can take action while inspiration is still fresh in our hearts and minds.”
 
To that end, Eureka’s first-ever Zero Waste Summit features nearly 20 speakers, many of whom have close ties to MSP’s sustainability movement.
 
Amanda LaGrange works as marketing director for Tech Dump St. Paul, an innovative electronics recycling outfit that offers free, eco-friendly disposal services (to the tune of hundreds of thousands of pounds per year) and provides living-wage jobs for economically disadvantaged adults.
 
Eartha Bell is director for the soon-to-be-operational Frogtown Farm, an ambitious project that promises to be Minnesota’s largest urban farm (and one of the country’s biggest, as well).
 
Tracy Sides is director of Urban Oasis, a “sustainable food center” that offers healthy cooking education, small business training, catering with seasonal and locally sourced ingredients, and other sorely needed food services on St. Paul’s East Side.
 
These speakers and their organizations, and all the others represented at the Zero Waste Summit, live and breathe Eureka’s commitment to low-impact communities.
 
“Eureka Recycling is the only organization in Minnesota that specializes in zero waste,” says Christine Weeks, co-principal at Field Guide, a St. Paul-based boutique communications firm that caters to progressive clients. “The organization's services, programs and policy work present solutions to the social, environmental and health problems caused by wasting.”
 
“Zero waste is more than an empty garbage can,” adds Hoffman. “The way we consume accounts for almost half of the CO2 that threatens [our] healthy food, abundant resources, clean air and water, safe and reliable products, and healthy families and communities.”
 
 
 

Urban Growler is booming. And co-founders Deb Loch and Jill Pavlak have a lot on their plate, from a long-awaited kitchen and menu expansion to a new Kickstarter campaign and a rapidly growing distribution footprint. The St. Anthony Park brewery now has 22 employees, with 17 between the brewery and taproom, and 5 in the kitchen. That’s up from about a dozen when the brewery first opened.
 
“We thought we could get by with 12 or 13 people,” says Pavlak, but Urban Growler’s runaway popularity quickly spurred another hiring round. “You need to have enough [employees] to provide excellent customer service,” she says. “That’s what keeps people coming back.”
 
The kitchen expansion tops on the agenda. Pavlak hopes to have the kitchen expanded by mid-winter, but warns of unexpected delays or complications.
 
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned since we began,” she laughs, “it’s that timetables can slip.” She and Loch had to push back Urban Growler’s opening date several times due to unforeseen complications.
 
The new kitchen’s menu will expand to include burgers and other entrees made from organic, locally sourced meats. Urban Growler cultivates relationships with local producers whenever possible, says Pavlak, noting a particularly poetic relationship with Mark and Jesse Gilbertson, a pair of western Wisconsin farmers who frequent the St. Paul Farmers’ Market. Pavlak hands off Urban Growler’s spent grains to the Gilbertsons to be used as animal feed
 
“They tell us their cows, hogs and chickens love them,” says Pavlak. “The grains are sweet, but also wholesome and protein-rich.”
 
Once the new menu is in place, Pavlak and Loch plan to buy beef, and possibly pork and chicken, from the Gilbertsons, creating a sustainable circle. Pavlak says the new kitchen may also use spent grains in house-made bread and cookies, though “we’re still working on the recipes,” she warns.
 
Pavlak says the new kitchen’s Kickstarter campaign should be live before Christmas, but details on the funding amount and timeline still have to be worked out.
 
Separately, Urban Growler is also feverishly producing more beer to satisfy an expanding roster of brewery and restaurant clients, despite frustrating delays in fulfillment for Urban Growler’s branded tap handles. “We’re still sending out prototype tap handles,” laughs Pavlak.
 
Distributed beers include Cowbell Cream Ale, City Day Ale and Graffiti IPA. Most confirmed accounts are in the western suburbs, but Pavlak mentions Bar Louie in Uptown and Muffuletta in St. Anthony Park as local adopters. In October, a Muffuletta-Urban Growler beer dinner sold out in seven hours. “[Muffuletta’s manager] said that was a record,” says Pavlak.
 
Beyond the kitchen, Urban Growler’s interior configuration is changing for the better. Come January 1, the co-founders will take over a storage area next door that will house a gigantic cooler that now juts out into the seating area. The expanded kitchen will occupy part of its former footprint, with expanded seating and standing room in the remainder.
 
And Pavlak and Loch are weatherproofing the brewery, widely known for its spacious, sunny patio. An interior vestibule, installed in November, should shield the high-ceilinged brewhouse/taproom from outdoor cold.
 

Green Line Theater, an “original, mobile theater production” sponsored by the Central Corridor Funders Collaborative’s Catalyst Fund, will enliven the Green Line at 1 p.m. this Saturday, Oct 18, (or 1 p.m. this Sunday, in the event of a rainout). The production—created in partnership with the Minnesota Museum of American Art’s (MMAA) Project Space exhibition “From There to Here”—includes visual art and performances from artists Wing Young Huie, Ashley Hanson and Jessica Huang, as well as from members of the communities surrounding the Green Line.

The play comprises five scenes at five stops—Raymond, Hamline, Dale, Capitol/Rice and Central—and explores the “rich history, stories and collective memories associated with [Green Line] neighborhoods,” according to the MMAA. Creatively, it’s an extension and expansion of “Bus Stop Theater,” a Creative CityMaking collaboration that brought Huie and Hanson together last year.
 
Huie, Hanson, Huang and others developed the script in close consultation with Springboard for the Arts, the Center for Hmong Arts and Talent, and the African Development Center. The three organizations held “workshops and street engagements to collect stories about the neighborhoods along the Green Line,” using the information to “inform the script for the interactive play,” according to MMAA.

The audience will travel together from scene to scene, using the light rail as transportation, in a style of site-specific theater know as mobile theater. “Utilizing public transportation to move from scene to scene is not anything we have heard of happening here before last year, when [Wing and I] produced ‘Bus Stop Theater’,” Hanson says.

“The idea behind this type of mobile theater is to get the audience engaged with their public transportation system, the landscape that it moves through, and the other people who utilize public transportation,” adds Hanson. “In a way, we are turning transit vehicles into community meeting places.”
 
In addition to her work along the Green Line, Hanson’s PlaceBase Productions—a collaboration with artist Andrew Gaylord—puts on site-specific performances at locations across Minnesota. Paddling Theater, for instance, makes its way through the Minnesota River Valley by boat. We use “mobile theater to connect audiences to their physical landscape by producing stories...in the landscape [where they] occurred,” Hanson says.
 
Performers and audience members meet at the parking lot for 2314 University Ave W, near the Raymond Station. Though “Green Line Theater” is free, register for the event. A free, open-admission reception follows the last scene at the Minnesota Museum of American Art, in downtown St. Paul.
 
“We hope to continue exploring this medium in the hope that more people will bring theater outside the box,” Hanson says, “and engage with an audience that might not otherwise attend a theater production.”
 

The Knight Foundation recently announced 42 winners of its first-ever St. Paul Knight Arts Challenge. The challenge tasked applicants with answering this question: “What’s your best idea for the arts in St. Paul?” The grants, totaling nearly $1.4 million, recognize creative initiatives from the Far East Side to St. Anthony Park.
 
In addition to providing their best ideas for the arts in St. Paul, the Knight Foundation requires successful applicants to demonstrate that that project will either “take place in or benefit St. Paul,” according to a release from the foundation. And each applicant must find funds to match the Knight Foundation’s awards. Some of notable winners include:
 
The “Smallest Museum in St. Paul,” $5,000
A project of almost-open WorkHorse Coffee Shop, in the Creative Enterprise Zone in St. Anthony Park, the “Smallest Museum in St. Paul” will be really, really small—a vintage fire-hose cabinet that couldn’t even hold a Labrador retriever. The museum will host rotating collections of artifacts, art and memorabilia from the neighborhood’s vibrant creative and academic communities. The first exhibit is scheduled for June. Future exhibits must follow three simple rules: celebrate local themes or history, engage the coffee shop’s patrons, and avoid high-value, theft-prone artifacts.
 
Fresh Traditions Fashion Show, $35,000
The Center for Hmong Arts and Talent won a sizable grant to expand its Fresh Traditions Fashion Show, the Twin Cities’ “only culturally inspired fashion event that exhibits the creativity, originality and quality of work by Hmong designers,” according to the Knight Foundation. At the show, designers must incorporate five traditional Hmong fabrics into clothing that hews to contemporary fashion. Part of the Knight Foundation grant will be set aside for career support and skills-building classes for individual designers.

Radio Novelas on the East Side, $50,000
Nuestro Pueblo San Pablo Productions, led by Barry Madore, will use its Knight award to produce a series of 20 fictional radio novelas that celebrate the history and culture of the East Side’s Latino community. Madore plans to promote the series with three live shows at yet-to-be-named venues around the district. Like Fresh Traditions Fashion Show designers, participating performers can count on support and training from Madore and his partners.
 
Paleo-osteological Bike Rack, $40,000
Artist and paleo-osteological interpreter Michael Bahl has plans to fabricate the bronze skeleton of a large dinosaur-like animal in repose, with its ribcage functioning as a bike rack. That bony crest on its skull? A bike helmet. The work focuses on how prehistoric skeletons, which are obsessed over by scientists and fossil hunters around the world—can also be viewed as works of art. “When the individual bones are joined in a united effort, a skeleton becomes the ultimate functioning mechanism, or in this case, a whimsical bike rack,” according to Knight’s website.

Twin Cities Jazz Festival, $125,000
More established organizations got a slice of the pie, too. The largest single grant went to the Twin Cities Jazz Festival. The annual festival already draws more than 30,000 attendees, but organizers wanted to add more stage space and spring for better-known headliners. Performers have yet to be announced for next year’s event, in June, but executive director Steve Heckler is considering a move to the brand-new St. Paul Saints stadium, in the heart of Lowertown. That would create more seating space and facilitate pedestrian traffic from the Green Line stop at Union Depot.
 
The St. Paul Knight Arts Challenge will continue through 2016, with two more rounds of awards. All told, the foundation has earmarked $4.5 million to fund creative ideas, plus another $3.5 million for five established St. Paul arts institutions: Springboard for the Arts, Penumbra Theater, TU Dance, St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and The Arts Partnership. St. Paul is just the fourth city to participate in the Knight Arts Challenge, after Miami, Detroit and Philadelphia.
 

Tech Dump, a technology recycling nonprofit based in Golden Valley, opened a second location on North Prior Avenue in St. Paul on September 22. The facility collects more than a dozen varieties of tech waste, from old computer monitors and TVs to batteries, cell phones and printer cartridges.
 
Tech Dump complements its commitment to responsible waste disposal with a mission to create jobs for “economically disadvantaged adults” who live in the area. The organization is an offshoot of the nonprofit Jobs Foundation, led by Probus Online founders George Lee and Tom McCullough. Lee and McCullough claim that for every 72,000 pounds of waste Tech Dump handles, the organization creates one job for one year.
 
Tech Dump finds its employees through partnerships with such Twin Cities nonprofits as Goodwill Easter Seals and Better Futures Enterprises, and referrals from current employees. “[The nonprofit partners] provide soft skills training and other pre-employment resources, then refer employees to us when we have openings,” says Amanda LaGrange, marketing director, Tech Dump.
 
She adds that,  “employees are very protective of our organization,” so they can recognize potential candidates who “really want to change and work toward a new future.”
 
Once hired, employees take on escalating responsibilities until they “graduate” from Tech Dump and find work at another employer. “We want to develop the skills that will make our staff the best employees in their next position,” LaGrange adds, such as “showing up to work on time each day, respecting managers and co-workers, accepting feedback and going the extra mile.”
 
Tech Dump handles old electronics in two ways: recycling and repurposing. For the former, Tech Dump employees take apart each piece of equipment, separate its electronic components and reduce them to the simplest state possible before shipping them off to a specialized facility for recycling. For the latter, Tech Dump workers repair or replace damaged or broken components and restore each piece of equipment to good working order.
 
With both processes, any stored data is destroyed (by force, not just erased) before usable components are harvested or recycled.
 
Tech Dump is cheap and inclusive, too. “We only charge for the items we have to pay to recycle, like CRT/tube TVs and monitors, rear projection TVs and fluorescent bulbs,” LaGrange says. Tech Dump is also “open to anyone—businesses and residents of any city, county or state.”
 
Ironically, Tech Dump started out as a furniture recycler. But an experimental “Tech Dump Day” in 2011 was wildly successful, turning Lee and McCullough on to local demand for responsible e-recycling. The pair exited the furniture recycling business in 2013 and set about building Tech Dump into a socially responsible powerhouse.
 
To sharpen its approach and develop new practices, Tech Dump regularly communicates with other recyclers, like Isadore Recycling in Los Angeles and Recycle Force in Indianapolis, which provide employment opportunities for teens and adults who have spent time in the criminal justice system.

Tech Dump is open Monday through Friday, from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., for waste quantities of any size. Tech Dump also operates trucks that travel off-site, by appointment, to pick up larger amounts of waste.
 

On September 10, the Minnesota Cup announced its best “breakthrough idea” of 2014: 75F, a Mankato-based technology company that makes efficient, cost-effective HVAC sensors. The company, which emerged as the winner of MN Cup’s Energy/Clean Tech/Water category division before emerging as the grand prize winner, took home a total of $105,000 in prize money and funding commitments.
 
But it wasn’t the only company that won big in this year’s MN Cup. Trovita Health Science, a startup based in Minneapolis' North Loop that makes a meal replacement drink called ENU, took home a $30,000 prize as the winner of the Food/Ag/Beverage category. YOXO, a St. Paul toymaker that uses simple cardboard connectors in innovative ways, also took earned $30,000 for topping the General/Miscellaneous category. Four other category winners won between $20,000 and $30,000 in prize money, and earned immeasurable visibility for their ideas.
 
All told, more than 1,300 Minnesota entrepreneurs and startups participated in this year’s MN Cup—a record turnout. At least 50 percent of all entrants came from the Twin Cities. In a press release, MN Cup co-founder Scott Litman described the field as “the most competitive yet” in the competition’s decade-long history.
 
Aside from 75F and the rest of MN Cup’s category winners, the September 10 event highlighted the achievements of local entrepreneurs and thought leaders who support the Twin Cities’ growing startup scene. After raising more than $10,000 via Kickstarter, Twin Cities Mobile Market secured a $1,000 cash prize for its elevator pitch at this year’s Minnesota Cup. TCMM is a “grocery store on wheels” that brings fresh, affordable produce and other nutritious foods to Minneapolis-St. Paul neighborhoods that lack easy access to full-service grocery stores.
 
MN Cup also recognized Carlson School of Business grad Steve Eilertson as its “2014 Entrepreneur of the Year” for his role as president of locally based Grain Millers, Inc. And thanks to a partnership with the Holmes Center for Entrepreneurship, women were much more visible at this year’s event. Published figures indicate that more than one-third of all entries came from women-led teams. Nearly half of all entries had at least one female participant.
 
For entrepreneurs who missed the May filing deadline for MN Cup 2014, next year brings a new opportunity. In a September 12 interview on Minnesota Public Radio, Litman had some sage advice for those who would participate. “It might seem un-Minnesotan,” he said, “but successful entrepreneurs” have to be unabashed about self-promotion and arguing for their vision.
 
He sees two big reasons why enthusiastic entrepreneurs fail. First, they don’t ask for enough money. It’s critical to pin down the cost of developing, marketing and scaling an idea, and many startup owners underestimate the costs they’ll incur before revenues start coming in. By holding out the prospect of five-figure prizes for winning entrants, and by connecting all entrants with mentors and investors who can inject additional capital into worthy startups, MN Cup helps bridge this financing gap.
 
Just as important, entrepreneurs must surround themselves with the right people, who may be more important than the idea itself. “A great idea in the hands of a mediocre team may not work,” said Litman. He argues that MN Cup is designed to help entrepreneurs self-select: Those who thrive on high-stakes pitches and meticulous business plan development leave the process much stronger, while those who flounder realize that they may need help turning their vision into a reality.
 
“It’s like American Idol,” said Litman. “Lots of people can sing well,” but not everyone’s voice can fill Xcel Energy Center.
 

Minneapolis event-organizing company, GetKnit Events, is changing the way Twin Cities residents experience local businesses and attractions. On September 13, it pulled off its most ambitious and far-reaching experience yet: Rails & Ales, a self-guided tour of the breweries and brewpubs along the Green Line, from Target Field to Union Depot. Hundreds of participants sipped discounted brews, previewed special cask releases and rubbed shoulders with some of the most innovative brewers in Minneapolis-St. Paul.
 
For GetKnit founder Matt Plank, connecting Twin Citians with local business owners—preferably on a permanent basis—is the whole point. He and the company’s “core team” of paid employees, most of whom knew each other socially before GetKnit’s founding, are constantly looking for “ways that we [can pursue] our goal of community engagement while supporting local businesses in and around Minnesota,” says Plank.
 
Tickets for Rails & Ales sold out quickly, but a lucky group of several hundred attendees got their run of three establishments in Minneapolis and five in St. Paul, all within walking distance of the Green Line. (Though pedicabs were out in force to transport customers between stations and breweries, especially at farther-flung spots like Urban Growler and Bang Brewing.) Guests checked in at the Target Field, Stadium Village or Union Depot stations, where GetKnit staffers and volunteers handed out T-shirts, drink tokens (two per person, each good for a free pint) and “event passports” that listed participating breweries, their specials and Rails & Ales social media contests.
 
Other locally owned businesses got in on the act too. The Dubliner Pub, between the popular Raymond Avenue (Urban Growler and Bang) and Fairview Avenue (Burning Brothers) stops, ran all-day drink and food specials. Food trucks like Peeps Hot Box posted up outside participating breweries, tempting customers with daily specials. And even independent vendors, like the woman selling vintage glassware outside Bang, profited from the early-afternoon crush on a beautiful Saturday.
 
Meanwhile, the brewers themselves relished the chance to mingle with enthusiastic craft beer fans. At the Mill District’s Day Block Brewing, for instance, the head brewer handed out free pints to anyone who correctly guessed the varieties of hops laid out on the table before him. Rails & Ales wrapped up at 6 p.m., but brewery owners have to be hoping that the day provided a permanent boost in visibility.
 
GetKnit draws inspiration from other tour companies and event organizers, says Plank, but with a twist. Aside from the focus on locally owned business, which is lacking in some areas of the industry, the company aims for “wildly original” events “that our participants likely couldn’t do anywhere but through GetKnit.” You might be able to spend an entire Saturday riding the Green Line between breweries, in other words, but you probably wouldn’t be able to mingle with head brewers, try specially brewed cask releases or enter social media contests for free events and swag.
 
And unlike more bare-bones tour and event operators, GetKnit organizes well-staffed, all-inclusive events that “allow participants to turn off their brains for a day...and not worry about anything,” says Plank. For Rails & Ales, GetKnit had at least one representative at every participating brewery, in addition to staff at check-in stations. The goal was to facilitate “safe and responsible” enjoyment while showcase the ease of using local transit and “how much is accessible right off of its grid.”
 
GetKnit also designs bespoke events for private groups. Plank cites a recent example in which a group of Latin American businesspeople came to the Twin Cities for meetings and sightseeing. Many had never been to Minnesota, so Plank’s team set about creating the "quintessential Minnesotan experience” that included a horse-drawn carriage tour of St. Anthony Main, a brewery tour and tasting, a hands-on cooking class featuring Jucy Lucy burgers and even private curling lessons.
 
For now, GetKnit organizes events in the Twin Cities and greater Minnesota. But Plank doesn’t rule out the possibility of expanding the model to other regions, possibly with the help of knowledgeable locals. A recent St. Croix Valley winery tour did cross the Wisconsin border, and “we are playing with other events that might do more extensive tours of other areas in our neighbor to the east,” he says.
 

The AIGA Minnesota  Design for Good initiative (#designforgood), first launched nationally by AIGA in 2011, is partnering with The Common Table for a first-of-its-kind showcase at this year’s Minnesota State Fair. The exhibit will highlight the diversity of local food systems, with input from “organic farmers, farm-to-table restaurants, nonprofits working on healthy soil initiatives and other organizations involved with sustainable agricultural initiatives,” says Sandy Wolfe Wood of AIGA Minnesota.
 
Among other things, the exhibit highlights Design for Good’s commitment to “design thinking,” an “iterative problem-solving process” that “has the power to find innovative solutions to our most challenging social problems,” says Wolfe Wood.
 
Design for Good's showcase is part of The Common Table's exhibit about local food stories in the Horticulture Building at the state fairgrounds. The Common Table enlisted AIGA Minnesota and the Design for Good initiative to design the graphic and multimedia storyboards for the 18 partner organizations. These storyboards are supported by the Storytelling Pavilion, a structure designed and constructed by The Common Table team that resembles branching trees with a canopy of airy honeycombs. The exhibit is both kid and family friendly, and will remain as a permanent exhibit at the Minnesota State Fair for years to come.
 
Many of the partner organizations are based in the Twin Cities. Notables include Red Stag Supperclub, Wedge Community Co-op and Birchwood Cafe. All of them source organic and sustainably farmed produce from farms near the Twin Cities.
 
Several producers will be on hand as well, including Homestead Gardens of Welch (an innovative plot that utilized cold-climate permaculture techniques) and Moonstone Farms. Industry thought leaders from the Institute of Agriculture and Trade Policy, Environmental Justice Advocates and the Central Minnesota Sustainability Program will participate too. 
 
Design for Good has grown into a key initiative for AIGA Minnesota, which is one of the country’s largest AIGA chapters and one of the state’s largest design organizations. According to its website, Design for Good’s ongoing programming aims to build “a core group of designers interested in design for social impact...who want to be engaged with social change, who have ideas of what issues are most salient, and who can share stories of successful collaborations that have made a difference in the world.”
 
Fairgoers who aren’t affiliated with AIGA Minnesota, The Common Table or any of the exhibit’s partner organizations can still lend their time and talents to the event in exchange for free State Fair admission on the day they volunteer. The Common Table is handling volunteer scheduling here.
 

Got big plans for April 26? Lu Lippold, the local producer for One Day on Earth’s “One Day in the Twin Cities,” has a suggestion: Grab whatever video recording device you can—cameraphones included—and record the audio-visual pulse of your neighborhood.

On the final Saturday of April, the Twin Cities and 10 other U.S. metros will host the fourth installment of One Day on Earth’s celebration of film, culture, and all-around placemaking. Founded by Los Angeles-based film producers Kyle Ruddick and Brandon Litman, One Day on Earth (ODOE) has a “goal of creating a unique worldwide media event where thousands of participants would simultaneously film over a 24-hour period,” according to its website.

The first event took place on October 10, 2010 (10-10-10); 11-11-11 and 12-12-12 followed. ODOE skipped 2013, but its organizers weren’t about to wait until 2101 for their next shot. Instead, they selected a spring Saturday—both to accommodate amateur filmmakers with 9-to-5 jobs, and to give participants in the Northern Hemisphere longer daylight hours to work with—for a bigger, bolder, slightly revamped version of the event.

For the first time, participants get 10 questions to inspire their creativity and guide their storytelling, from “What is the best thing happening in your city today?” to “Who is your city not serving?” The goal is to create a multi-frame snapshot of “cities in progress,” one that doesn’t simply answer the who-what-where of the places it covers.

As One Day in the Twin Cities’ point person, Lippold supervises local filmmakers and pitched the project to dozens of partner organizations, including the Science Museum of Minnesota and Springboard for the Arts to visual media companies like Cinequipt and Vimeo. (The McKnight Foundation and the Central Corridor Funders Collaborative are the largest local sponsors.)

The upside? “[The event] is a great way to shine a light on all the hard work that our nonprofit community does,” says Lippold.

Lippold also works with a handful of local ambassadors, some of whom enjoy national acclaim. These include noted cinematographer Jeff Stonehouse, veteran documentarian Matt Ehling, and community-focused filmmaker D.A. Bullock. They’ll be contributing their talents—and stature—to One Day in the Twin Cities’ promotion and execution.

One Day in the Twin Cities could be seen well beyond Minneapolis and Saint Paul. Along with their counterparts from other participating cities, local filmmakers may see their work incorporated into a condensed, three-part series that Litman and Lichtbau will market to PBS affiliates around the country. No word on whether TPT will air the special, but TPT Rewire has agreed to publicize the event in the coming weeks.

The real stars of One Day in the Twin Cities, though, are its filmmakers. Even if you’ve never filmed anything in your life, says Lippold, you can contribute meaningful work. Thanks to an interactive map feature on ODOE’s main site, the work will visible to anyone who visits.

“If I were just starting out in video, I would see this as a huge opportunity,” says Lippold. Since all contributions are credited by name and location, each participant “instantly becomes a documentary filmmaker,” she adds.

Source: Lu Lippold
Writer: Brian Martucci

Now in its fourth year, Architecture Minnesota’s popular Videotect contest, created “to bring more voices and more creativity into public debates about key built-environment issues,” is getting a bit of a makeover. The basic parameters remain the same: Inspired by the contest’s open-ended, sometimes offbeat prompt related to architecture, design, or the use of public space in the Twin Cities—this year it’s “Two people walk into a bar…”—entrants create informative, entertaining videos.

This year, the entries must be between 30 and 90 seconds in length, which is shorter than in the past. “The first year, entrants had four weeks to create two- to four-minute videos,” says Chris Hudson, Architecture Minnesota’s editor and Videotect’s originator, “and they just about killed themselves” getting it done. That first contest—the topic was the Minneapolis skyway system—produced some memorable videos, though, including a hilarious 3D rap battle about streets vs. the skyways.

Also this year, in addition to a shorter main entry, contestants can submit as many six-second Vine videos as they like. The ultra-shorts must promote contestants’ main entries in some fashion, but don’t come with any other restrictions. “Vine? Everybody’s doing it! So we wanted to, too,” Hudson says.

“Two people walk into a bar…” has inspired entries that focus on design’s power to promote quality social interaction in bars, cafes, and eating establishments. All 15 videos are available for public viewing in the Videotect section of Architecture Minnesota’s website. Notable entries include “Sharing Space,” a heartwarming series of drawings that re-imagines bars as “impromptu performance spaces;” “Taproom Roadshow,” a humorous send-up of the PBS classic, set at Minneapolis’s Victory 44 restaurant; a time-lapse video of Alchemy Architects’ design and construction of the tiny, circular Bang Brewery in Saint Paul.

The contest winners and runners-up are chosen by a rotating panel of notable judges: Top prize is $2,000 and runners-up receive $500 each. There’s also a $1000 Viewers Choice Winner created through public voting on the website. This year’s judges include Omar Ansari, founder of Surly Brewing Company, who has become the panel’s resident expert on the business of socializing, an architect from Gensler, and two local film experts. “We’ve gotten lucky [with the judges],” Hudson says. “We ask people with expertise in film or in the theme, and they're generous enough to say yes.”

WCCO’s hilarious Jason Derusha hosts this year’s Videotect presentation on March 13 in the Walker Art Center’s Cinema. During the event, videos are shown, the audience roars with laughter, judges astutely comment, and attendees hobnob. Hudson wants Videotect to be about much more than a night of conversation and laughter, though.

Videotect welcomes submissions from design and architecture experts, but the contest’s true aim is to get regular folks talking about the important, if sometimes dry and complex, issues that vex people who work in the business. Architecture Minnesota originally planned to organize a more formal design competition for younger architects, but soon discarded that idea in favor of an open-to-all video contest with looser rules and an offbeat approach to weighty questions.

He hasn’t looked back. “I think Videotect's biggest achievement is simply making a subject matter as intimidating as urban and architectural design a whole lot of fun,” says Hudson. “What the videos have lacked in sophisticated design commentary, they've more than made up for in entertainment value…[that’s] a very valuable thing.”

Source: Chris Hudson
Writer: Brian Martucci

For Geoff Stenrick, owner and president of the Saint Paul-based SimpleRay Solar, sunshine is much more than a mood-lifting respite from winter’s bitter chill. It’s a way of life.

In 2006, Stenrick quit his job as a Saturn salesman and channeled his longtime fascination with renewable energy into a nascent solar panel business called SimpleRay Solar. He enrolled in a comprehensive training course in solar technology, installation techniques, and parts engineering, then signed on with three U.S. distributors and began selling their equipment through his website.

His timing couldn’t have been better. While SimpleRay’s early customers were often hard-core environmentalists committed to green living, the launch of California’s rebate program, in 2007, drew building contractors onto the site. Similar incentives followed shortly in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and other East Coast states. Still, Stenrick’s gig remained low-key through the late 2000s: After his daughter’s birth, in 2009, “I would have to send emails and work on the website while she napped,” he says.

Because of generous rebate programs, falling manufacturing costs, and end-users’ increasing demand for panels and accessories, things are much busier now. In 2011, Stenrick hired his first employee, a car-industry colleague. His company’s 2012 revenues were sufficient to earn a spot on the “Inc. 500” list for 2013. Last year, after several additional hires—SimpleRay now has seven employees—he moved into a permanent office on Raymond Avenue, in the Creative Enterprise Zone on the Central Corridor’s Green Line.

Stenrick’s team doesn’t just sell solar panels out of this new space: As part of a transaction, SimpleRay’s in-house engineering and design professionals often help clients plan and optimize their arrays.

The most exciting development, though, may be Minnesota’s recently passed “Omnibus Energy Bill,” an aggressive renewable-energy law that requires “all utilities in the state [to] procure 1.5 percent of their electricity from solar generation by 2020,” according to the Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. By the end of the decade, predicts Stenrick, this requirement could boost in-state solar panel sales by a factor of 40.

Already, the law has dramatically increased the likelihood that the Aurora Solar Project, a planned cluster of about two dozen solar arrays in the state’s eastern half, will be built. SimpleRay doesn’t typically sell to utilities—it prefers small and medium-sized commercial and residential contractors, although it will soon contribute to a one-megawatt array in the area—but the increased demand that accompanies large-scale utility projects is sure to reduce panel costs and render the technology competitive with fossil fuels.

“A solar system works like a furnace,” says Stenrick. “You don’t need to replace it every five years. Instead, you’re basically prepaying for your power over the 20-plus-year lifespan of your system.” Thanks to industry-standard warranties that guarantee efficiencies of at least 80 percent over a 25-year span, this leads to dramatic long-term savings.

Even in Minnesota, with its short winter days and frequent cloud cover?

Yes, says Stenrick, noting that Minnesota gets more sun than many solar-friendly East Coast states—and far more than Germany, the world’s reigning solar energy leader. “On average, Germany gets about as much sunlight as Seattle,” he says, “and look at what they’re doing over there.”

Stenrick doesn’t minimize the obvious environmental benefits of solar power—“It’s better than blowing up a mountaintop for coal,” he half-jokes—but he’s more interested in touting the cost side of the equation. In California, solar power is already cost-competitive with fossil fuels, and the Omnibus Energy Bill suggests that Minnesota isn’t far behind. Eventually, Stenrick believes, the tax credits and rebates that currently support the U.S. solar industry will be obsolete.

“The whole idea of where you get your power from [will] totally change by 2030,” says Stenrick. “We hope to ride that wave.”

Source: Geoff Stenrick, SimpleRay Solar
Writer: Brian Martucci

When Jeff Freeland Nelson turned eight years old, his parents gave him a cardboard box filled with tape, string, and wire. “I thought it was the best present ever,” he says. As a young child, he was always making toys out of odds and ends.

Nelson grew up to build a resume that includes theater and public policy experience. But he always thought, "Why doesn't someone make a business out of this?" he says, meaning a box of bits that would spur children's creativity.  

In 2012, he acted on that impulse and launched the Saint Paul-based toy company, Play from Scratch. Right away, the toy company found success with several items, including the World Famous Box of Boxes, Enormous Tube of Tubes, and One Giant Box, which are sold at various local retail shops. More recently, the company introduced YOXO, a kit containing cardboard pieces that come in Y, O, and X shapes. 

YOXO can be used to piece together household items -- such as paper towel tubes, cereal boxes, and silverware -- to create one-of-a-kind toys, company materials state. YOXO has been described as an “eco-friendly alternative to LEGO,” according to company materials. 

Nelson has brought home prototypes of toys for his children, who are two and five years old, to play with. “I didn’t tell them what to do. Almost immediately, they were making things,” including toys he’d never thought of, he says.

Nelson has been getting plenty of attention for his company. He even made an appearance on NBC’s “Today” show earlier this month. “We can’t make them fast enough,” he says of the toys. He's also trying “to figure out what to do next and how to make sure as many kids have access to the products as is possible."  

Nelson hopes the toy line helps children to grow up to be creative problem-solvers. “Everyday I’m focused on that dream,” he says.  

In some ways, he's leading by example with toys that are made out of environmentally friendly materials.  

As he was formulating the concept for Play from Scratch, Nelson's wife, Alisa Blackwood, suggested making everything as sustainable as possible, he says. That value has shaped the toys in a big way. “Not only can you create a toy that’s fun and awesome, but it doesn’t have to be an eco disaster,” he says.  “You can make durable toys out of recycled wood pulp” that won’t end up in a landfill. 

Plus, almost everything that goes into manufacturing the toys is locally sourced, he says. 


Source: Jeff Freeland Nelson
Writer: Anna Pratt