1. Sunday, July 22, 11-5pm, Open Streets
Come and talk to Alley volunteers as part of the Midtown Phillips Festival, 15th Ave. and E. Lake St. and/or at Friends of the Cemetery at the Lake Street Gate to Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery between Cedar Av. And 21st Av; both as part of Open Street Lake Street.
2. Thoughts about the transition from Alley reader and Phillips resident, Kelly Trius:
“I”'ve been an Alley reader and a resident for over a decade here and when I saw the last issue of The Alley, with its call for residential input, I started thinking.”
“I love the Alley, the fact that there is a neighborhood newspaper, that there are people distributing it. I would love it in any neighborhood, but I especially love it here. East Phillips is in so many ways a microcosm of the world. In these few square blocks people have gathered who know the meaning of the word ”˜Resilience”'. Every day here, we are literally healing the pain and repercussions of slavery and Jim Crow, genocide and boarding schools, colonialism and refugee camps by getting to know one another, supporting one another, valuing each other, empowering each other. Each day we face the biggest, scariest, most traumatizing forces of history””and each day most of us come out alive on the other side.”
“There are stories and images, imaginings and histories in this neighborhood that could make the meanest person laugh and cry. On the eve of climate change, Minneapolis and the world are looking for someone to teach them about ”˜Resilience.”'”
“I think that there is no better place than right here in East Phillips.”
“I think that it is time for the Alley to reach out to a larger audience, with a larger message. Not pity stories, not scary stories, but stories that show our strength in overcoming each day, our ingenuity for staying alive, our ability to care for and about each other. On our good days, East Phillips residents and community workers are keeping each other off drugs, helping each other out of domestic abuse, keeping each other off the streets, holding each other”'s babies, planting gardens that we all may eat and see beauty. As for our bad days””well, maybe there won”'t be so many when the little things that we do each day are lauded as the great things that they are. Poverty and oppression are good teachers, if you can keep from being traumatized.”
“When I meet my neighbors across The Alley, these are the stories we tell each other””clothes for the free market, food down the street, microloans, chasing off drug-dealers with children bearing Popsicles, befriending the teen who ”˜kidnapped”' your daughter because she was ANGRY with her world and its history, ending a knife fight with a few looks across the playground, creating transitional space for refugee women escaping domestic violence, art on the sidewalks, gardens, affordable swim lessons, the power of drums”¦”
“You and I both know that this list goes on forever. I think we need to tell our stories of ”˜Resilience.”' And I think that The Alley should help us tell them””through interviews, ghost-writing, art, poetry, youth contests, thematic discussion pages””media that touches emotions and a deeper purpose.”
“Not to mention the practical side of having a larger audience and a larger cause for a paper that needs a financial boost.”
“I”'d love to help save The Alley; sorry I had to miss the meeting last Wednesday. Thank you for all that you do!!!”
