The Alley”™s Editorial Leadership Committee (ELC) has been a long time coming, but it”™s finally here! Provision for the Committee was written into the Alley”™s By-Laws, but somehow never quite came together, formally, until recently. It”™s an exciting time for the Alley as we meet some of our long-term organizational goals.
The Committee”™s role is to work with the Coordinator and the Board of Directors to help the Alley in its role to facilitate communication with the neighbors of Phillips. The ELC strives to ensure that the Alley stays true to its editorial policy of enhancing communication in the community. The Committee takes on a wide range of tasks for the newspaper, leaving the Coordinator and the Board to focus on their core duties.
Want to participate? The Committee is open to new members. Whether you wish to devote a lot of time to the Committee or you are only able to make occasional contributions, your participation is welcome.
We are excited and proud to introduce our core group of ELC volunteers.
Lindsey Fenner
has been involved with the Alley in various capacities since 2016. She is a proud East Phillips resident, public library worker, trade unionist, labor communicator, collaborative writer, and community gardener. Her work with the Alley is always guided (she hopes) by the spirits of Minnesota writers and journalists Eva Valesh, Meridel Le Sueur, and Marvel Jackson Cooke.Â
Mary Ellen Kaluza
“I first moved to Phillips in 1975, buying a house only a block away in 1979. Since its inception, The Alley has been in my home – either a single copy on the kitchen table or layed out on the living room floor for cut-n-pasting (pre-computers) during my sister, Pat”™s, time as editor.
“I joined the ELC because The Alley is a critical resource as the only paper with in-depth information about issues in our community. And, it really is a treasure not just for Phillips, but for the whole city, uncovering and preserving our history.”
Minkara Tezet
Griot of Psychology and PsychiatryResident Poet; Cultural Wellness Center
My art form is that of the griot. The Cultural Wellness Center is a cultural community institution that has absorbed my pain, my formal professional training and clinical experience, and my personal journey of healing. These aspects of my experience have then been shaped and alchemized into my work, which is to tell the various layers of that story. This is the artwork of the griot. In cultural communities, it is impossible to separate the art from the work, from personal development, or from life.
As an emerging griot, my work has focused on community healing, community development, and community health practices. At the Cultural Wellness Center, I have come to learn what it means to produce research anchored in an African System of Thought. Research and the studying of ourselves within the context of the community is a sacred process. My work is to study my heart, what it means to be Black, what it means to be African, and what it means to become conscious of ourselves as spiritual beings. I have learned to use the creativity to study peace and the impact peace can have on my ability to produce knowledge and to be in community.
Carz Nelson
Carz works and owns a home in Phillips. She has a passion for history and believes that a community gains power by understanding its past. She joined the ELC to assist the community”™s dialogue about its history, its place in the present and the potential for the future.
