‘Cover Stories’ Archives
Art Parties! Semilla Center for Healing and the Arts
By Interim Director Bart Buch and Artist/Board Member Angela Barrera A Party Invitation: We had a hard year last year, in many, many ways. Covid-19, economic hardship, violence, addiction, police brutality, social unrest, and homelessness have all increased the neighborhood's fear and isolation. One good thing that came out of the emergency of the uprising last year was getting to know new neighbors and looking out for one another during troubling times. We hope and feel better times are coming, Spring is arriving, and we at Semilla Center for Healing and the Arts have an idea, An Invitation! We want to help create better times with new connections, strengthening existing connections, and increasing community trust using art and parties - Art Parties! to celebrate together and continue looking out for one another. In March, Semilla Center started hosting these art parties on the first Wednesday of the month, first online while it was colder outside, then we will meet [...]
A Closer Look at the Deep Winter Greenhouse going up on 15th Ave.
By ELIZA SCHOLL, HECUA INTERN WITH TAMALES Y BICICLETAS A mild late fall/early winter allowed Jacqueline Zepeda (Pine and Poplar LLC, https://pineandpoplar.org/ @femmeempowermentproject) and Scheidel (Fireweed Community Woodshop https://www.fireweedwoodshop.org/) to continue work on the ridgebeam. Photo: Jose Luis Villaseñor April: Villaseñor and volunteers Bozena Scheidel and Mattie Wong affix polycarbonate to the south face of the greenhouse. Volunteers have been essential to the building of the greenhouse, exchanging their time for new skills and community. Photo by volunteer Jessie Merriam On South 15th Avenue, half a block south of E. 28th St., Tamales y Bicicletas is building a winter greenhouse on its urban garden space. For ten years, the nonprofit has used bikes and urban farming to reduce the environmental impacts of the heavy concentration of industry on the East Phillips community. "How do we decolonize our food systems that then leads to [...]
CHANGEMAKERS
Magdalena Kaluza: Direct Action By GAEA DILL-D”™ASCOLI Reprinted with permission from Minnesota Women's Press "By sharing vulnerability, we build deeper relationships. We need deep relationships to face what”™s coming ”” floods, heat waves, climate refugees.” Magdalena Kaluza (photo courtesy of Magdalena Kaluza) The story of Magdalena Kaluza starts with their parents. Their mother is a white American woman of Polish and French-Canadian descent with family ties in the Iron Range, who went to Guatemala to study Spanish. Their father is of Mayan K”™iche”™ mixed race (mestizo) who played the guitar and grew up in the midst of the revolution. Both parents were working towards social justice and solidarity before Kaluza was born. Kaluza”™s day job is working at Take Action Minnesota, which allows them to deepen community ties through storytelling while engaging in social justice work. In 2019, Kaluza [...]
