Last summer, I met one of the guys who runs the event and told him he should really bring the show to the northside. Several months later, they’d booked the Capri Theater for a March event. I wasn’t the only influence to them bringing the event north, but I was happy to see it happen and glad to lend a hand. Here’s a sampling of some of the other ways we helped highlight the great stuff happening in our neighborhood to a packed event full of people from throughout the Twin Cities.

• NRRC, the neighborhood organization I’m on the board of, sponsored the event by helping with some logistics of food and beverage.
• The Cookie Cart graciously donated 240 cookies for the event.
• I recommended several northside innovators to speak and was excited to see Amoke Kubat of Yo Mama! and Austin and Terese of Kindred Kitchen give presentations. (I’ve helped with both of their websites too)
• I organized a “Northside Info Shop” with about 10 different northside organizations doing innovative work in the neighborhood.

The event was a blast and a great chance to highlight all the great stuff happening in the community. If you want to see the whole show, it’s all online at TheUptake, click the link and start the video at the 40 minute mark (You’ll get to see the little shout out I get too). Or stay tuned for individual presentation videos in about a week.

I heard about your recent comment regarding “Modern-Day Slavery” and I wanted to take a minute to write to you about it. I know your getting critiqued on all sides regarding the comments. There’s some truth to what you said though, Modern-day slavery is real. It does exist. It’s just doesn’t happen to be NFL players who are experiencing it, at least not in the same way we remember in our history or how millions across the globe experience it every day. 27 million people are in slavery, real slavery, today, right now. You might have heard something about this in passing, but like me, haven’t really looked into it.

I know your probably getting a lot of advice from your PR people about how to properly apologize and get this comment behind you, but I’d like to recommend another option. Take this opportunity to turn your words into action and become a spokesperson against slavery that exist today. Despite being in the public spotlight, your comment was no worse then the vast majority of us in the USA who daily ignore the plight of those enslaved across the globe. And collectively we do nothing to stop our influence and encouragement of this modern-day slavery. For example, did you know much of the chocolate we eat comes from child slaves harvesting cocoa in countries in northwest Africa? Maybe you could spend the next year abstaining from chocolate harvested by child slaves (you could still eat slave-free chocolate) and encourage others to do the same.

You are a national figure and your words have profound influence. Now is the opportunity to not just protect your own reputation, but to become a voice for millions across the globe whose plight and struggles to break from the chains of slavery go unnoticed. The choice is yours, please make the right one.

Sincerely,

Ariah Fine

My idea is to create a Neighborhood Information line, basically a 411 for anything related to your neighborhood. The line would serve two specific purposes: It would get answers to your questions and it would allow neighborhood organizations to build positive connections with residents and show their usefulness. Logistically, it would be a phone number and email, you can call, email or text your question in and get a response within 24 hours (if not right away). Behind the scenes a public online database of questions and answers would be created so that more and more people can find answers online or answer phone messages using the data available.

This is another project that’s actually in the works and I’m excited to see what comes of it in the coming months.

Last Friday, I had the good pleasure of talking to 400 elementary school students about the topic of water and the fact that 1.1 billion people in the world lack access to clean drinking water. I came as a ‘guest author’ and read from my book Clean Water for Elirose as well as used several hands-on activities to try and make the subject matter concrete to the youth. I’ve never spoken to a group of elementary school kids that large, so it was a fun experience and a great opportunity.

Many of the kids went home with a copy of my book. With all the profit from book sales going to clean water projects, the event raised over $600 for clean water wells. It also, hopefully, instilled a knowledgeable and giving spirit in many of the youth that will have an impact on them and their families.

I might have a few more opportunities to speak to groups about the topic and the book, but what I’d like to focus on now is giving churches and other groups the opportunity to use the book as a fundraising tool for missions work related to well building. Hopefully, I’ll have some exciting stories to report back in a few months.

Clean Water for Elirose website

This is not an original idea, some friends have been doing it amazingly well in the northside Hmong community for a number of years. Last week we meet briefly and planned a one-day soccer camp for northside youth ages 6-12. Our goal was quite simple, bring the several different community and soccer efforts around the community together to do something fun and free for youth. The larger vision is to encourage different cultures and communities coming together and encouraging more youth to come out for soccer when leagues start in the fall. The soccer is the fun part, the organizing can be the natural product of people coming together, forming relationships, and discussing issues that matter to them. The Hmong communities organizing efforts have resulted in a Hmong magnet school, more bus stops, and a Hmong language class, among other things.

Every Sunday for about two years now, a group of adults meet together for a few hours and play soccer. We get together because we love to play. In a few weeks, on March 6th, our group and others will take a break from our pick-up game and help coach 6-12 year olds for a day. It’s called SoccerPalooza. Bring your 6-12 year olds. And if you want to volunteer, let me know.

Partnering with a local business association, a simple, streamlined process to gather basic store information from all the stores along Broadway and then create listings on Google, Facebook, Bing, Yahoo and Yelp is a huge step toward bringing our community into the internet age. Residents who aren’t willing to meander along Broadway avenue for example, might be willing to stop in a store there if they know what’s available.

I’m excited to say that this idea is actually coming to fruition and it’s exciting to see.

There are lots of places to look for job postings, but none focus or allow you to search in a specific geographic area with the consideration of those who use public transportation or bike or walk. A Job Board for the northside has many benefits. First of all for the employee, the shorter the commute the less possible problems getting to work (unreliable vehicle, late buses, inclement weather, etc.) and a shorter overall work day. For

the employer, this would result in more reliable employees and ones who have a greater vested interest in the community where the business is located, since this is where they live. For the community, it would mean a more thriving local economy as dollars stay and circulate within the community instead of quickly being sucked out.

I’ve started a small attempt at this by creating a Classifieds section at TheNorthsider.org. Anyone can create job postings, including those who see the listing elsewhere. With the numerous employment agencies in our community (Hired, Employment Action Center, Emerge, etc) there is plenty of staff to help aggregate job listings to create this central useful job board.

A local job board, what do you think?

Hundreds of people in our neighborhood get in their car each week, grocery list in hand, drive to the grocery store, fill up their trunk with groceries and drive home. What if those neighbors were willing to go just a tiny bit out of their way to pick up an elderly neighbor and bring them to the grocery store, then help that neighbor put the groceries in the car and drop them back off at their home? It would require very little time and very little inconvenience and it would be a HUGE help to the person without transportation.

Here’s what getting groceries might be like for this person without reliable transportation. They catch a bus to the grocery store, 1 hour, $2. They shop for enough to fill their small cart, enough for the week, but not more then they can manage up to their kitchen, 1 hour. They call for a Taxi and get a ride home so they can take more groceries then on the bus, 30 minutes, $5. The travel expense can be 10-20% of your cost and nearly doubles the time it would take to drive to the grocery store.

So, how would you start? You create a flyer and stand outside of the grocery store and hand it out to people heading to their vehicles, asking them if they could take a few minutes extra during their weekly grocery trip to pick up an elderly neighbor to bring along. Once you have 20 committed volunteers, you go to the nearby Senior citizen centers and you advertise the grocery buddy service until you find 20 interested participants. You slowly grow the project as you work out the kinks and have some successes. There’s no real overhead or work beyond spreading the word and making the initial connections. What your really doing is helping foster relationships, sparked by a need, but hopefully quickly lasting because of more.

The Print and Post Team. Each week, a team of volunteers would print off a copy of the calendar, in a visually-appealing, user-friendly format and post it somewhere locally: food establishments, hair and nail places, libraries, churches, social services, bus stops, etc. The goal would be to have enough volunteers, that each person only needs to only take a few minutes each week, stopping at just a couple places, ideally along their normal route of travel or own place or work.

Digital Community Bulletin Boards. This is a concept I’ve wanted to do for a while along Broadway. You take a bunch of old computers, set them up to run an online slideshow and place them in windows near busy intersections. The slideshow that is running is a series of community event bulletins for upcoming events. Since they are internet connected and using an online slideshow, someone could manage and update the slideshow from a remote computer at their office or home. This would be a much more visually attention grabbing way to post about events.

Utilizing Text Messaging. Though internet at home is still somewhat lacking in our community, a quickly growing number of people have text messaging on their phones. In the same way that many organizations have email lists to contact their supporters, we should be creating text message alerts/lists as well. People are a little more hesitant to give out their phone number, but that will certainly change over time as text message alerts become more common and privacy is ensured. Imagine signing up for a weekly text alert where you receive a text at the beginning of the week with a list of upcoming community events. Or, if you saw a bulletin or flyer about an event and were able to text to receive more info or a reminder alert the day of the event. There are numerous possibilities to use text messaging in our community.

After starting InsideNorthside, originally an online information hub (think neighborhood wikipedia), the Calendar quickly became the most popular page. We simply used a Google Calendar and embedded it on the site. One of the immediately unique things about the calendar was that it is collaborative. You do need admin access, but then many people can post their own organizations events to the calendar. We have about 15 admins from various organizations and groups on the calendar (though not all of them utilize it). Not only is posting to the calendar collaborative, but the calendar itself can be shared. That means the same complete calendar can be put on a multitude of northside organizations websites, so visitors never have to leave the site to see what’s happening in the neighborhood.

I think of most of the neighborhood stuff I do as mini-experiments. I’m still a full-time dad, so I don’t have hours to go around implementing or pitching ideas, but I do have time to put them together and see what happens. And that’s what I did with the community calendar. And with the help of just one amazing volunteer (thanks Linda), we’ve been able to keep the calendar going and provide information for the 50-100 visits the calendar gets each day.

Do you know of a northside organization or group whose events should be on the calendar? Have them contact me or leave their info in a comment. And if you know of organizations who would like to have the calendar on their website let me know that as well.

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