Leya Hale - Showtime

Leya Hale - Showtime

Leya Hale: Her star is rising.

Hailing from sunny southern California, Leya grew up in the heart of the American television and movie making industry. With an aspiring-actress mother, and a family with a strong cultural identity (Dine, Dakota), Leya was drawn to visual storytelling at an early age. The more this St. Paul documentarian practices her craft and Indigenous heritage, the more she illuminates the “deep pockets of strength” of her people.

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Sheila Williams Ridge & Alyson Quinn - Mpls Nature Preschool

Sheila Williams Ridge & Alyson Quinn - Mpls Nature Preschool

“I like EVERYTHING!”

Sheila Williams Ridge and Alyson Quinn of the Minneapolis Nature Preschool are not surprised.

But outside? This month, Mother Nature played us in a whiplash of weather: an unseasonable eighty-degrees for three days, and this week: barely above freezing, rain, drizzle, raw wind, clouds and “sneet,” a morning that included a revolving snow/sleet mix.

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Buzz Lagos - A Foot in the Door

Buzz Lagos - A Foot in the Door

“The House the Buzz Lagos Built” is bigger than a pro soccer stadium that holds 19,400 fans. It’s more crowded, too.

The new stadium’s powder-blue girder on which son Manny commemorated his dad’s enterprise is massive, yet not big enough to contain the names of all the players, student-athletes, coaches, and soccer fans who have benefitted from Buzz’s fervent embrace of the sport.

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Julia Gillis - Good Grief

Julia Gillis - Good Grief

“We don’t want people to shy away from grief,” says Julia Gillis.

As effervescent as she is deferential, Julia spends her work days in an office in a Mausoleum, a distinction that very few others can claim. As Director of Outreach for Minneapolis’ Lakewood Cemetery, Julia’s efforts make death a more normal part of life, and the physical grounds of Lakewood a place not only for reflection, but for human connection, intentionality, curiosity, and even joy.

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Heather Jansz - The Curry Diva

Heather Jansz - The Curry Diva

There is more than one way to make curry. 

Chef Heather Jansz is noodling another mouthwatering idea:  What if there is more than one way to feed community?

Heather is known as “The Curry Diva.”  She is a native of Sri Lanka and has been cooking for friends, customers, and total strangers in Minneapolis since the 1970’s. Food has always been a focus for Heather, even as a young girl.  At home, “I would cook outside, on three brick stones, like in the olden days.  My mother would give me a little bit of lentils and spices for me to practice with in the backyard. ‘Be careful of the snakes!’ she’d warn.”

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Susan Wilkins - Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

Susan Wilkins - Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden

Susan Wilkins runs The Eloise Butler Wildflower Garden and Bird Sanctuary, a free garden within expansive public parkland on the western boundary of the City of Minneapolis.  It is not a formal “garden” in the sense of rows of colorful snapdragons or petunias, but a nature-filled, quiet place that nonetheless requires hours and years of planning and pruning and planting to maintain.

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Mary Ritten & Kit Wilson - MIA

Mary Ritten & Kit Wilson - MIA

Like a second grader, art can sometimes be wiggly, and the path to embracing it can be equally winding.

Two generations of docents, Mary Ritten and Kit Wilson, came to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts (MIA) along different paths, but with a similar purpose.  Each is a lover of art; one, a practicing artist.  Both women credit the power of art – and their experiences at MIA - for revealing their best selves and connecting them, in powerful ways, to community.

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Caren Dewar - Urban Land Institute Minnesota

Caren Dewar - Urban Land Institute Minnesota

Listen.  Do you hear that? 

Somewhere in Minneapolis someone is talking about development with a policy leader, a real estate broker, or land use expert.There is a good chance that the topic or the conversation is being curated by Caren Dewar or her colleagues at Urban Land Institute, Minnesota (ULI).There is a good chance they are talking about things that matter to you:housing, public open space, or the bustling commercial node where you can get a really good cup of coffee.

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Janne Flisrand - Neighbors for More Neighbors

Janne Flisrand - Neighbors for More Neighbors

“Eight is Enough” could never be the title of a show about Janne Flisrand’s life; “Cheaper by the Dozen?”  Now we’re talking.     

For Janne, more is more. She is a proponent of more residents calling Minneapolis home and heads a volunteer citizen group called Neighbors for More Neighbors.“We stand for those who want a place in this city,” she says.

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