In welcoming a very large crowd to its 2015 Entrepreneur Awards ceremony, held Saturday, April 18, at the Nicollet Island Pavilion in Minneapolis,Neighborhood Development Center (NDC) founder and CEO, Mihailo “Mike” Temali, described the evening as an opportunity to celebrate Twin Cities area entrepreneurs and the long hours, sweat, tears, sacrifices, and accomplishments that they seldom get credit for. Over the course of the evening, 14 businesses and the 19 entrepreneurs who started and run them were recognized.
Through poetry, fiction, memoir, and spoken word, 11 literary artists took part in Gazillion Strong Presents: Writers of Color Showcase, at Aster Cafe in Minneapolis on Wednesday, April 8. Co-sponsored by Boneshaker Books, Moon Palace Books, and Gazillion Strong, a Minneapolis-based nonprofit organization, the event is one of several free, off-site events being held in conjunction with the 2015 Association of Writers & Writing Programs (AWP) Conference, April 8 through 11. More than 12,000 writers, teachers, students, editors, and publishers are expected to attend the national annual event in this year’s host city, Minneapolis. To the delight of a packed house, Kao Kalia Yang, acclaimed author of The Late Homecomer: A Hmong Family Memoir, read an excerpt from her forthcoming volume, The Song Poet, a memoir about her father, Bee Yang, a Hmong man working in the factories of Minnesota. The Song Poet will be published by Metropolitan Books in 2016.Kao Kalia YangOther highlights included readings by Los Angeles-based Nicky Sa-eun Schildkraut and Rachel Rostad, a Macalester student and recipient of an Academy Of American Poets Prize, both of whom explore their exaperiences as Korean American adoptees, among other themes, in their poetry and other genres. Nicky Sa-eun SchildkrautMatthew Salesses offered a sample of his forthcoming novel, The Hundred Year Flood, the story of a young man who escapes to Prague in the wake of his uncle’s suicide and 9/11.Matthew SalessesKeno Evol, a poet, educator, spoken-word artist, fashion designer, revolutionist, dancer, and director rocked the stage with a dynamic spoken word performance. Evol has developed curriculum for Crack The Page. Shift The Stage. Continue Reading
Tied to our electronic devices, most of us do a lot of scrolling these days: scanning our Facebook newsfeeds and tweets, skimming favorite blogs and online news sources. The result, says Nicholas Carr (“Is Google Making Us Stupid?” and The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains), is that we’re losing our capacity to concentrate, contemplate, reflect, even as what we’re reading is often purposely kept shorter in response to our shortened attention spans. All of this has consequences for the quality, depth, and tone of the discourse that we can engage in about important matters.
Arnellia Allen and Jackie Williams can boast several “firsts” and “onlies” between them. Allen is the only African American woman to own a nightclub and hold a liquor license in Minnesota. Jackie Williams was one of the first African American women to graduate from the highly competitive and demanding Chef Apprentice Program at Pennsylvania’s Allegheny Community College in the 1980s. (There were very few black men admitted either.) Now the two women are together on University Avenue in St. Paul, working to put business at Arenellia’s Night Club back on track just as light rail trains are set to start running. Continue Reading
A family-owned and operated waste disposal provider (since 1981), a private chef and catering service specializing in made-from-scratch soul fusion and comfort foods (since 2013), and a boxing and fitness gym that provides a community for at-risk youth (since 2011), were among the 15 recipients of the 2014 Neighborhood Development Center Entrepreneur Awards, announced at a celebration at Neighborhood House in St. Paul, on Saturday, May 17.This year’s Senator Paul Wellstone and Sheila Wellstone Twin Cities Small Business of the Year Award went to Hmong Village’s Shongleng Yang. Yang played a key role in transforming a former machine shop on St. Paul’s East Side into a 105,000 square foot urban market, housing 186 businesses, representing 315 entrepreneurs. He calls it the largest such market in Hmong history.Recipient Juliet Mitchell with one of the vendors, Brotherhood, Inc. (above); attendees scope out silent auction items (below) In addition to Shongleng Yang, Outstanding Achievement Awards were given to entrepreneurs in four categories:Community Impact: Dalton Outlaw and Cerresso Fort, Element Boxing & FitnessEmployment Impact: Conrado Badilla and Alejandro Castillon, Sonora GrillGrowth in Business Revenue: Gerald Boone, Boone ContainerLongevity & Sustained Impact: Mychael and Stephanie Wright, Golden Thyme Coffee CaféAttended by 280 people, the event featured a silent auction and social hour, with food and drink from several Neighborhood Development Center (NDC) food service clients, including Brotherhood, Inc., El Burrito Mercado, Pham’s Deli, and Chelles’ Kitchen, followed by the main attraction, a program emceed by Robin Hickman, of SoulTouch Productions, and former Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak.R.T. Rybak with Mihailo Temali’s son, Joey, and Manny Gonazalez of Manny’s TortasCurrent Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges was in attendance, too, along with her husband, Gary Cunningham, father of one of the recipients. Continue Reading
This video features Keoni Nguyen, owner of SugaRush. This article is part of the series, Along the Corridor: University Avenue business owners navigating change.(Video produced by José Luis Morales Alegria)This video is part of a Central Corridor small business oral history project funded through a State of Minnesota Historical & Cultural Heritage Grant. Continue Reading
This video features Ne Dao, owner of Ha Tien Grocery Store. This article is part of the series, Along the Corridor: University Avenue business owners navigating change.(Video produced by José Luis Morales Alegria)This video is part of a Central Corridor small business oral history project funded through a State of Minnesota Historical & Cultural Heritage Grant. Continue Reading
This video features Jai Vang, owner of Bangkok Cuisine. This article is part of the series, Along the Corridor: University Avenue business owners navigating change.(Video produced by José Luis Morales Alegria)This video is part of a Central Corridor small business oral history project funded through a State of Minnesota Historical & Cultural Heritage Grant. Continue Reading
This video features Ron Whyte, owner of Big Daddy’s Old Fashioned Barbeque. This article is part of the series, Along the Corridor: University Avenue business owners navigating change.(Video produced by José Luis Morales Alegria)This video is part of a Central Corridor small business oral history project funded through a State of Minnesota Historical & Cultural Heritage Grant. Continue Reading
This video features Hai Truong, owner of Ngon Vietnamese Bistro. This article is part of the series, Along the Corridor: University Avenue business owners navigating change.(Video produced by José Luis Morales Alegria)This video is part of a Central Corridor small business oral history project funded through a State of Minnesota Historical & Cultural Heritage Grant. Continue Reading
