The small town that I live in has experienced it’s share of youth suicides. In the last three years, 3 young men have taken their own lives for reasons we will never know. The recent death of Robin Williams has everyone talking about mental health and as horrible as it all is, talk is good, so very good, because it keeps us thinking and watching and listening and searching for better answers and more help. Continue Reading
Sometimes, an airplane ride can change your life. Rachelle Simmons was college visiting in Baltimore with her son, and mentally noted something unique. “Usually in the inner city, on every corner you see a liquor store or a church – every corner. And there (Baltimore), on every corner there was a clinic! Or there was a hospital! Continue Reading
Matthew Hegge and his wife are trying to sell their house in Northeast Minneapolis. It’s a little difficult, though, when you don’t want to let the “fresh” air in.
In this episode, Wynfred Russell joins Julia to talk about the current Ebola outbreak. Russell is a public health advocate, and the executive director of African Career, Education & Resource, Inc., in Brooklyn Park. Russell explains the outbreak, and delves into its implications for the Liberian diaspora, including Liberians in Minnesota. [Audio below] Continue Reading
At Brooklyn Center High School, a couple of years ago, a small room was transformed into an optometrist’s examining room. On the first day it opened in January 2013, 18 students were seen, and 15 of them needed glasses. At last, those who needed eyewear had access to it.
Decades of disregard leave families exposed to toxins.One of the best elected officials I know of is Cam Gordon of the Minneapolis MN City Council. Gordon is a Green Party member, one of a relative handful of official Greens holding office in the United States. I don’t agree with all Gordon’s positions, of course, but he shows an impressive ability to maintain independent and thoughtful positions while seeming to maintain working relationships with his colleagues. In March, 2014, Gordon posted this commentary (below) on one of the more consequential environmental scandals to surface recently in Minnesota.Some background(Disclosure: I have not done anything like a full file review of this, and nobody has asked my opinions on it. But the patterns shown–patterns of negligence–are consistent with patterns of inadequate “cleanup” and overdone coverup seen at contaminated sites nationwide. Continue Reading
In an ideal world, grocery shopping can just be an in-and-out trip, but for some locals, grocery shopping can sometimes take several hours. A local organization is trying to fix that by bringing a mobile grocery store to areas with poor access to healthy foods.The Twin Cities Mobile Market will provide people access to healthy, affordable food who otherwise would have to travel one or more miles to obtain it. They are converting a retired Metro Transit bus into a mobile grocery store to travel to neighborhoods in need and help fill in gaps in healthy food access. But they say they aren’t trying to replace larger grocery stores, food shelves or farmers markets.”The mobile market will be nice, because it’s kind of hard for me to get to the grocery store because I have medical problems,” said St. Paul resident Yolanda Jones. Continue Reading
This weekend’s lineup is a bit quieter than last weekend’s, but no less engaging. From community gatherings and cultural fairs, to art crawls and music festivals — there is a lot to enjoy this weekend! Scroll down to see what’s on tap; if you know of an event that readers should know about, sound off in the comment section below.Play on Penn: Meat and Greet, August 8Come on out to the second Meat & Greet, a Play on Penn event sponsored by Penn Avenue Community Works that aims to create an attractive destination for community-building and opportunity along the Penn Avenue corridor. The event offers free BBQ, live music, and an opportunity to interact and socialize with people in the community! Special guests include the Free Speech Machine, E.G. Bailey’s Talking Tree Poetry, IMPACT Penn Avenue Story Series by Bully Creative, and a special showing of the film “A Place at the Table” presented by Appetite for Change and its Fresh Corners Initiative. Continue Reading
Mental health has always been, at the least, a touchy subject among African Americans. As powerfully as it can impact lives, it doesn’t help to ignore or, still worse, pass judgment on people who suffer mental problems. Accordingly, Linda and Nneka Onyilofor with illustrator Aaron Gilmore have created a remarkable children’s book, My Brother Adam: A journey with schizophrenia (Radiant Heart Press) that can help adults as well as kids gain a constructive outlook on the subject.
