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Ash Wirth - The Freedom Fund

Our Speaker on Tuesday, September 19^th was Ash Wirth the Advocacy Manager for the Minnesota Freedom Fund. Scott Zerby introduces her as a passionate advocate for justice and her words to our club definitely proved that to be true. Ash carefully laid the groundwork for the Freedom Fund by acknowledging that “there are multiple truths in life and no one truth is necessarily right. I ask you today to in honest discussion and to be curious and honest with each other

and share in the discussion.” Ash’s topic was our system of justice and some of the injustices within our system particularly relating to bail and those among us that are less fortunate than us both financially and socially. It is impossible to cover her intriguing 55 point presentation here as she gave our club a nine week course in due process and a step by step account arrest to multiple outcomes in our legal system.

Ms. Wirth started by stating that “a person is presumed innocent until proven guilty.” A person taken into custody can be held up to 48 hours (i.e., holidays and weekends don’t count) to allow the booking process to gain information and make a formal charge. Often the detained person’s family and/or friends know nothing about where they are or what has happened to them. Once charges have been made comes the arraignment hearing and/or bail hearing. At this point there are three conditions of release: 1. Released on their own recognizance if not a security risk. 2. Conditional release requiring certain things be done. 3. Conditional release, bail or both. If bail is required you get one phone call to your attorney or relative to post bail but you have to know that number because all your personal items have been confiscated. Making bail is tough because it has to be paid in cash to the exact amount or you go to a bail bondsman. Bail bonding is a for-profit business that charges 10% of the court set bail that never gets returned to you even if you show up for your trial. Many people (or relatives) can’t afford to post bail and consequently they sit in jail and this often leads to poverty, loss of job, and all the pieces start to fall apart in their life. So much for being presumed innocent until proven guilty! If you have money you are treated like you are innocent but if you are poor you feel like you are being treated as guilty.

The Freedom Fund acts to advocate for those that can’t post bail and to advise them of their rights and assists them in getting released and then to show up for their trial. Sixty percent of their clients show up and are prepared for trial and the bail gets returned. Many reasons account for accused not showing up for trial and the advocates do all they can to get them there. The advocates from the Freedom Fund are realists and know the plight of the poor and indigent but they also have compassion and strive to help those in need. Ash Wirth caused us all to have some thoughtful introspection!

Art & Eats with Sarah Heyd Johnson

Our speaker on Tuesday, September 5^th was Sarah Heyd Johnson presenting on the 3^rd Annual Arts + Eats free community event held on August 16^th in the parking lot of Mount Calvary Lutheran Church in Excelsior. Sarah is the head of Youth Ministries and Community Outreach at Excelsior United Methodist

Church. She held a similar position for 3 years at Mount Calvary and is well connected with all the Excelsior Area churches. Sarah explained that "Arts + Eats is a community festival of food, art, and music! The entertainment this year was provided by Joe Davis and the Poetic Diaspora and Kidsdance DJ, with food from The Nashville Coop, Del Sur Empanadas and Roulette's Pizza. Together it was a wonderful place to be under the big tents and free to all participants." Sarah thanked the club for being one of the event sponsors and encouraged our cooperation and extended an invitation to attend again next year and to please join the planning committee for Arts & Eats 2024.

The event stems from inspiration by Marnita's Table who is a Minneapolis company that focuses on inclusion, bridging gaps across differences, and intentional social interaction bringing community members from all backgrounds together. Arts & Eats has grown each year with the 1^st year being about 100 participants and then 250 the 2^nd and this year drawing 350 children and adults! Free food, great music, a community art project for all ages painting upcycled CD's with creative designs, and the Excelsior Library giving away 240 books to participants! Sarah smiled and said, "It was a wonderful place to be all together and connecting with friends and other community members!"

As always, our Excelsior Rotarians had lots of great questions for Sarah. She explained that they promoted it (in both English and Spanish) thru the Sun Sailor, online, at various churches' community meals, ICA, and flyers posted around Excelsior. The demographics were all ages, genders, ethnicities, abilities and cultures, and each person received a name tag and it had a question on it to help break the ice in meeting others they did not know. In fact, at the greeting table many people didn't even know that it was free! Sponsorship besides the ones mentioned above were direct donations of $500, $750 and $1,000 and listed on tables and the event's banner. Much appreciation for these sponsorships that made Arts & Eats possible.

David Brainerd's Bio

Our Program on Tuesday, August 15^th was David Brainerd’s Bio. David started by giving us his background and noted that his namesake is the

David Brainerd that founded the City of Brainer d Minnesota! He is originally from Iowa and has been in the restaurant business starting in 1981 in Fort Meyers, Florida. He and his wife Tammy, son Max and daughter Lily (now 13 years old) moved to Minnesota in 2010. Important in their move was to find a school system that could meet the needs of their son who is brilliant and has Asperger’s Syndrome. Florida’s educational systems was not meeting his needs and in relocating here they scouted out Minnetonka, Mound and Delano and found Delano’s programs perfectly meet his needs and gave him the opportunity to excel in school and socially. He also shared that his wife Candice is a Cancer Survivor and works with McCormic’s Restaurant in Wayzata for 10 years.

How David came to Minnesota was very interesting. A buddy of his had introduced him to Mark at the Coalition Restaurant and he interviewed and started his job as Manager – Waiter and Bartender the very next day! Then five years ago he was promoted to General Manager. He talked about the challenges that the pandemic caused their business and how they coped to survive it. Coalition had a big tent set up with 4x6 foot plastic sheets to separate tables and instituted take out at Red Sauce Rebellion to stay financially afloat. The added expense individual sanitation packets that had a limited shelf live was expensive and finding workers was extremely difficult but they survived! He noted that he really believes in the Rotarian value statements and they instituted a Coalition code of value that employees are to embrace and follow when dealing with their customers and it works. David is very proud of Coalition’s clean environment with good workers and finds it to be a nurturing environment where everyone is friendly and interacts well with him and each other. The restaurant prides itself as being community based and tries to buy all its foods and supplies locally when possible.

In closing David said, “I really like being part of Rotary and apologize for not being at every meeting as things just come up in the restaurant business that need to be dealt with immediately.” He ended by doing Q&A with club members.

Dan Johnson on Developments in Excelsior

Our Program on Tuesday, August 1^st was Dan Johnson discussing the One West Drive Development in Excelsior on the property of the

old city headquarters and the west parking lot. Dan started by letting us know that he and his family have been part of the community his whole life. His family lived in Tonka Bay and he attended Minnetonka Schools. Hey, he was one of Steve Frazier’s 8^th grade students! He has a great loyalty to Excelsior and lives in town. He loves the small town feel of Excelsior and owns 10 retail businesses and homes in town. Dan is a partner in the Red Leaf Investment and Real Estate Development. He has worked on projects all over the country and particularly likes ventures in towns to help them maintain their character and homey home town feeling.

His current project is One West Drive as mentioned above and will have 50 units, a two and a half story structure with multi-family dwellings of 1-2-and 3 bedrooms and 11 row-house dwellings, parking lots for 330 vehicles (79 private & 251 Public) above and below ground. Dan was wonderfully flexible as our club members ask him questions regarding the technical, mechanical and environmental aspects of the projects. Important to understand is that the financing of the project with the city is by tax-revenue financing with the apartment complexes anticipated to bring in some 10 milling in tax revenues. The project has had some unanticipated cost of over a million dollars to haul away contaminated soil of the 35 foot hole. Dan responded to the effect on the water table by explaining that test drilling of the aquafer showed it to be 50 feet and well below the development and they expended over $400,000 in storm-drain infrastructure along with other city requirements.

Moving on Dan talked about some of the other projects in town and his desire to promote retail businesses along with specialty shops. Specifically he mentioned the Maple Inn renovation to keep its historical presence, Layline Restaurant on the old Gary’s 1^st Class Car Care property on water and 3^rd Street, and Nautical Bowls (in Ron Hugh’s old Minnetonka Printing Bldg.) He ended with his desire to acquire local properties and to help keep the appeal of a vital downtown area in a walkable two block area as Excelsior has become an attraction to the much larger metropolitan area.

Randy Schumacher's Presidency

Our Program on July 18^th Randy Schumacher, Excelsior Rotary President for 2023-2024. Randy outlined his Rotary Presidency by starting

with his Bio. Randy’s wife is Tammy Rogers and they have three children and 6 grandchildren. He was educated at the Standing Rock Reservation School in South Dakota. Randy’s father was director of the Medicaid program in SD. He has Master’s Degree Music Arts and taught at Breck School as Music Director but was laid off in 1984 and changed careers into Financial Management. He also is a professional piano player having played in many venues and continues to do gigs. He owned his own financial management company for 40 years and just recently retired. This is second term as Excelsior Rotary President. Randy concluded his Bio by saying, “I’m grateful for Family, kids, this community that is the best in the world and Rotary!”

Randy then launched into Rotary 101 explaining that there are 1.4 million Rotarians in the world with 46,000 clubs promoting peace, health, clean water, education, and protecting the environment. “The Mission of Rotary is to serve others” said Randy and then outlined the shared vision of Rotary. He introduced us to RI President Gordon McInally and District 5950 Governor Jewelie Grape and their theme this year is “Create Hope in the World.” He noted that, “Our Excelsior Club is primarily a social group involved in planning, having great speakers, serving our community, raising money for charitable donations, and paying club dues that were just increased to RI, the District 5950 and our club.” He explained that as a charitable 501(C)3 we raise money for our foundation which now has over $89,000 emanating from Lee Paris to fund grants, scholarships and club projects. Being a “finance guy” he noted that he has a very specific and detailed budget that he will be presenting to the club’s board of directors in August.

President Randy introduced his board and thanked them for their service and asked each to say a few word about their area. He then revealed his eight goals and ideas for the coming year. They are to keep doing STRIVE, MAD, Book Gathering Project, grants, community service projects, and club social events. Two new goals he would like to pursue with the board is to form a satellite club that would be like a “Happy Hour” group that would meet twice a month at around 5:30. Our club would get credit and attract younger members that may not be able to afford regular club dues. The other goal is to come up with a signature fundraiser(s). Maybe partner with the AM club. One idea is a community talent show competition. Another is to get community members outside the club to sponsor a student scholarship or we might even do a boat parade type contest. He then opened the floor for members to express ideas which elicited such things as a direct giving program, talent contest aimed at youth, community partners for fundraising, and the use of IRA tax free giving. Members are very excited about the Schumacher Presidency and his easy and humorous style will make it a fun year!

President Randy at Bat!

Rotarian Angelina Amerigo Wins Miss Minnesota USA 2023

Rotarian Angelina Amerigo Wins the Miss Minnesota USA 2023

Angelina Amerigo won the Miss Minnesota USA on Friday, June 23^rd! Angelina spoke to our club on March 7th. She is also a Rotarian in the Rotaract eClub on Environment and she chose as her pageant project to be an advocate on the environment and specifically plastic pollution in our rivers and oceans. Our club got behind her both to support her bid to be Miss Minnesota and financial support. She shined in the competition winning the STEM Scholarship, nailed the judge’s questions mentioning her Rotary connection, won the preliminary talent phase, and first place in the Minnesota Scholarship Fund and stunning in the fitness and Evening Gown phases of the competition. She is excited to come back to share with us her journey in the Miss Minnesota Pageant. She will now be on to the Miss America Pageant!