(soft orchestral music) - [Narrator] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

- R-Town, the show about Rochester gets musical as we catch up with the Rochester Pops Orchestra.

And we find out how Olmsted County is planning to use funds from the American Rescue Plan Act to aid with post-pandemic recovery.

We also check out the work of a local photographer and sprout a green thumb with children at Sargent's Gardens.

We have all that and so much more coming up next on R-Town, the show about Rochester.

(upbeat orchestral music) Coming to you from 125 Live in Rochester, Minnesota, R-Town.

(upbeat orchestral music) We're getting a little musical today.

We're joined today by Meghan Kozub of the Rochester Pops Orchestra here to tell us all about what's new with RPO.

It's a pleasure to welcome you back to R-Town, Meghan.

- Thank you.

Thank you so much for having me.

- Can you just remind us again what the Rochester Pops Orchestra is?

- So the Rochester Pops Orchestra is one of Rochester's newest full orchestras, which means we encompass string instruments like brass, lots of percussion, and we do have a lot of featured soloists every concert.

It's a non-profit 401(c)3.

The talent varies.

We have professional musicians, we have incredibly talented local artists and stuff like that who participate.

So it's really all encompassing.

- [Nicole] How many people are part of that orchestra?

- [Meghan] Oh geez, maybe I think about 60 regular members, not including featured soloists or anything like that.

- So you've got your current season happening right now.

Can you tell us a little bit about your upcoming event the week of November 14th?

- So this upcoming week, we have auditions for Rochester's Got Talent.

And it's gonna be based, kind of loosely based off the show.

So anyone 15 or older is encouraged to audition.

Audition spots are filling up and you can find more information about that on our Facebook page or visiting our website.

So if someone's interested in auditioning, I encourage them sooner rather than later.

I think the last audition is on the Saturday.

So anything musically related, and then too, a really awesome feature of this upcoming event is that our director, Brock, he is also arranging all the music selections for the soloists.

So it's a rare opportunity for a soloist to be accompanied by a full orchestra.

- That's amazing.

- Yeah.

- So if someone's considering auditioning, I guess, what should they be asking themselves about?

They're kind of sitting there like, should I audition?

What words would you have for them?

- I would consider like how they feel about performing in front of a huge audience.

And I think it's a really special opportunity.

And if you have skills you want to share, like in Rochester, we have so many talented people from so many different areas and it'd be really cool if you think you have that talent to like come out and show us.

- Wonderful.

What can an audience expect at your upcoming Christmas concert?

- So the concert is December 18th, and we always have a large selection of different music.

So it can be anything from like arrangements from movies.

Like in previous years, we've done a "Home Alone" arrangement.

Or it could be other newer Christmas songs like "Coming Home for Christmas" or something like that.

Or even like classics like "The Nutcracker" or "the Hallelujah Chorus."

- So it's the Rochester Pops Orchestra.

So can you tell us a little bit just about the range of pop that the orchestra engages with?

- So I feel like a lot of people, when they think of orchestras, they think of classical music and stuff like that.

However, the Rochester Pops Orchestra and pops orchestras in general have a lot more diverse libraries that they choose from.

So we'll do selections from musicals like Hamilton and we will do arrangements from movies and stuff like that.

Like our last concert, it was titled, "And The Oscar Goes To," and we played all arrangements from movies that won Oscars.

- Wonderful.

- Yeah.

- So as I mentioned before, you have your current season now, the Christmas concert, and will you be having more performances in the winter and the spring next year?

- Yep.

Every season, we have four concerts.

So we'll be having one in February and then another one in the springtime to end off our eighth season.

- Wonderful.

- Yeah.

- And you're one of the members of the Pops Orchestra.

How'd you get involved?

- So I had just moved to Rochester for a job and I'd played violin since I was a young kid.

So I was looking for ways to like get involved in the community, and meet more people, and stuff like that too.

And someone at work had mentioned about this new group and the director, Brock, and how involved and passionate he is about this new orchestra he just started.

So I reached out and auditioned and sit in the first violin section now.

- That's amazing.

- Yeah.

- What a wonderful way to get involved in the community and get engaged.

In the last few seconds here, how can folks stay connected and get tickets for your upcoming shows?

- So I would really recommend following us on Facebook.

We post all of our events and stuff like that.

And then also you can sign up on our website to be part of our email list.

And you can also purchase tickets and then find other links.

And I would encourage if anyone's interested in participating in the Rochester Pops Orchestra to sign up for an audition.

We're always looking for really wonderful new talents.

- Wonderful.

Well, thank you so much, Meghan, for joining us.

- Yeah, thank you.

- And good luck with the upcoming auditions and the concert.

- [Meghan] Thank you.

- And we hope to have you back on again.

- Awesome, thank you so much.

I appreciate it.

- Yeah, of course.

(funky jazz music) Be sure to stick around.

We have much more coming your way on R-Town.

We head over to Sargent's Gardens to check out their Wee Wednesdays programming to help kids love the great outdoors and gardening.

And we learn how the county is planning to use federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act.

But up first, we explore the work of a photographer committed to a traditional technique in this week's R Culture segment.

(soft ambient music) - Hello, I'm Jeff Thompson.

I'm a retired Mayo physician and a Black and White Photographer.

In high school, I had a class, a photography class, and that kind of got me interested in it and learned some of the basics.

When my grandpa died and we had a big box of photographs and I noticed that all the color photographs were faded and look crappy, but the black and white ones, some that were like 70, 80 years old, still look great.

I just like the aesthetics of black and white photography.

With color, it's more about the color.

If the colors are there, it's pretty and it's a nice picture.

With black and white, it's more about the composition and the textures.

It takes a different way of looking at the world to get good black and white photography.

Plus, I was inspired by Ansel Adams and the cool pictures he took.

With black and white photography, I think of it as not using electronics or computers and things like that to get the picture right, but just using my own skills in composition and then in the post production.

Getting the picture to look right, doing it on a computer just feels kind of sterile.

The dark room is part of the fun part because that's where you take the image from the negative and kind of manually manipulate it to match what your vision of the picture was.

Once it's gone through the chemistry and so on and you wash it, and I usually stick it up here, then I'll turn the light on and see what I've got.

And then decide on where the burning and so on needs to happen.

Most of what I do is landscape photography or buildings.

When we're traveling, going on trips, I'll bring the black and white camera and take some pictures.

And usually, it's landscape.

Those are some of my favorites.

We were going touring just along the shore of Thailand and that was a little hut that was perched on the cliff there that I thought was kind of neat.

Zion and Bryce Canyons in Utah, of course, my kids and my grand kid, I took a series of pictures, this is at like three weeks, four weeks or so.

And then every few months as he aged.

And this was this year at Christmas at the end.

Some of the scenery in the out west and then the boundary waters.

In the boundary waters, there's not a lot of soil.

It's really rocky and then a little thin layer of soil.

And so trees will start out on a rock and then become big trees balancing on a rock.

So I took a series of photos, "Rooted in the Rock," I call it.

You have to learn to see in black and white.

You have to kind of ignore the colors.

And if it's the colors that are making it interesting, it may not be an interesting black and white picture.

So those are the kinds of manipulations you would do.

And then when you're done, it looks like this so you can actually see the leaves and the trees and they're not just all whited out.

But if you can kind of see in shades of intensity, and patterns, and textures, and see what you think is gonna be a good picture, then you try to get that visualization to come to life in the dark room.

- [Narrator] For more information about this story and other R-Town features, connect with us on Facebook, Twitter at KSMQ #RTown or KSMQ.org/RTown.

(funky jazz music) - Hi, this is Danielle Teal with R-Town Spotlight.

I'm here with the Seasons Hospice Executive Director, Kristina Wright Peterson.

Thank you so much for being here today.

- Yeah, thanks for having me.

- All right.

This is sort of a new gig for you, but you have background in this dynamic.

So share a little bit about how you arrived to Seasons Hospice and what is Seasons Hospice too?

- Yeah, so I became a volunteer in the early 2000's.

I was looking for a way to give back in the community.

I was drawn to hospice care due to a family experience with a death.

And so I joined there as a volunteer, and then about five years ago, came on board as a nurse, and just this year in 2022 became the executive director.

- And Seasons Hospice specifically is focused around?

- Yeah, so we're a nonprofit Medicare certified hospice agency serving Rochester and a 40 mile radius.

So we go into about seven different counties.

And we provide end of life care in the home, whatever that home may be for the patient, whether that's a nursing home, assisted living, a group home, or their residential property.

We also have a hospice house here in Rochester.

There's only about 20 in the state, so it's a pretty unique offering.

And we have eight beds there where we provide 24 hour nursing care for our hospice patients.

- The holidays are arriving and we know that grief is a part of that, experiences with depression and things like that related to the holidays and lost loved ones.

Can you share a little bit more about Seasons Hospice role in just supporting individuals and families during those times?

- Absolutely.

We know that grief can come at any time, sometimes expected and unexpected, but the holidays are a time where we do expect to see more grief, whether the loss was recently or 25 years ago.

So at Seasons, we have our Center for Grief Education and Support where we offer groups where individuals can come and sit with others.

We also offer one-on-one counseling sessions with our bereavement counselors.

Those are open to anyone in the community.

It doesn't have to be someone who had a family member on our program.

It's something that we want to provide to everyone as we go into this really challenging time.

- Kristina, that's so special that you all do that.

I know that people are interested in volunteering and you always need volunteers.

How can people find out more information on how they can volunteer and connect?

- Yeah, so our website is probably the easiest way, SeasonsHospice.org.

You can call our office, you can come by and see us.

We're also on social media, so those are all the great places where you can connect.

- That's perfect.

And any upcoming events that you want to highlight or anything?

- So we have a Memories of the Heart that'll be a recorded program and that's gonna go live on December 1st.

- Perfect.

And they can find out details on the website.

- You got it.

- Perfect.

Thank you so much, Kristina.

- Yeah, thank you.

- And thank you so much, this is Danielle Teal with R-Town Spotlight.

(upbeat orchestral music) - Hello again.

This is Michael Wojcik with your R-Town Rundown.

One of the things that makes Rochester and really any community great is the opportunities that we have for our youth.

Now, you may not have a kid in the schools yourself, but that doesn't mean we can't go out and support them.

We have to give congratulations to the Mayo Football Team who is now playing in the state quarter finals.

They'll be playing against Mankato West in a rematch from earlier this season for the right to go on to the state semifinal.

But in addition to the athletics, a lot of our kids participate in arts, and this happens to be theater season.

There are theater productions going on in all three of our public high schools.

At Century High School at various times this weekend, you can catch "Peter and the Star Catcher," and that's gonna be a number of times at Century High School this weekend.

Going on next weekend at John Marshall will be "Beauty and the Beast," and simultaneously at Mayo will be "Mary Poppins."

So if you'd like to see any of those, there's a number of times that they're available.

Also going on on Saturday is an event that started in 2016 and that is the Minnesota Christmas Market.

This is an interesting event in that a portion of the proceeds from these local creators and craftsmen go to helping refugees with higher education expenses in the community.

Currently going on through the end of the year at the History Center of Olmsted County, there is an exhibit on the history of PrideFest in Rochester, which dates back to the 1980s.

Admission is free anytime the history center is open, and if you're not a member, there's a small fee.

Going on on Sunday at the Rochester Art Center, there is an artist-led looking at climate change tour that is at 1:00 p.m. at the Rochester Art Center.

And tickets for that are free at the link below.

At 1:30 at Quarry Hill, there is a cave tour and history walk that'll be going on.

Tickets for that are $4.00.

And finally at 2:00 p.m. at Century High School, the Semyo Fall Orchestra Concert will be going on.

Tickets to that are $10 for adults and free for youth.

And that's just a little bit of what's going on in R-Town.

(upbeat ukulele music) - Hi, I'm Nick Sargent.

Today is one of my favorite days of the year, teaching kids about big machines on our Wee Wednesday class.

Wee Wednesday's our class we do once a month for children between two and five.

It's been going on about 15 years.

So the kids show up, it's about a 15 minute class and they start out inside, they read a book, they get a snack, get things started, and then they'll call me on the radio.

That's when I'll meet the group in back.

I'll obviously be very concerned with safety and do everything that ensures the safety of everyone involved.

And then they'll go out, touch the machines, look at them, then they'll all step way back into a controlled zone.

And then I'll run the machines and show them how they work.

What we love the most is seeing the wonder in the kids' eyes as they're learning about nature.

And far as today's class, it's the machines the kids love to read about and see.

And you just see the smiles, and the wonder, and laughter.

And I like to get in there and joke around with them.

And yeah, the machines we use are a skid loader, an excavator, a forklift, and an articulated motor.

So I'll explain how each one works to them.

They all work in significantly different ways for different jobs.

I'll load a truck, I'll dump the truck, I'll push in some mulch, we'll lift a pallet, take the weight of the pallet, and show them a lot of the intricacies of each machine.

At the end of each class, and I've been doing this it's probably more like 17 years, at the end, sometimes every machine after I show 'em, the kids will spontaneously break out in applause for me and the parents and things.

So just to see that and catch their excitement is really wonderful.

(upbeat electronic music) - Today, we're joined by Wilfredo Roman Catala, the Olmsted County Chief Financial Officer here to share more with us about how the county is planning to use federal funds from the American Rescue Plan Act.

Welcome to R-Town, Wilfredo.

- My pleasure.

Thank you.

- So can you start off by just reminding us what the American Rescue Plan Act is?

- Yeah, it's a huge stimulus bill from the federal government geared to help recovery from the pandemic from an economic standpoint and has many programs.

Within those programs, there's one specifically to local governments like Olmsted County in order to help us with any revenue shortfalls that happened during the pandemic and looking forward as well.

And also important to how do we take care of vulnerable populations.

So those are kind of the two focus points of our local physical recovery program, which is part of the ARPA.

- And a lot of, I mean, most of that funding is really to help post pandemic recovery.

- Exactly, yes.

- So how much funding is currently available to the county through the American Rescue Plan Act?

- Yeah, so the county as an organization receive about 31 million.

Of those dollars, the first half of that was paid early on in 2021, and then the second half was received yet this year.

Of those dollars, about 85% of it has already been allocated to initiative by the county board.

And about six million or so or 20% is still pending because we know we are gonna have transition with the board and they would like to have those incoming commissioners to have a say in how those funds are used.

- Fantastic.

So let's talk a little bit about that allocation.

What are some of the areas or issues that will be funded using these funds?

- Yeah, first of all, the county took a very holistic approach to how the funds could be used.

So they reached out to partners in the community, nonprofits or their local governments in order to make a decision in how that plays out with our own strategic priorities, but then looking forward, how do we partner with others to make the things happen?

So a number of things took into place.

Number one was obviously, there's a huge impact on the economic side about housing.

So a significant amount of dollars, more than half of the dollars, about 16.1 million were put aside or allocated for housing preservation, new home ownership opportunities, and increasing supply of housing.

So we're working with partners specifically in that area.

In addition to that, we have a significant amount of dollars going to how do we maintain our natural environment, especially our soil and water resources, and how the impact of farming has on those resources.

And while farmers do a great job of making sure we have suitable for the future land practices, this is another opportunity to enhance those practices to bring it to a different level.

- Wonderful.

So housing and then the built environment or the natural environment as well, can you tell us a little bit about, going back to housing, some of the specific projects that are planned to address housing needs in the county?

- Yeah, so the county board, obviously there were immediate or critical needs, for example, homelessness, and how do we take care of that population.

So obviously right away, the county board allocated about 100,000 to do some kind of remodeling of the Rochester warming center, make sure it was able to be viable for years to come.

So that was right away put into motion and practice.

And then through those partnerships, start looking into what are the needs of the community because we don't know better by ourselves, right?

Through that partnership, looking into how do we impact the BIPOC community, Black, Indigenous and People of Color, also those vulnerable populations, people experiencing homelessness and needing transitional housing and things like that, especially for example, veterans who are homeless.

So through those partnership, we are working with the First Homes Rochester Foundation in our partners in the coalition, meaning the City of Rochester, Mayo Clinic and (indistinct) Foundation to develop those strategies, how do they look like, so we can increase home ownership not only for People of Color, but also for people with income less than 50% of the area median income.

- Definitely.

And then in terms of supporting improvements to the national environment and our local regional agriculture, what are some specific projects that are being looked at?

- Yeah, so currently, our county, in conjunction with the Soil and Water Conservation District, set aside the three million to help with producers, meaning farmers to put into practice those practices that will reduce or minimize the amount of nitrogen that may leach into the soil and then eventually make it to our aquifers.

So those practice are going on right now.

I believe we are in agreement with 52 producers.

Currently, after they finish harvest, they're doing what they call cropping, meaning that they're gonna be planting additional material or plants so then we can absorb that nutrient that otherwise will leach out into the aquifers.

- So you mentioned housing and also the natural environment here.

I also heard that there were some plans for mental health.

Can you talk a little bit about the portion of the funding that will be used to address mental health?

- Absolutely.

So that's a very important aspect as well.

As you know, through being at home and missing school, there was a lot of mental issues related to our younger population.

So a segment of the dollars were allocated so we could hire social workers that work with students at school through elimination or minimizing truancy in managing mental health issues.

I believe we have about $800,000 of that 31 million allocated to pay for those kind of services.

- Wonderful.

In our last few seconds here, can you just tell us what the timeline for this expenditure of these funds may be and how people can just learn more?

- Yeah, so absolutely.

Out of, like I said, out of the 31 million, most of it has already been allocated and in the process being spent.

We have all the way until the end of 2026 to do the final expenses, but those dollars need to be committed before the end of 2024.

For more information, they can go to Olmstead County website to get additional information about how they can learn more about the ARPA funding.

- Wonderful.

Well, thank you so much for joining us with, Wilfredo.

Thank you for all you do for the county.

- [Wilfredo] My pleasure, thank you.

- [Nicole] We hope to have you back on again.

- Yeah, my pleasure.

- And thank you all for joining us today.

For more wonderful content produced right here in Rochester, please be sure to check us out on Facebook and Twitter at #RTown.

I'm Nicole Nfonoyim-Hara for R-Town, the show about Rochester.

Be well and stay safe.

We will see you next time.

(upbeat electronic music) (soft orchestral music) - [Narrator] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.