- [Narrator 1] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.

(gentle music) - "R-Town, the show about Rochester" learns about a local mentorship program, inspiring the next generation of engineers, scientists, and scholars.

And we visited a coffee shop that's building community with people of all ages.

We also get the latest from the RCTC campus, all that and so much more coming up next on "R-Town, the show about Rochester."

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

(upbeat music continues) Today we're joined by Sydney Lundell here to tell us more about Oraculi Mentorship Program, inspiring the next generation of engineers, scientists, and scholars in our city.

Welcome to "R-Town," Sydney.

- Thanks.

Thank you for having me.

- So what is Oraculi and what was the inspiration behind it?

So Oraculi is a mentorship program.

We take students that are in the Rochester Public School District and we pair them with STEM professionals in the community.

So that looks primarily like graduate students at Mayo Clinic, but can be anybody from technicians to mechanics to nurses.

And my personal favorite is we have a couple retirees as well.

- Okay.

Amazing.

So what was the sort of the inspiring force behind the start of this?

- This is, I love this story.

So in 2019, we had three, our three founders were, decided they were gonna volunteer at the STEM Fair.

And they came to the STEM Fair, and it was nothing like they remembered it when they were kids.

There was a lot less students.

There was, I wanna say about 20 students.

And one of the students had, what was obviously like Mayo Clinic-backed research, right?

So you had pictures from labs where they were doing all these Petri cultures and they had these beautiful images on this beautiful trifold, and then there's a student next to them who had their poster made out of cardboard from a cereal box.

Like they had taped cereal boxes together for their poster.

And both projects had like the same amount of effort.

You can tell that the student used what they had for their level of science, but there was a huge disparity at the STEM Fair.

And on top of that, just not a lot of people were participating.

So they decided they wanted to, you know, change that.

And so they came up with Oraculi, which is amazing nonprofit, in hopes of getting more students interested in the STEM Fair.

And ideally, kind of providing equity across the STEM Fair.

So we have people, or we've had a lot of donations that have given us the ability to do cultures, Petri dishes, some students build robots.

I mean, it's everything to kind of level the playing field while also giving people support.

'Cause we tend to forget here in Rochester that not everybody's a Mayo Clinic employee.

And so not all of these students have direct access to a STEM professional.

- Can you talk a little bit more about some of the challenges that are facing youth that are interested in STEM in our community, especially those from underrepresented minorities?

- Yeah.

Well, to start off, we have a lot of students who are latchkey kids in the program.

And so it's very hard for a lot of these parents to get their students to, one, to the STEM Fair, if they wanna do the STEM Fair, as well as if they were to be mentored.

You know, getting them to their mentor, getting their mentor to them.

So a lot of our students are actually at the after-school program.

So they don't go home right away because they'll get a snack after school and then they get to, you know, hang out for an hour or two or from mom and pick them up.

And that in itself has a lot of students who they might join the program because they just need a place to be after school.

But then by the end of it, they're really excited about science fair.

Like they think they're just the coolest thing ever.

- [Nicole] They are.

- They are.

They are.

They absolutely are.

And so it's, one, is just the time and the ability to get the student to the person or the person to the student.

The other is resources.

Resources can look like a lot of things.

That can be mentors, that can be equipment to do the experiments with.

And that can be food.

We, I mean, people come for food, so a lot of the times we wanna try and, you know, have some pizza available.

- Yeah.

- And that in itself can be kind of expensive when you have like 200 students that you're working with.

So it's, resources are always kind of what it boils down to is what can we give these students, what do we have access to, what can we get donations, and how do we get that to the students that are gonna use it the best.

- Can you describe some of the projects that the students have been involved in?

- So I had a list written down because I'm so excited about some of these projects.

So I personally, I do a little bit of mentoring myself with the group and I work with the robot teams.

So the people that wanna build robots that are robots, or want to work on like little coding devices, or one of our groups wants to create a stoplight that responds to the decibel levels of the school.

So they think that there are some classrooms that are just too loud.

And they have research that says, you know, "Too much exposure, this much noise is gonna cause you to experience hearing loss."

So they want to have a little red light that is, you know, red light goes off if it's too loud, yellow light is like, "Oh, you're getting kind of up there," and then the green light's like, "You're good.

You're not gonna be damaging your hearing."

So they're building that.

Another one of my students, and I'm so proud of her, is interested in using a neural network to identify heart rate monitor signals that are corrupted by movement that you have when you wear the device.

She wants to clean up so that doctors can use them to identify different diseases.

We have a group who's interested in seeing how different diseases and different bacteria spread on skin for, with makeup involved.

So they wanna see if the preservatives in makeup affect the spread of bacteria.

So just a couple days ago, they were taking their agar and they were putting all of the stuff into it and sealing it, and it was, I don't do that personally.

So it was very interesting and exciting to see these students doing these amazing stuff.

So we have every type of science project you can think of.

My personal favorite, I think this one is super creative, is a student wants to know how students pick their science fair project.

- [Nicole] Huh?

- So he's serving all of the students at the science fair and saying, "Why'd you pick your project?

How'd you get there?"

And so that's, I think, that one's gonna be pretty interesting when we get to the science fair.

So we'll see how that goes.

- I love it.

I could see your excitement and your passion for it, and what a diversity of different projects- - [Sydney] Right.

- The students are working on.

Can you tell us the ages and like the school group, or the school age that the children are at?

- Yeah, so we have sixth grade up to high-schoolers.

Our biggest program is actually at John Adams.

So we have 80 to 100 students- - [Nicole] Wow.

- In person.

On average, the other middle schools are about 12 to 20.

And then our high school students, so we started in the middle schools and we're kind of spreading into the high schools.

We're still not quite established, but we have seven or eight high school students who are working with mentors right now to work on their projects.

So they're kind of head, or they're heading the drive to get us established into these high schools.

- Excellent.

Mentorship is a core part of this program.

How do you find your mentors?

What do you look for in mentors?

How do they get matched with the students?

- Yeah, so it's a big process.

A little bit behind the curtain, we do a lot of recruitment from the graduate school at Mayo Clinic.

We also go to fellows and doctors and nurses because they tend to have kind of the flexibility in their schedule, especially graduate students, to be able to, you know, go there at 3:30 in the afternoon, where a lot of people are still working.

But we've also been able to, we also want people who just have some science experience in their life, in general.

- How do you work with the local schools and other community partners?

And why is that sort of community engagement such an important part of this?

- Yeah.

Community engagement's huge for us.

We do a lot with One Discovery Square and Pasquale's actually.

We love Pasquale's.

We really thrive with community members coming in and donating materials as well.

We have had people who say, "Oh, I just have this in my garage," and it's like a whole set of Petri dishes.

And they're like, "Do you guys want 'em?"

And we're like, "Yes, please.

That sounds wonderful."

But it is the backbone of Oraculi, We really benefit from financial donations and then just any kind of a science equipment you have around, because we do cover the registration costs for our students.

so they don't have to pay for the STEM Fair registration.

As long as they're with us, we're capable of covering that.

But that is where we benefit the most from our community members who will step up and support those, our young scientists.

I also love...

So Oraculi this year is the fiscal agent of the STEM Fair, meaning that we're kind of in charge of making sure that all of the funding for, you know, food for the students, awards for the students is kind of set up.

And we've been able to reach out to community members and groups in the community and say, "Would you be interested in funding an award?

They're not expensive, they're like $50."

And we actually ask that you bring, or you have someone come to the STEM Fair and just look at the exhibits and look at the students, talk to the students, and decide who is most representative of the category or kind of the exhibit, or the qualities that you think your award means.

And then you give that student that award.

And these students love that.

They think it's just the coolest thing.

And it is.

I mean, they have worked so hard for this recognition.

So we try and really highlight what every student has done really well that year.

- Excellent.

Can you tell us a little bit more about the upcoming STEM Fair?

- Yes.

I would love talking about STEM Fair.

So STEM Fair is on February 28th this year.

It is at RCTC Community College's Athletic Complex.

We anticipate having probably at least 100 students, possibly up to 120, showing their experiments.

High school group has been growing a lot these last couple of years, and we need judges for every single one of them.

The way judging works is you have three rounds of judging, and we make sure that each student has at least two judging experiences.

So when you do the math, that's a lot of people that we need.

And it's from 9:30 to 2:00, so it's kind of like a beginning of your day, but it is a Friday.

So it's kind of a nice way to start your Friday when usually you'd be like kind of in the slums of Friday, right?

We do feed you, which is also a plus.

- That's good.

- I mean, who doesn't like pizza?

Yeah.

The students love being judged at the STEM Fair.

It is like the most important thing to them is getting feedback on their stuff, and it's how you learn.

They've been around their mentors who have been helping them throughout the year kind of plan and explain the science to them, make sure they understand it.

But they wanna show people and talk to people about it.

And this is like the most exciting time for them.

They want to go to the STEM Fair this year.

Like five years ago, a lot of students were like, "Oh, I don't wanna do the STEM Fair.

That's boring."

Now, we have like multiple buses that we have to bus all the students during the day for that, which is amazing.

It is amazing that we have that many students interested this year.

- You are yourself a PhD candidate, you're a mentor.

How have your own experiences STEM sort of influenced the work that you do in the program?

- Yeah.

I'll be honest, I had to think really hard about this one because I didn't have a STEM Fair when I was growing up.

I'm from the Chicago suburbs, and we just didn't have a lot of science funding.

But I thought about it.

And at the same age that these students are in middle school, I didn't get involved in a STEM program.

It was a before school STEM program, but it was women in STEM, and it was run specifically for girls who were interested in doing some type of science, technology, engineering program.

And I loved it.

And I think that that kind of pushed me in the direction of doing math and science.

And, I mean, when I look at the students that we have now in our program and the students who have gone on to college, because we have students who are in high school when we started and have now our freshman in college, they've reached out to us and said, "Hey, I wanna do research at Mayo during the summer.

How do I do that?

Who do I talk to?"

So we're seeing that echo from these students that we worked with coming back to Mayo Clinic and sort of building up that next generation of scientists, which, I mean, it gives me chills just thinking about the impact that we're having on these kids.

And it's so important to just have critical thinking skills, and that's what they're learning, and I think that's probably the most exciting part to me.

- And they can take that anywhere.

- Yeah, absolutely.

- [Nicole] For sure.

How can community members learn more and get involved, and, yeah, figure out how to support the upcoming STEM Fair and you all?

- Yeah.

So the best way is to reach out to us at oraculi.mentors@gmail.com.

You can also go to our website, oraculi, O-R-A-C-U.li.

And we have information about volunteering about the STEM Fair.

We have our email on there.

Just reach out.

There is, we'll have like a link on there to sign up for the STEM Fair.

You can also go to community ed and find it that way.

Those are probably our two main ways of volunteering right now, or reaching out to us.

- Awesome.

Well, thank you so much for doing us, Sydney.

- [Sydney] Thank you for having me.

- Thank you for all the work that you're doing with our students and our young scientists.

- Thank you.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - Be sure to stick around.

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

We visit St. James Coffee in Rochester during their TEEN Karaoke Night and learn how this coffee shop is building community for people of all ages.

We also catch up with what's new on the RCTC campus in this week's R-Future segment.

(upbeat music) - Tonight we're having our monthly TEEN Karaoke, and it's games and pizza and other snack night.

- [Customer] What happened.

- Coming out of COVID, my three teenage daughters needed something to do and another friend.

So we just invited kids to come in and play games that we could play safely with masks and things on.

And over the years, it's kind of exploded from being like a dozen kids playing games, and we added karaoke and we added pizza and we've added a bunch of other things, and now we average between like 50 to 70 kids.

- Tonight is TEEN Karaoke Night at St. James.

I've been coming since I was a freshman in high school, I think.

- They're kids from our St. James community.

Other, like kids that volunteer here, a lot of kids from the homeschool community.

It was a lot of my kids' friends to begin with, and it's their younger siblings and their friends, and it just kind of has grown from there.

We do this once a month, typically like the third Saturday, but always once a month.

- I've been coming to Karaoke Night for about a year and a half.

I heard about it from volunteering here.

So I like see the signs and everything.

- You know, the kids really actually enjoy some of the '80s songs and even older.

A lot of them sing like John Denver and, just, yeah, like some really old classic songs.

Our rule is if you can't sing it in front of Jesus, you shouldn't probably sing it here.

I have a couple kids that really enjoy musical theater, and I will definitely put in some requests when they are here.

They sing some songs from the musical, "Hamilton," and one of the boys definitely sings the song, "You'll Be Back," and that's one of my favorites.

(students chattering) ♪ Now I know she'll never leave me ♪ ♪ Even as she runs away ♪ ♪ She will still torment me ♪ ♪ Calm me, hurt me ♪ ♪ Move me, come what may ♪ ♪ Wasting in my lonely tower ♪ ♪ Waiting by an open door ♪ - St. James Coffee is actually a standalone 501c3 nonprofit.

We run as a Catholic coffee shop, on Catholic morals, business values, ethics, but we are not actually supported by anyone in like our diocese with the Catholic church or anyone else.

We just do all of our own fundraising to stay open ourselves.

- Yeah, I think it can give me getting used to being around people and just being more comfortable in front of people, so.

- Fulfilling, I would say.

Just that time spent with friends, eating good food, playing games, singing songs, just memories that we get to make here.

- It gives the kids a really safe place to be for one evening.

We go from 6:00 to 9:00 PM, but oftentimes we're still here at midnight.

I don't mind staying so that they're not out on the streets doing anything.

So parents can drop their kids off and know that they are safe for a few hours, at least on a Saturday night and staying outta trouble.

♪ So far beyond my reach ♪ ♪ She's never out of sight ♪ ♪ And as the long, long nights begin ♪ ♪ I'll think of all that might have been ♪ ♪ Waiting here for evermore ♪ (students clapping) (students chattering) - We prefer they'd be between like 13 and 18, but we have some of the older kids come as well that have been coming for years.

And if kids are under 13, hopefully they're mature enough to be here.

Usually here with older siblings.

These nights only run by donation.

I have a few very generous donors that think it's really important for teenagers to have something constructive and fun to do.

So they often pay for the pizza, they pay for the snacks.

They basically completely sponsor the evenings.

- My favorite part about being here, I'd say, is all my friends and the community here.

- I get to see my best friends in a great environment and do something I love, which is to sing and enjoy fellowship.

- [Student Volunteer] The hardest part about performing in front of a crowd is probably having all the eyes staring at you.

- So we serve as like a community coffee shop.

We keep our prices low, we run lots of community events, we host lots of things.

Our goal is evangelization through hospitality.

♪ Who can say if I've been changed for the better?

♪ ♪ Because I knew you ♪ (student faintly talking) ♪ I have been changed for good ♪ - [Narrator 2] For more information about this story and other "R-Town" features, connect with us on Facebook, Twitter @KSMQ #RTown, or ksmq.org/rtown.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music) - This is Macy Lee for R-Future.

Let's ask some students what their spring goals are for the semester.

- Some of my goals are to, well, first pass all my classes, but I wanna get into this phlebotomy program, and that's also one of my goals.

So thank you.

- You're gonna rock it.

Thank you.

- I would say definitely passing my classes and definitely just learning new things.

I absolutely love my classes.

And I'd say meeting new people.

- Getting my EMT certification and passing most of my classes.

(record winding) All of my classes.

(everyone laughing) - My goal is to graduate high school and college at the same time.

- [Macy] Yes, I love that.

- My spring semester goals is to keep all my A's, and, you know, get a good score of my ACT 'cause, you know, I'm still in high school.

- [Macy] Yeah.

- So I'm hoping this semester, I can focus on doing it more efficiently.

- Yeah.

- Doing college more- - Yeah.

- Adult like.

- Okay.

- I mean, there's really no other way to put it.

- Yes.

- But, you know- - Yes.

- Making sure I'm eating healthy foods, making sure I'm getting well-rested, studying for tests in a adequate time.

- Yeah.

- Just to try and be here as much as much as possible, regardless of what my body tells me.

(laughs) Kinda soak up as much as I can really and just prepare for the next semester.

Because I want to go in for a veterinary technician.

- [Macy] Cool.

- And that's what I was doing last semester.

They only hold that during the fall.

- [Macy] Yeah.

- So just kind of getting ready for the fall, I guess.

- [Macy] Yes.

(student faintly speaking) - My goal for this semester is just to get through the semester, 100% completion, and with flying colors, hopefully.

- [Macy] Yes.

We appreciate you.

- I just registered.

- [Macy] Yes.

Yay!

(gentle music) - [Narrator 3] The RCTC Hive Supply Food Shelf has been an operation for nearly a decade, helping students overcome food insecurities.

Hive Supply coordinator, Lexi Fernandez, explains what the Hive Supply is all about.

- The Hive Supply is RCTC's on-campus food pantry, and this is a resource available to all RCTC students, but specifically students that are struggling with food insecurity.

We're open Monday through Fridays, from 8:00 to 4:30.

It's really easy for students to just come in here.

All they have to do is swipe their student ID, and that just helps us to keep track of how many students are utilizing the resource.

So we do have kind of a combination of perishable and non-perishable food items in here.

So we do have a lot of canned items such as canned chicken, canned tuna, beans, SpaghettiOs, just like easy stuff to grab.

And then we do have, on Mondays, we get fresh food items delivered from Trader Joe's, so that kind of consists of fresh fruits, fresh vegetables, sometimes we'll get salad kits, wraps, and stuff like that.

We also do get donated a lot of frozen meat from Cub Foods as well.

And we do get a lot of bakery items from Cub Foods as well.

So kind of a mixture of perishable, non-perishable.

I would say, there are definitely certain days that are busier than others.

We do get deliveries on Mondays and Thursdays, and those are typically the days where we have a lot more students coming in just because that's when we have the most food in here.

So I would say Mondays and Thursdays, it can range from around 40 to 50 people that will come in through here.

And then I would say the rest of the days, probably like 15 to 20-ish people a day.

We do do surveys every year, and we do get a lot of data back, indicating that there is definitely a problem.

And so that's why this resource is so great.

So we can kind of help diminish the amount of students that are facing food insecurity on campus.

So every year, State Farm does donate to us.

Last year, I believe, they donated $5,000 to us.

And this year, we did receive $10,000 from State Farm, which is really generous amount of money.

That will definitely be useful for us when we are purchasing new food items for the Hive Supply.

If a grocery store manager would like to reach out, I would probably be the first point of contact for that, and then I would reach out to my supervisor, the vice president of Student Affairs.

And also Anfa, she helps students with basic needs on campus as well.

So that would kind of be the point of contacts for that.

(gentle music continues) - Thank you for joining us today.

I hope you learned as much as I did about all that's going on in our city and the wonderful people making it happen.

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

I'm Nicole Nfonoyim-Hara, host of "R-Town, the show about Rochester."

We'll see you next time.

(upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (gentle music) - [Narrator 1] Funding for this program is provided in part by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of Minnesota.