Adult Basic Education (ABE)

• Hawthorne Education Center: Adults, 17 years and older, can improve their skills in reading, writing, math and computer. Face to face classes are available with a teacher, as well as computer-based programs. These classes can help you get prepared for college and/or employment. Hours: 8:30 a.m. -8:00 p.m., Monday through Thursday.

Allies & Advocates

• Diversity Council: Allies & Advocates is a community response program that nurtures and supports individuals experiencing heightened anxiety, uncertainty, or incidents of hate/bias in this challenging social and cultural climate. We have been receiving communications regularly and increasingly from individuals deeply affected by what is transpiring here in Rochester, in our state, nationally, even globally. We want to be able to field these calls with empathy and wisdom. We decided to tap our greatest resource – compassionate people.

Art of Hosting (aka: Art of Participatory Leadership)

• University of Minnesota Extension: Sponsored by a coalition of community organizations, this three day training will provided to 25-30 existing and emerging leaders with a particular focus on inviting participants from Rochester’s diverse ethnic and racial communities.

Bias/Hate Crime and Incident Response

• Olmsted County Human Rights Commission: To execute an effective community response to bias/hate crimes and to bias/hate incidents that supports the victims and victims' families.

Bridges to Healthcare

• TBD: The health-care pathway that’s now feeding talent into Mayo and local long-term-care facilities, began as a much smaller initiative in 2010. Folks at RCTC had received grant funding to create a curriculum that would prepare students for a career at a place like Mayo. Staff spent time at the clinic shadowing employees and visiting with patients to get a better sense of what the jobs entailed. They also brought Hawthorne on board, with the hopes that those who graduated from the adult education program would enroll.

CDI Bridges

• Community Interfaith Dialogue on Islam (CIDI): The bridges already exist. Let's CROSS them!

Collaborative Leadership Fellow Program

• CLF: Strengthen community capacity for collaborative leadership, and Ensure succession of community leadership invested in multi-sector solutions to complex community issues.

Community Beam to enable community collaboration

• openBEAM.net: Many best-practiced communities have implemented community web-based dashboards to provide a "read-out" of the health and wellness metrics of the community. DMCC's website is a push technology and not so much as social, collaborative virtual teaming site. Olmsted County, Mayo, OMG (and others) have just completed a community health study and published a report. We should go further and have a plan to be more agile and responsive in changing statistics by implementing a dashboard.

Community Center Northwest of Rochester (Empowerment Center)

• Center City Housing: A project for homeless families in the Rochester area is seeking funding for what the planners are calling the "Empowerment Center" to be housed in a former elementary school. Center City Housing Corp., a nonprofit based in Duluth, announced Thursday that more than 80 percent of those that participated in a campaign planning study support the idea of turning the East Gage School site into a community center, to be called the Empowerment Center.

Community Leaders Creating Change

• Diversity Council: A DC initiative to provide individuals from underrepresented populations with self-advocacy skills and an understanding of bias.

Closing referral disparities (resolution agreement with Office of Civil Rights)

• Rochester Public Schools: Need to close the disciplinary gap. Black and Hispanic students are referred to the office at a significantly higher rate when compared to white students and Asian students. Black and Hispanic students receive In-School-Suspensions at a significantly higher rate when compared to white students and Asian students. Black and Hispanic students receive Out-Of-School-Suspensions at a significantly higher rate when compared to white students and Asian students.

Intercultural Cities Initiative (ICI)

• Diversity Council: The Intercultural City Initiative is a bold effort on the part of a wide variety of organizations and individuals to align the collective power, creativity, expertise, and energy of our cities toward a future of inclusive growth. Inspired by the comprehensive and coordinated approach of the Council of Europe Intercultural City program, Minnesota’s Intercultural City Initiative is focused on using high leverage influence strategies to realize this future faster.

J2G Become a Cohesive Connected Region

• J2G Regional Committee: Objective: Foster Dialogue to Forge a Shared Regional Identity and Explore Benefits and Alternatives for Comprehensive Regional Planning & Development

Regional Video Projects

• Journey to Growth Partnership: The Regional Community Video project is collaboration between Journey to Growth (J2G) and SE MN Together. Over the past 18 months a committee of regional leaders have been meeting on a regular basis discussing ways to promote a unified message about our Southeast Minnesota region. These meetings led the team to travel throughout the region. It was discovered each community had fascinating unique features, from how the town was formed to how the town has changed. SE MN Together (SEMNT) has been hosting regional meetings throughout Southeastern Minnesota. J2G and SEMNT discovered they were on a common path in regards to marketing our region and decided to collaborate on the Regional Community Video Project (RCVP). The goal of the Regional Community Video Project (RCVP) is to further move us towards becoming a more connected and cohesive region while celebrating our uniqueness through creativity and storytelling.

Rochester Racial Justice Toolkit

• RRJ: The Toolkit is a compilation of articles, guides, news, videos, social media, and other tools from several online sources on racial justice and Black Lives Matter activism. The site is a work in progress with ongoing updates and contributions to each section. Please contact us with any suggestions or resource contributions! The Toolkit is an online social justice resource rooted in a committment to radical love and service to the Rochester, MN community. ​

The Landscape of My Familiar: A documentary photography project

• Mieke Strand Photography: Within this landscape, I am documenting the old and new. The project is a record of this time of change, and my contribution toward weaving the stories of new Minnesotans into our welcoming but wary culture. I am making photographs of Minnesotans in small towns across the state, which will be paired with my subjects’ stories and personal histories. The photographs include the Americans of European ancestry I grew up with and immigrants from the Somali, Mexican and the Hmong diasporas, among others.TBD

Cradle to Career

• United Way of Olmsted County and Rotary Clubs of Rochester: Every child and young adult succeeds cradle to career, through shared purpose, alignment and accountability among community partners This is the purpose of the Cradle to Career initiative in Rochester, Minnesota. Education is a powerful strategy to improve educational outcomes resulting in healthy individuals, families and community who have economic stability with productive careers and contribute positively to a civic and equitable society.

Diversity Council Education Equity Plan

• Diversity Council: Educational Equity exists when all individuals are fully prepared for the roles of their choice, regardless of personal or social circumstances. Educational Equity requires systems of support that result in full access to opportunities that lead to personal growth.

For a Better Us

• Rochester Area Family Y: A plan to: Being a great partner, Strengthening communities, Advocating for the Y, Inspiring others, Providing leadership, Volunteering your time, treasure, and talents

Improve health insurance coverage for minority groups in Southeast Minnesota

• TBD: While MNsure boasts of plummeting uninsured rates among Minnesotans, a closer look shows that certain minority populations who have been left behind, in particular Latinos

In City for Good (In the Shadow of Growth)

• In the City for Good Steering Committee: City for Good is coalition of eight Action Groups addressing deficiencies in the DMC plan: Living Wages, Transportation, Affordable Housing, Sustainability, Social Services, Education, Social Justice and Historic Preservation.

Locks of Compassion

• Catholic Charities: Considering a lock is defined as a device that restricts access and confines, you may wonder how it can possibly be associated with compassion. But, did you know a lock can also be a symbol of promise, enduring friendship and love? A lock links and unites one to another. In many parts of the world “love locks” attached to bridges and even metal trees have expressed uniting one to another. The “Locks of Compassion” project will re-create a symbolic expression of unity regarding a spirit of compassion for the refugee children and families we serve. With a gift of $10 you will be provided a lock to decorate with signs, symbols, and words of compassion.

Pathway to Prosperity

• Olmsted County Community Services: Using $525,000 in state grant funding from the state, Olmsted and Dakota counties are seeking to create a model aimed at helping families out of poverty. Instead of providing individual programs for children and others for their parents, the project will look at family needs as a whole and work to create a path to support two generations at once.

Project FINE (Focus on Integrating Newcomers through Education)

• FINE: FINE brings together resources and workforce solutions from across an 11-county region in Southeast Minnesota that promote inclusivity. Training sessions will also be held for employers on best practices for hiring and retaining diverse employees.

Prosperity Initiative

• Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation: Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation has launched the Prosperity Initiative, a program intended to promote minority-owned business growth in southern Minnesota. Over the next two years, SMIF will work with the Small Business Development Center of Rochester to identify and speak with minority business owners interested in growing their companies in southern Minnesota, the release says. This program is funded in part by Minnesota's Department of Employment and Economic Development.

Rochester A City of Compassion (RocCoC)

• Rochester MN A City of Compassion: Help Rochester to be a more compassion city via the following 3 Focus areas: (1) Honoring and supporting compassionate thought and action already existing in our community (2) Growing a culture of compassion as a binding force in our community (3) Creating opportunities for meaningful participation in compassionate actions

AVID: advancement via individual determination implementation in RPS

• Rochester Public Schools: AVID is not just another program… at its heart, AVID is a philosophy Hold students accountable to the highest standards, provide academic and social support, and they will rise to the challenge. AVID, Advancement Via Individual Determination, is a global nonprofit organization dedicated to closing the achievement gap by preparing all students for college and other postsecondary opportunities. Established more than 35 years ago with one teacher in one classroom, AVID today impacts nearly 1.5 million students in 46 states and 16 other countries/territories. View our AVID Snapshot.

CLF 2015 D&I Community Engagement Initiative with 125 Live (Share Diversity Stories)

• CLF: Through a three-part series, the 124 Live staff, board and members will have an opportunity to be enriched through stories, training and collaboration. 125 LIVE will be prepared to support diverse inclusive program, which will enrich the lives of all seniors in our community

City for Good Education: Pathway for parents to have more involvement with their children's education

• CIty for Good: TBD

Community Cultural Center

• Journey to Growth Diversity and Inclusion Committee: A physical place/space for interactions among diverse groups

Diversity In Action Initiative

• Diversity in Action: Program to assist students that aren’t necessarily college bound with getting into areas that don’t require a 4 year degree. He has links with employers looking for young people who are interested in being plumbers, carpenters, electricians and etc. He is looking at how to work within the schools here in Rochester to expose young people to alternative careers. I thought that the two of you might be a good connection since quite a bit of his consideration would be working with youth from diverse backgrounds as well as supporting educators in working with the students.

Food for Thought for Diversity Wellness

• Diversity Council/Lotus Foundation: Food and nutrition is important to all people. Access to nutrition is especially important to marginalized groups. This project educates people how good food can be made available. This project will promote and help identify affordable, good tasting, nutrient-rich foods" to difference cultural groups. Taking into account: (1) embracing cultural traditions (2) learn from each other (3) combine with other healthy living ideas.

Identification and intervention for adverse childhood experiences in our local community - A Study

• Olmsted County Public Health Services: To develop local ACEs screening and intervention programs for children and evaluate the impact of these new intervention programs on the mental health and developmental trajectory in children.

Legal Defense Fund

• First Unitarian Universalist Church: We propose that a legal defense fund be established, to be used to provide legal assistance to persons at risk of detention and expedited removal by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) branch of Homeland Security.

Love Music, Hate Racism - Minnesota

• TBD: TBD

One Olmsted: Embrace diversity as an asset

• County of Olmsted, MN: A new Olmsted County initiative is aiming to create a foundation of support to overcome disparities in services throughout the county. A draft of a "One Olmsted" resolution has been making the rounds among some volunteer county boards, with tentative plans to seek support from the Olmsted County Board of Commissioners early next month. The proclamation stating "the time is now to embrace diversity as an asset" strives to reaffirm the county's commitment to equity and acknowledging "every facet of human difference." It's a new take on existing practices.