Greening Frogtown, July/August 2015

JULY-AUGUST 2015
Inside…
IYer It’s a Park!
A makeover-by-bulldozer turns
empty lot into new park & farm.
Details on Page 6
Change at
West Minne
Bilal Muhammad
heads up rec center.
See Page 4
Above: Yer Vang and friends are creating the Asian-American Elders Garden on Dale Street.
MELVIN GILES’ BRIGHT IDEA FOR THE VICTORIA STREET BRIDGE. DETAILS, PAGE 2
Don’t Miss the Garden Tour!
Saturday, July 11 from 10 am to 2 pm: fifteen gorgeous, green sites
Have you ever wished you could tour
your neighbors’ gardens? Wondering
what’s up with all the farm fields on
Dale Street? Satisfy your curiosity on
the Frogtown Garden Tour.
This year’s Tour higlights more than
a dozen vibrant urban farms, small
parks, community gardens and home
gardens. The know-how and creativity
of Frogtown’s gardeners, arborists
and urban farmers will be on display
this year.
Sites include the Twin Cities’ largest
urban farm, an Asian elders demonstration
garden; a front yard overflowing
with native plants and pollinatorfriendly
flowers; and more, including
a visit with Frogtown Park & Farm’s
public artist on the site of the new
park.
The 2015 Tour starts at 10 am from
the office of NeighborWorks Home
Partners, at 533 North Dale. Tickets
are a suggested donation price of $5,
and will be on sale beginning July 1
at the office. The Tour was a wellattended
tradition from 1999 through
2006. This year Frogtown Green is
partnering with NeighborWorks to
bring it back, better than ever. More
info at www.frogtowngreen.com.
The Frogtown Garden Tour builds on our growing reputation as “the greenest neighborhood in Saint Paul.”
Two urban farms, parklets and a monarch sanctuary are part of the Tour, along with five lovely home gardens.
City Dough
for Local
Projects?
Citizen panel gives
thumbs up to parks,
road, housing, theater.
See Page 8
Green Giant
Marketplace chief is
the neighborhood’s
first green hero.
Since September, 2013, dedicated
See volunteers Page 7 with our
resident-driven initiative,
Frogtown Green, have published
Everyone
a bimonthly newsletter
called Greening Frogtown. We’ve
delivered
Invited
copies door-to-door,
to
to Frogtown households and
businesses.
Iftar
Local mosque opens
We’ve looked at the paper as
a way its doors to tell some for post-fast of the good
news
meal,
about
info
Frogtown
on Islam.
and to
promote the development of
green Page space 5 in our neighborhood.
We see that as a critical

Big Ideas
The Peace Pole Gateway
Melvin Giles sees a neighborhood portal that welcomes everyone and promotes peace
Melvin Giles has been in the peace
pole business for nearly 20 years,
planting well over 100 of the six-foot
tall markers throughout the city and
state. Now he’s got a vision for a new
version — a pair of massive, illuminated
peace poles that could provide a
grand entryway to Frogtown.
The poles typically come with the
message, “May Peace Prevail on
Earth,” in English and three other
languages. They’re an embodiment of
what Frogtown has always been about
— a place where people from all over
the Earth have settled, too frequently
to escape conflict in their first homes.
The idea of Peace Poles comes from
Japan, where Tokyo-born Masahisa
Gori was appalled by the devastation
of Hiroshima. After a period of meditation
and prayer, he came to believe
Not there yet, but they could be. Melvin Giles, Peace Poles on Victoria.
that promoting the message, “May
Peace Prevail On Earth,” provided
a means of bringing people of different
cultures, faiths, and traditions
together in the spirit of love. Since the
first peace poles were planted outside
Japan in 1983, more than 100,000
have spread to over 180 countries.
“If we can get just one percent of the
people to think of peace, that helps
to create a critical mass in our homes
and communities,” says Giles.
But he also sees this new version of
a peace pole as a memorial to his life
partner, Mary Salter, who died last
year after an illness at the age of 45.
“It’s a way to carry her legacy on and
help with my healing. It’s a continuation
of my journey with her spirit.”
Can it really happen? Public arts
money associated with city-financed
development projects is one source of
funding. The ongoing Green Linerelated
grants by the Knight Foundation
and others could be another. One
answer to the question is, why not?
PAGE 2 JULY-AUGUST 2015

Green Giants
Hmongtown Tackles Wasteful Waste
Summer interns help a busy market owner save money through recycling, composting fixes
With all the pressures a business
owner faces—making payroll, attracting
customers, tracking inventory—
it’s easy to put off thinking about how
to make a business more environmentally
sustainable.
“We have 150 vendors under one
roof. We’re pretty busy keeping track
of today. We don’t have a lot of time
to think about tomorrow, much less
about how climate change will affect
our business in the future,” admits
Toua Xiong, owner of Hmongtown
International Marketplace.
But this summer Xiong is making
the time, with the help of a trio of
students from Macalester College.
Together, they are discovering ways
to do business that are both profitable
for the bottom line, and protective
of the environment. The offer of free
grants to do so provides even more
Samuel Zieve confers with sustainability consultant Greta Rittenhouse
incentive. Biz Recycling, a non-profit
organization, provides a connection
to grants for up to $10,000, to businesses
that work to reduce the amount
of garbage they send to a landfill.
On a recent Friday morning, Xiong
and the three students—Jessica
Timerman, Rowena Foo and Samuel
Zieve—were talking trash. Specifically,
they were learning how doing
sorting and recycling trash could save
significant bucks for the market.
“This is pretty good,” said Zieve,
peering into a slightly fragrant
trash container in the Marketplace’s
bustling food court. The container
was appropriately filled with nonrecyclables.
This was not the case for
the Market’s giant dumpster, however,
which was piled high with intact
cardboard boxes.
“Here’s an easy win,” said Greta Rittenhouse,
a consultant from Minnesota
Waste Wise. She was touring the
Marketplace looking for ways to
(Continued, next page)
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JULY-AUGUST 2015 PAGE 3

Frogtown News
(Green Giant, continued)
save money by handling trash better.
“Rescuing recyclables like cardboard
and bottles will result in less trash
in the dumpster, which means lower
trash bills, especially with a 70%
trash tax for county businesses!”
Rittenhouse and the students, who
are interning with the Marketplace
through August, carefully examined
trash and recycling cans throughout
the market, as well as a row of dumpsters
in the back.
A few weeks later, they carried out a
“waste sort” to figure out what’s really
in the Marketplace’s waste stream.
“We sorted through everything in
several bags of garbage to identify
what percentage is recyclable, compostable,
or even re-usable,” explains
Timerman. Many recyclable items,
like aluminum, paper, wood pallets
and even some kinds of plastic can be
sold, generating cash for trash.
Compostable food items like vegetable
scraps, coffee grounds and even
wet paper napkins are comparatively
heavy. If they can be kept of the trash
and composted, that can save a business
tons of money, so to speak. And
the compost can be re-used to enrich
gardens, another win-win.
By August, the students will be
working on an action plan that the
Marketplace can implement through
the fall and beyond. It may include a
new composting system for the food
scraps generated in the Marketplace’s
restaurants, or a plan to pair recycling
bins with every trash can. “People
are much more likely to recycle if
all the waste bins are in one place,”
Rittenhouse observed. It also helps
if there are clear, culturally familiar
instructions on what goes where. Biz
Recycling offers educational materials,
including Hmong-specific labels
for trash and recycling bins.
The students peppered Rittenhouse
with questions about how to apply for
a grant, and what it could pay for, in
addition to a cardboard baler. “Can
we include a stipend for a student
to keep working on this once we are
gone?” Foo asked. “We don’t want
to come up with a great plan that the
Marketplace may not have the capacity
to carry it out.” Xiong agreed; his
small staff are extremely busy. But
he is committed to improving the
Marketplace and making it more sustainable,
a destination that will appeal
to future generations of customers.
“We want to make the Hmongtown
Marketplace an attraction for the
entire city of Saint Paul,” Xiong says
proudly. “To do this, we know we
have to think of the future.”
Hmongtown Marketplace, at the
corner of Marion Street and Como
Avenue, is open from 8 AM to 8 PM,
seven days a week. For more information,
visit www.hmongtownmarketplace.com
or call 651-487-3700.
Minnesota Waste Wise is a non-profit
affiliate of the Minnesota Chamber of
Commerce which provides environmental
sustainability consulting.
More information is at www.mnwastewise.org
or 651-292-4653.
Frogtown’s Green Giants is a yearlong
series on how Frogtown neighbors
are preparing for climate change
by protecting the environment. The
series is funded through Ready &
Resilient, a partnership of the Science
Museum of Minnesota, the City of
Saint Paul and Macalester College.
Bilal Muhammad at the grill.
At West Minne,
He’s the Man
Bilal Muhammad is newly in charge
of West Minne Rec Center, and has
big ideas for the neighborhood gathering
place.
“I want to invite all the people from
the community to come here,” he said
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PAGE 4 JULY-AUGUST 2015

ecently while grilling burgers and
hot dogs at the center. “I want it to be
a place for young people, adults and
senior citizens — a fully functioning
rec center. It should be fun, active,
and have a bunch of different types of
programming.”
West Minne will still be a place for
sports programming, but it should
offer more, Muhammad said. “I want
to start doing arts programming,” he
said. “Maybe robotics for kids who
aren’t really active in sports. It’s
whatever the community wants.”
Muhammad came to West Minne by a
circuitous route. He grew up in New
Jersey, went to college in Arizona,
then worked in a recreation-based
program for oil company kids and
locals in Saudi Arabia and the United
Arab Emirates. He been affiliated
with the Amateur Athletic Union
through his children, who have been
active, well, in everything. “Football,
basketball, baseball, you name it,”
Muhammad said.
He’s putting a call out for volunteers
who have ideas for programming.
Reach him at 612-400-5714.
Frogtown News
Park and Farm
Selects Artist
Progress continues on Frogtown Park
& Farm, with bulldozers moving tons
of earth every day, shaping future
paths, grades and fields.
In addition, Saint Paul sculptor and
educator Gita Ghei has been selected
to design and install three entranceways
for the new park. Primarily a
metal sculptor, Ghei’s work is varied,
ranging from a large solar powered
night light decorated with images of
watery life forms like jelly fish, mushrooms
and seaweed, to a temporary
summer installation of tree seedlings
planted in
cans with
a bucket of
water nearby,
offering
passersby
the opportunity
to water
the trees.
“I think we’ll be pleased with Gita’s
direction with Frogtown Park &
Farm,” said Park and Rec department
planner Kathleen Anglo. “She would
like to respond to natural aspects of
the site and possibly incorporate trees,
nature, and plants in her art.” The
entryways will be designed in time
for the Park & Farm’s grand opening
on October 3.
Ghei says her mission is “to create
public art which engages the public
interactively to show both celebration
of, and responsibility for, public space
and resources.” She’ll be soliciting
ideas and concepts for her entryways
at several public meetings this summer.
Look for her at Frogtown Park
& Farm during the Frogtown Garden
Tour, Saturday, July 11, as well as in
other venues during July and August.
Attend a Ramadan
Iftar at Mosque
Get a great meal and learn more about
Frogtown’s Muslim community as
our neighbors celebrate the sacred
month of Ramadan in July.
As part of a series of open houses
at area mosques sponsored by the
Minnesota Council of Churches,
Masjid Al-Ihsan, 955 W. Minnehaha
Avenue, will open its doors to neighbors
at 6:45 pm, Friday, July 10. You
can register for the event online at
mnchurches.org.
Ramadan is the month on the Islamic
lunar calendar during which Muslims
abstain from food and drink
from sunrise to sunset. The fast is
performed to learn compassion, selfrestraint,
and generosity. Each day the
fast is broken with a meal called Iftar.
There is no charge; this is an offer of
hospitality.
Greening Frogtown
is published six times per year by
Health Advocates Inc.
843 Van Buren Ave., St. Paul,
and is distributed door-to-door
in the area from
Lexington Pkwy. to 35E,
University Ave. to Pierce Butler.
Publisher: Patricia Ohmans
Editor: Anthony Schmitz
Contact us at
651.757.5970 (Patricia)
patricia.ohmans@gmail.com
651.757.7479 (Anthony)
apbschmitz@gmail.com
Ad rates & more at
FrogtownGreen.com
Flakes by Kathy Donovan
Health
Advocates
Consulting Services
Specializing in
cross-cultural, immigrant and
international health issues.
651.757.7590
www.healthadvocates.info
JULY-AUGUST 2015 PAGE 5

Yer’s Field of Dreams
The Asian-American Elders Garden will showcase agricultural traditions, produce and herbs
The southeast corner of Dale Street
and Van Buren Avenue may seem
like an unlikely place for socializing,
much less for farming. But if Yer
Vang has anything to say about it, the
lot along the busy street will serve
both purposes this summer.
“There are a lot of elderly Asian
people who love to garden and grow
things, but who don’t have a place
to do it,” Vang explains. “I want to
create a space where elders can be
outside and spend time together doing
what they know best how to do.”
The creation of the Asian-American
Elders Garden has been a team effort,
involving Vang, Frogtown Green, the
members of Unity Church-Unitarian
(who donated funds to help the garden
get started) and neighbors.
Willie Brown, an experienced Frogtown
landscaper, spent more than
eight hours recently, turning over
the garden’s rich, black soil after it
Willie Brown and Yer Vang at the Asian-American Elders Garden, post-tilling.
received an early tractor tilling by
friends from Stone’s Throw Urban
Farm. Adjacent neighbor Brenda
Albert has offered the use of her
water and hose, as well as plenty of
moral support. Students from the
University of Minnesota were enlisted
earlier this spring to research signage
options for the garden.
“I’m hoping the garden will showcase
and honor the farming expertise so
common among Frogtown’s older
Asian residents, said Frogtown Green
coordinator Patricia Ohmans, who has
gathered support and resources for
the garden. “In Frogtown, we see so
many distinctive gardens that are obviously
maintained by Hmong, Karen,
Vietnamese or Cambodian gardeners.
But not everyone knows what’s growing
in those gardens.”
The Asian-American Elders Garden
will remove some of the mystery,
with a labeled, front garden strip
featuring some of Yer Vang’s favorite
herbs. Some have traditional medicinal
uses, for example, the plant called
“duck feet.”
“This herb is cooked in the chicken
soup that is served to Hmong women
after they give birth,” Vang explains.
“We have a lot of herbs that are used
in that traditional soup!”
(Continued, next page)
PAGE 6 JULY-AUGUST 2015

A retired medical interpreter, Vang
learned about gardening the way so
many of us do—by watching her
parents and grandparents.
“Back in Laos, my mom and dad
taught us about the plants that will
help with high blood pressure, with
diabetes, and with post-partum pain,”
she says.
Gallery of Gardeners
Meet just a few of the folks working to make Frogtown green
Elder relatives who will work the
garden this year may share additional
knowledge of medicinal and
nutritious plants. Frogtown Green is
installing signs and plant markers,
along with eventual fencing.
The lot is owned by the city of Saint
Paul, but has been a garden site for
many years.
The Asian-American Elders Garden
is a stop on the Frogtown Garden
Tour this year. The mini-arboretum,
ringed by colorful poppy plants, was
installed in late June; a bit late in the
gardening season.
But Yer Vang is optimistic about the
rest of the summer. “We will plant
seeds and small plants also,” she
promises. “The gardeners will work
hard and it will be a beautiful place!”
What do these four people have in common? A commitment to gardening for beauty, sustenance and social
connection, for one thing.
• Nicholas Livingston, left, works at the Wine Company, a Minnehaha Avenue business that recently invited a
group of gardeners with Wilder Foundation’s Center for Social Healing to share their garden space.
• Tiffany Keri, center, a mother and food activist, works to maintain a vegetable garden in the home she
rents; produce is shared with neighbors.
• Annie Sinner and Fue Heu, right, are shown admiring the commmunity garden at Mt Airy public housing in
Frogtown. Heu is a new Ramsey County Master Gardener, and Sinner, a college student, works this summer
with the St Paul-Ramsey Department of Public Health.
outreach
COMMUNITY DAY
THURSDAYS 10 AM TO NOON
FREEDOM CENTER
FAMILY SUPPORT • COUNSELING • ENCOURAGEMENT
FREEDOM NARCOTICS ANONYMOUS MEETING
MONDAYS 7 PM
AT THE FREEDOM CENTER
Animal Humane Society offers access
to free and affordable pet care resources
in your community.
• Free spay and neuter of dogs and cats,
including vaccinations
• Free training sessions
• Free pet food and supplies (while supplies last)
• Free pet vaccinations at community outreach events
• Information on pet care and wellness
MN FEET
Minnesota Family
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A new health research project, MN FEET, at the
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families protect their babies from 3 harmful
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For more information, call Molly at (651) 788-4685, or text (612) 704-1738.
JULY-AUGUST 2015 PAGE 7

City Dough for Local Projects?
Panel recommends funding for Frogtown parks, road, housing, theater, but don’t count on money yet
Not that anyone is spending the money
yet, but a number of Frogtownrelated
projects were recommended
recently for funding in the City of St.
Paul’s ongoing Capital Improvement
Budget (CIB) process.
It’s the bureaucratic equivalent of a
rugby scrum, with city departments,
district councils and neighborhood
organizations all submitting proposals
to develop or improve the city
with long-term projects, then competing
for the limited amount of money
available. A citizen’s panel makes
initial recommendations on who and
what should get funded in 2016-2017.
Those choices are considered by the
mayor, rejiggered and sent on to the
city council for approval.
The money available is nowhere near
the demand. This year the citizen’s
panel recommended that $44.8 million
be doled out from various pots of
city, state and federal money. Another
$116.4 million in proposals got a
thumbs-down from the panel.
Here are Frogtown projects that got
the panel’s okay:
Scheffer Rec Center: The panel recommended
that the run-down facility
at 237 Thomas Ave. receive nearly
$1.3 million to begin funding a teardown
and rebuild that will ultimately
cost more than $8 million. The new
building will hold a new gym and
gathering spaces for large groups, be
handicapped-accessible, and offer expanded
programming. Improvements
are overdue: Parks and Rec officials
call Scheffer “the lowest rated recreation
center in the entire city in terms
of quality.”
Frogtown Park and Farm: The new
Model Cities’ Central Exchange project at 839 University Ave.
park and urban farm got approval for
over $500,000 to build what planners
dub “a nature-based play experience
(that) lets children explore through
free play and discovery. New gear
will replace dated equipment on the
property near Van Buren and Victoria.
The Victoria Theater: The long-vacant
historic theater at 825 University
Ave. got the panel’s nod for $400,000
to fund the purchase and fix-ups necessary
to transform the building into
a neighborhood center for performing
and visual arts, plus arts education.
The Central Exchange: This Model
Cities project at 839 University
Ave. will offer 33 units of affordable
housing — mostly one-bedroom
units — plus nearly 8,000 square feet
of ground floor commercial space on
currently vacant property. The total
cost is estimated at around $10 million;
the panel recommended a city
contribution of $400,000.
Pierce Butler Extension: This longdiscussed
project is a hook-up between
Phalen Blvd and Pierce Butler
Route that relies on a connection
south of the BNSF railroad tracks.
The intent here is to extend the existing
Empire Drive, link the West Midway
to the East Side, and move truck
traffic off residential streets such as
Minnehaha and Como. The $4 million
recommended would help build the
section between Grotto and Arundel.
Housing Loan Programs: Two housing
improvement programs for low
and moderate-income homeowners
targeted at Frogtown, Green Lineadjacent
and other core-city neighborhoods
got approved for $900,000
in funding. Facelift loans will focus
on deferred repairs, energy improvements
and the removal of health hazards,
and are offered at below-market
rates with repayment due on sale or,
in some cases, forgivable. The Green
Line-related programs are aimed at
underwater homeowners, and will
feature relaxed lending standards that
make it easier for self-employed or
part-time workers to qualify. The programs
are administered by Neighbor-
Works Home Partners, which incorporated
the former Greater Frogtown
CDC.
This is a process that creates winners
and losers. Among Frogtown applicants
left empty-handed:
• a NeighborWorks program to
expand home ownership opportunities
in Frogtown and
nearby neighborhoods;
• city improvements to the
streetscape along Rice Street
between University and Pennsylvania
Avenues;
• further improvements to the
Charles Avenue bike and
pedestrian corridor that would
have added traffic circles, stop
sign changes and mid-block,
traffic-calming bump-outs;
• a Little Mekong Market plan
to improve alleys and sidewalks
on side streets parallel
to University between Mackubin
and Galtier. The idea was
to use landscaping, gardens,
public art, walkways and
signage to make the Asiandominated
commercial zone
seem safe and inviting.
Predictably, the fight for scarce
resources sets off battles where the
poor square off against the poor.
At a public hearing in early June,
proponents of a East Side street
project questioned the amount of
money going toward the derelict
Scheffer Rec. Former school board
member Tom Goldstein later attempted
to offer some perspective.
There’s an elephant and gorilla
not in the room, Goldstein said.
They are the Saints stadium, with
its $27 million price tag, and the
downtown Palace Theater re-do
at $15 million — a total roughly
equivalent to the amount under
consideration by the CIB panel.
The process, said Goldstein, pits
neighbors against each other.
“These are the priorities we have
made,” Goldstein declared. “We
have too few resources because
we have a lack of priorities.”
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PAGE 8 JULY-AUGUST 2015