Food & Health

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Help Growing Up HealthyWin $100,000. Vote by July 20!

Rice County's Growing Up Healthy is one of three finalists in the “Connect for Health” Challenge. The winner will be awarded $100,000. This is a winner-take-all challenge and your vote counts! Please support the great work Growing Up Healthy does by casting your vote by July 20 in one of the following ways: (please ask your family and friends to vote too!)

The 7th Annual Taste of Northfield returns Thursday, June 14th, in downtown Northfield. The event will take place on Bridge Square from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.

Bring your taste buds to this feast! Whether you’re an epicurean or just know a good burger when you bite into one, this event is sure to meet your cravings. There’s also a James Gang bank raid re-enactment, beer & wine tent, silent auction, raffle for $1000.00, and plenty of family-friendly activities — fun for all ages! Live music from the Northfield Community Band, the Rice Country Roosters, and the Big Wu will add to the lively scene, plus dancing in the streets into the night!

Talk about an efficient use of space! According to Kathy Bjerke, Program Director at the Cmmunity Action Center, through a partnership with Ronald McDonald House Charities, Upper Midwest, on the first Wednesday of each month, youth whose families are clients of the Community Action Center are able to take advantage of dental services on the Ronald McDonald Care Mobile® (RMCM). Though the office space itself is quite small, the organization’s comfortable, well-appointed clinic-on-wheels meets a real community need – offering dental exams, cleanings and basic restorative care to people in need.

On Wednesday, May 23 at 7 p.m., Carleton College will host a public panel discussion on the ethics of healthcare access in America.  Entitled “Healthcare as a Human Right: Access & Barriers,” this event will take place in the College’s Weitz Center for Creativity, Room 236, and is free and open to the public.

Americans may agree on a citizen’s rights to life and liberty, but does the nation have a moral duty to ensure healthcare? As Carleton’s EThiC initiative asks in this term’s “Questions” blog (go.carleton.edu/thequestion), “Is access to healthcare a universal human right?” This panel discussion will provide some helpful context for that debate by looking at moral and practical barriers that have emerged in assuring fair use of America’s healthcare system.

The panel will feature Carl Elliott, renowned bioethicist and frequent contributor to The New Yorker, who will speak on the ways in which private research sites test new drugs on homeless schizophrenics who are driven to participate in studies by poverty and lack of access to healthcare. Also participating are Charlie Mandile, executive director of Health Finders Collaborative of Rice County, who will discuss the barriers to health care erected by poverty and immigration status in Southern Minnesota; and Daniel Groll, Carleton philosophy professor, who will frame the discussion in its larger humanistic, ethical dimensions.

Conducted by Memorial Blood Centers, there will be a blood drive on Tuesday, May 15, from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. at the Northfield Senior Center. In our region, Memorial Blood Centers is the primary supplier to over 30 area hospitals in Minnesota and northwestern Wisconsin.  To meet the demand, they must collect over 2,000 units every week. 

Memorial Blood Centers has been saving and sustaining lives for over 60 years. A Minnesota-based, independent nonprofit, the Centers supplies life-saving blood, state-of-the-art laboratory services, and biomedical expertise to area hospital and clinic partners, national blood centers, biotechnology companies, research institutions, and international clients from Australia to Switzerland.

 For more information, or to make an appointment, contact Diane Gehler at (507) 645-8719 or jdgehlers@msn.com. The Senior Center is located at 1651 Jefferson Parkway. 

Have you always wanted to learn a simple method that can help you relieve stress, give you more self confidence, and help you concentrate on your schoolwork? Then please join in on June 9 for a day of meditation instruction, recreational activities, and lunch at St. Olaf College!

This is the third year this course has been offered here in Northfield.  Some of the children have remarked:  "I never knew I could feel so calm" and "It was a really cool experience".

Note: Earth Day is Saturday, April 21, but Northfield's celebration will be held the following Saturday, April 28.

Earth Day will once again be celebrated in Nortfhfield, on Saturday, April 28, outside the UCC church on Union Street, between 3rd and 4th. New this year are several hands-on workshops open to the public. FREE workshop topics include Building a Compost Bin, Building a Raised Garden Bed, Improving Your Home's Energy Performance, and Bread Baking. There will also be an opportunity to learn about and assemble a rain barrel for only $40. Detailed descriptions and registration information can be found at www.transitionnorthfield.org. 

The family-friendly Earth Day Celebration will also feature earth-friendly activities such as making May Day baskets, creating books out of recycled paper, and participating in the Earth Day Promenade with homemade newspaper hats. Other attractions include local music, exhibitors, chalk art, and food.

“Go outside and play!” our grandma ordered as we sat on the floor directly in front of the giant Zenith TV set on a Saturday morning watching Bugs Bunny cartoons. We were all under the age of 7. The year? 1970. Fast forward to 2012 and parents aren’t competing against just the giant Zenith anymore. Screen time for children appears in many more forms: the home computer, laptop, smart phones, PS3, Xbox, AND the plug-in drug known as television; and now even a screen is playing for passengers in the backseats of family vans.

Studies have shown that an average ten year old spends eight hours in front of a screen per day. While technology and other factors draw children indoors, conscious effort towards opening the door and stepping out is critical.

The Community Action Center is seeking nominations for election to its Board of Directors. You may nominate yourself or someone else by completing an application and including a letter addressing the nominee’s skills, background, term availability and interest in serving on the Board. Nominations will be reviewed for upcoming vacancies and will be maintained for future consideration.

5th Bridge, the Northfield-based nonprofit dedicated to promoting habits of volunteerism and philanthropy, announced a request for proposals (RFP) process to gather ideas for a large-scale volunteer event to be held in the community later this year or early next year. Through the process, the group aims to collect ideas from partnering organizations interested in co-hosting an event that will engage between 250 and 2,000 volunteers in a locally based activity. The deadline for submission is April 30, 2012.

Twin Cities CBS affiliate WCCO recently visited The Ole Store Restaurant.

"As I drove south on Interstate 35, as the early winter sun set with vibrant orange-yellow light, I was reminded of the beauty of this state. Not 15 minutes into the drive, the dirty black and white cityscapes melt into snow-kissed farm fields, dotted with country farm houses of the past — once painted in vivid red, now just a reminder of what used to be."    

         - Adam Estrem @mspfoodie

Read the full story at WCCO.

The organizers of Northfield's Perennial Earth Day Celebration would like to invite area organizations, businesses, local growers, and anyone else with something to share about re-localization and sustainability efforts, to register as an exhibitor at this year's event.

The event, with the theme "A Call to Action," will take place on Saturday, April 28, from noon to 5:00 p.m., outside the UCC Church on Union Street. Bring a table and chair to set up your display. The cost to be an exhibitor is $15, payable to Transition Northfield, PO Box 414, Northfield MN 55057.

Common Good RSVP (Retired & Senior Volunteer Program) partners with Three Links Apartments in Northfield to offer a FREE exercise class at Three Links  two times each week.  BONE BUILDERS is a class that has been shown to prevent and even reverse osteoporosis-the loss of bone density.  The class is held at Three Links year round, is open to all community members and currently has openings.

Participants use adjustable ankle and hand weights that are provided free of charge.  The resistance caused by exercising with these light weights is what causes bones to stay strong.  Participants have had some great results. Those who attend regularly report increase in strength, balance and improvement in bone density scans.

The United Nations (UN) has declared 2012 the "International Year of Cooperatives,"and Just Food Co-op is joining other cooperatives locally, nationwide and across the globe in marking the occasion. Titled "Cooperatives in Social Development," UN's resolution recognizes the diversity of the cooperative movement around the world, and the economic and social contributions cooperatives make. This includes the many co-ops in the Northfield area.

Just Food Co-op is kicking off the year of celebration with a starring role in the premiere of “Lights, Cameras, Co-ops.” Kevin Gillespie, celebrity chef from the Woodfire Grill in Atlanta and sixth season Top Chef finalist, has been traveling around the country with a film crew, exploring farm fields and co-op grocery aisles as part of this year’s celebration of the United Nations International Year of Cooperatives. On Saturday, January 21, 2012 at 7 p.m., grab your favorite movie snacks and visit www.strongertogether.coop/premiere to take part in an online streaming "premiere party" featuring the first three videos in the thirteen-episode series featuring co-ops from Vermont to California.

Finally, we're getting a taste of Winter just in time for Winter Scream, the NHS declaration of independence from winter’s grip. This year’s event, the second annual, will be Saturday, January 14, from noon to 2 p.m.on Bridge Square. 

Besides the traditional communal sing of the Winter Scream Anthem and ice cream social, this year there will be hot chili from the Reub-N-Stein. The coloring contest winners will be announced. Bring the family, friends and your appetite! Come do the Winter Scream with Northfield's Most Dangerous Choir.

For more information, contact Hayes Scriven at 507-645-9268 or e-mail at scriven@Northfieldhistory.org.