“Sail Away” is the theme for this month’s edition of Kids Night at the Y, set for Friday, Feb. 22, at the National Guard Armory, 519 Division St.

Kids Night at the Y—an evening of fun conducted by the Northfield Area Family YMCA—is open to children ages 3 to 10.

Kids Night features games, crafts, music and dinner. The program runs from 5 to 8 p.m. Dinner will be served at 5:30 p.m.

Please join us Saturday, February 23 at 7pm for an evening of music by the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet, the second of our events honoring retiring Library Director Lynne Young. With passion, style, and musical sophistication borrowing from the best chamber music and string quartet traditions, the Minneapolis Guitar Quartet is one of the world's leading guitar ensembles.

There are a limited number of spaces left for the nature writing and reading workshop to be conducted by author and poet Kaethe Schwehn on Saturday, February 23rd, from 1-4pm, at River Bend Nature Center. During the workshop she'll use the work of environmental writers and the wildlife surrounding us as inspiration for your own pieces of nature writing. Schwehn will also give a reading of her own work and then invite other workshop participants to share their own creations. Pre-registration is required, for more details and to register visit our public programs page.

Carleton College will present its annual student-produced and performed production of Even Ensler’s “Vagina Monologues” on Saturday, Feb. 23 at 7 p.m. in the Skinner Memorial Chapel. The public is invited and there is a suggested donation of $5 to $15 at the door. All proceeds will benefit The Hope Center in Faribault and the V-Day Spotlight Campaign (www.vday.org), a global movement to end violence against women and girls.

The Northfield Hospital Auxiliary will hold its 52st annual Great Northfield, Minnesota Book Raid Tuesday, April 23, through Saturday, April 27, at the Northfield Ice Arena.
Donations can be made at the ice arena, beginning Monday, April 1. Hours are: 4 to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday,  April 1-5; 2 to 4 p.m. Sunday, April 7; 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, April 8-19; 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, April 13; and 9 a.m. to noon, Saturday, April 20.
Over the years the book fair has raised more than half a million dollars for projects at Northfield Hospital & Clinics and for other community health initiatives, such as HealthFinders. These funds also support the Northfield Hospital Auxiliary’s health education scholarship program.

Bridgewater Elementary School, Greenvale Park Elementary School and Sibley Elementary School in Northfield, MN are making national news by working to support and improve the health of our children and our community.

The HealthierUS School Challenge (HUSSC) is a voluntary national certification initiative for schools participating in the National School Lunch Program.  It supports First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move campaign by recognizing schools that are creating healthier school environments through their promotion of good nutrition and physical activity.  Sponsored by the USDA Food and Nutrition Service (FNS), the initiative encourages all schools to take a leadership role in helping students make healthier eating and physical activity choices that will last a lifetime.  Schools, such as Bridgewater Elementary School, Greenvale Park Elementary School and Sibley Elementary School, that champion the HUSSC work hard to make changes to their school nutrition environment in order to (1) improve the quality of the foods served, (2) provide students with nutrition education, and (3) provide students with physical education and opportunities for physical activity. 

Neuger Communications Group, a full-service strategic communications firm specializing in marketing communications and public relations, announced that Becky Carlson has joined the firm. Carlson, who has served as an intern with the organization since June, will hold the position of communications assistant.

Carlson’s new role at the company will span a breadth of disciplines; among them, writing, editing, proofreading and photography. Prior to joining Neuger Communications Group, Carlson enhanced her art portfolio when she was chosen for the St. Olaf 5th Year Art Apprentice program, a highly selective, intensive program designed to prepare students for careers in the arts.

David Neuger, president and CEO of Neuger Communications Group, said, “Becky has already proven to be a wonderfully dedicated individual who shares the firm’s values of integrity, excellence and success. She’s a valuable member of our team and we’re delighted to have her on board.”

Carlson is a graduate of St. Olaf College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in studio art and management studies. A native of Shakopee, Minn., Carlson now resides in downtown Northfield.

Carleton College will present a special screening of the one-hour documentary film, “Souls of Zen: Buddhism, Ancestors, and the 2011 Tsunami in Japan,” on Friday, Feb. 22 at 7 p.m. in the Boliou Hall auditorium. Following the screening, filmmaker Tim Graf will lead a Q & A session. Nearly two years after the disaster, Graf is showing the film at colleges around the country in order to spark a dialogue with religion scholars and students. The public is invited to this free screening, with a goal of raising awareness of Japan’s ongoing recovery process, along with supporting area fund-raising activities for disaster victims.

“Souls of Zen” looks at the state of Buddhism in Japanese communities affected by the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster that devastated the country in March 2011. It draws on ethnographic fieldwork to examine the lives of both lay practitioners and Buddhist clergy and is the only documentary focusing on Buddhist professionals in the disaster area. The filmmakers visited cities and rural areas as well as monasteries, temples and public festivals to document what they call “the greatest religious mobilization in Japan’s postwar history.” “Souls of Zen” looks at the challenges posed by the 2011 disaster and reevaluates the complex role of religion in Japanese society.

Carleton College will host an exclusive performance of composer Sarah Kirkland Snider’s beautiful and haunting song cycle, “Penelope,” featuring renowned classical/indie rock vocalist Shara Worden (My Brightest Diamond) and NYC’s most in-demand new music ensemble, yMusic. This rare public performance takes place Thursday, Feb. 28 at 8 p.m. in the Skinner Memorial Chapel on the Carleton College campus. Worden will also perform selected music from My Brightest Diamond and Sarah Kirkland Snider will also be in attendance. Following the performance will be a Q & A session with an opportunity for audience members to meet the musicians.

Inspired by Homer’s epic poem, the “Odyssey,” “Penelope” is an eloquent meditation on death, memory, identity, being lost, and what it means to come home. Playwright and poet Ellen McLaughlin’s lyrics tell the tale of a woman, whose husband appears at her door after an absence of twenty years, suffering from brain damage. A veteran of an unnamed war, he doesn’t know who he is and she doesn’t know who he’s become. While they wait together for his return to himself, she reads him the “Odyssey,” and in the journey of that book, she finds a way into her former husband’s memory and the terror and trauma of war.

Northfield Montessori is excited to be preparing for our 16th year of educating and caring for infant through Kindergarten aged children in the Northfield area.  Please join us at 340 Montessori Court on either February 25 from 6pm-8pm or March 2 from 10am-12pm and see what has made Northfield Montessori the leader in child care and preschool since 1997.  Our program embraces the philosophies and teachings of Dr. Maria Montessori in an environment where “Education is a natural process carried out by the child and is not acquired by listening to words but by experiences in the environment.”

The Ron Griffith Young Leaders Fund announces a new grant recipient, Cliff Martin. Cliff participated in the National People’s Action Leadership Training that took place in Cedar Lake, Indiana in August. National People’s Action is a nationwide activist and organizing group. This grant gave Cliff the opportunity to participate in a week-long training where he learned how to build a team, analyze community problems and create solutions, use tactics to move issues forward and to manage organizations. Cliff will bring what he has learned back to the Northfield community by organizing around issues concerning environmental sustainability, social equity and participatory governance.

Literary power couple Siri Hustvedt and her husband Paul Auster will spend a three-day residency in Northfield Feb. 20-22. The residency will include faculty seminars at both Carleton and St. Olaf Colleges, as well as three public appearances. All events are free and open to the public.

The two acclaimed authors will present a joint reading of Auster’s latest work, Winter Journal (Henry Holt and Co., 2012) and Hustvedt’s latest work, The Summer Without Men (Picador, 2011) at Carleton College’s Great Hall on Wednesday, Feb. 20 beginning at 4:30 p.m. The author reading will be followed by a book signing and reception.

Siri Hustvedt, an acclaimed author whose work has been read worldwide and translated into over thirty languages, will deliver Carleton College’s convocation address on Friday, Feb. 22 at 10:50 a.m. in the Skinner Memorial Chapel. Hustvedt’s talk, entitled “Reflections on Creativity: Memory, Imagination, Narrative and the Self,” will draw upon her study of psychoanalysis, philosophy and neuroscience in looking at how personal experience and memory become transformed into narrative. Convocation is free and open to the public. Convocations are also streamed live and can be viewed online at http://apps.carleton.edu/events/convocations/.

You are invited to hear “Corruption and the Dark Side of Left Wing Populism in Argentina under the Kirchners,” by Luigi Manzetti, Professor of Political Science, Southern Methodist University, on Friday, February 22, from 4:30 to 6 p.m. in the Gould Library Athenaeum. Reception to follow. This Wynia Memorial Lecture is free and open to the public.