Business

A recent story by Minnesota Public Radio's Elizabeth Baier looks at the 'agripreneurial' activity happening on a patch of farmland near Northfield where Reginaldo Haslett-Marroquin, director of the Rural Enterprise Center, has helped immigrant farmers start their own operations.

"The way he sees it, if hundreds of thousands of Latinos already work in the nation's food and agricultural sectors, many of them could also branch out and be their own bosses," reports Baier.

"Rather than letting someone in a factory define what you're worth, why don't we try to create a path so you can decide what you're worth?" Haslett-Marroquin asks.

The Minnesota Habilitation Coalition recently named Heather Duban (at left in photo with award committee member Becky Girvan), a personal support assistant working with adults with developmental disabilities for Dundas-based Epic Enterprise, the recipient of this year's Enrichment Focus Award. The statewide award recognizes Duban's efforts to enrich Epic’s developmentally disabled clients, specifically those who are less active in Epic’s work program.

KYMN is broadcasting the candidates forums tonight and you can watch it here! The chat window embedded in the whole story is shared with the entire town! You can follow along and discuss the meeting without leaving your office. :)

If we haven't heard from you then it's you we want feedback from!

Spend just a few minutes (we promise under 3 minutes) to complete our online survey and give us your thoughts about the bringing of a full YMCA facility to Northfield and partnering with the School District to build the YMCA on High School Property.  A complete Executive Summary and Appendix filled with details of our evaluation process is available online.

YMCA/School Partnership Proposal Informational Meetings - Join us!

Learn more, ask questions, provide your thoughts.  Open to the entire community.  We'll provide a short presentation on the proposal and then have time for Q&A.

Tuesday July 6th

Thursday July 22nd

Tursday Aug 3rd

7:30-8:30 pm

Location:  Community Resource Bank

For more information or to view the Summary Proposal and Appendix, visit the YMCA website at www.northfieldymca.org.

Is the library economically, culturally, or socially important for the downtown area?

For a spring anthropology class, five students from St. Olaf collaborated on a survey of 32 different people from three groups: business owners, library patrons, and citizens of Northfield.

We conducted 32 interviews with business owners, community members, and library patrons in order to gain information about how they viewed the library in relation to downtown Northfield. These interviews revealed that the library contributes a great deal to the City Center community by acting as an “anchor” for the downtown area, serving as a meeting place for citizens, and providing a quality space that has a wealth of resources. The two main challenges for the library mentioned by interviewees included a lack of adequate parking and the need to keep up with technology.

You can click here to read the entire report via Google Documents.

The latest issue of Intersections, Carleton’s email newsletter for the Northfield community, is out now. You can read the issue online or subscribe to the newsletter via the College's Community Connections website.

Stories in the June 2010 issue:

• Board of Trustees Approves Arts Union Construction Phase Start
• Students Organize "Carls In the Community" Day of Service

5. It’s a great time to "plan your work" when business is slow so when it picks up, you can "work your plan."The difference between a business that you run and one that runs you. is the presence of systems and processes. If you define how everything operates, both the manner in which the work gets done and the quality of the outcome are repeatable, scalable, and manageable. Isn't it time you experience the freedom you intended to find when you started your business?

4. When a business is trying to survive, employees will step up -- but only if given a reason.

The Northfield Hospital Auxiliary is gearing up for this year's Great Northfield Minnesota Book Raid April 27-May 1. It's the perfect chance to unload a few books, and the best part is they'll take just about anything: the Thomas Kincaid album that Aunt Donna gave you for Christmas five years ago, that pile of children's books that you've been meaning to "do something with" for a few years, and the copy of Bombproof Your Horse you got to kick off this century.

This summer, Northfield residents can look forward to an open air market every Saturday morning along the Cannon River, where strollers may purchase high-quality artwork or take home fresh and organic produce from local growers.   Organizers of the new Riverwalk Market Fair hope that the Fair will bring to mind a European marketplace through its focus on high-quality and regional goods.  Co-founders Dean Kjerland and Gail Jones Hansen (Carleton ’74) hope that the fair will “counterbalance the sterility of the contemporary shopping experience, to help reconnect with a sense of place” by engaging local and regional vendors and families in the geographic heart of historic Northfield.

Chief Bender’s Burden, an award-winning book by Northfield author Tom Swift, is now available in paperback from Bison Books.

The Chicago Sun-Times called Chief Bender’s Burden: The Silent Struggle of a Baseball Star a “gem.” The book was featured in the Washington Post and on Salon.com, and received a rare “starred review” from Library Journal. The book won the 2009 Seymour Medal, which honors the best book of baseball history published during the preceding calendar year. “For a Minnesota baseball fan,” writes Nick Coleman in the Minneapolis Star Tribune, “[Chief Bender’s Burden] is must reading."

The latest issue of Intersections, Carleton’s email newsletter for the Northfield community, is out. Visit the College's Community Connections web site to subscribe to the newsletter.
Stories in the April 2010 issue:

• Carleton and Northfield Community Rally "Pou Ayiti"
• Updates on Arts Union and other Campus Projects
• Science Education Center Wins Prize for Online Resource
• New Residence Halls Receive Design Award
• Weitz Family Pledges $15 Million Towards Arts Union
• Five Faculty Members Receive Tenure
• Seen Around Carleton

Read the full newsletter online.

 The Community Action Center Clothes Closet can be a destination for the outgrown and surplus clothes we all have in our drawers and closets.The Clothes Closet seeks gently used clothing to replenish the rapidly disappearing donations its many customers have purchased. This local resource provides the public low-cost clothing, generating money for the operation of other CAC programs. The current economy has made contributions to the Clothes Closet more necessary than ever.

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Children’s Therapy & Speech, a pediatric rehabilitation service of Northfield Hospital & Clinics, and WorkSystems, a service that addresses health and safety issues in the workplace, will be moving March 8.

Both services will relocate to remodeled space at the Center for Sports Medicine & Rehabilitation (CSMR), 1381 Jefferson Road. They are currently located at 527 Professional Drive. This will be the first time since 2004 that all of the hospital’s outpatient rehabilitation services have been assembled in one location.

Angelica Koch and Monica Caldwell have been awarded grants by the Ron Griffith Young Leaders Fund. These grants will enable Koch and Caldwell to pursue additional training contributing to their future leadership in Northfield.