Events

Rice County Habitat for Humanity is holding its annual Raise the Roof Dinner and Silent Auction on Sunday, June 3 at 5:30 p.m. at the American Legion in Faribault.  Tickets are $25 and can be purchased on our website:  habitatricecounty.org, by calling 507-744-2933, at Edina Realty in Faribault and Northfield or at the door.  There will be lots of silent auction items – including an antique table, a live auction, a desert table and lots of bottles of wine to bid on.

Reading for pleasure is one of the building blocks for young people to grow into healthy, productive adults.

Fourth grade students who read for fun every day score the highest on reading assessment tests.

When the act of reading extends beyond the schoolroom and becomes part of daily life, ongoing literacy is on its way to becoming a reality. Students who read for fun on their own and talk about their reading with family and friends on a weekly basis had higher average test scores than students who never or rarely read for fun and who talk about their books with family and friends less than once a month.

Public library programming and books for children make a difference.

Northfield Retirement Community (NRC) invites the community to participate in its 6th Annual NRC Golf Classic, held on Monday, June 4, at Northfield Golf Club. The NRC Golf Classic is a fundraising event put on by the Northfield Retirement Community Foundation and is designed to provide broad support for the NRC mission of delivering premier living environments and outreach services to aging individuals.

Event organizer and NRC Vice President of Long Term Care Operations Tom Nielsen said, “Last year’s event went extraordinarily well and we’re looking forward to building on its success. The Northfield community – those who are familiar with NRC, those who know us by reputation alone, as well as others – has been tremendously supportive and we’re anticipating a full house once again this year.”

How can you help make the Cannon River a little bit cleaner and Northfield more beautiful?  Join in a community planting day to plant the new rain gardens in Way Park.  The rain gardens will help to filter polluted runoff and allow more water to sink in on site instead of running over the land and streets to the storm drains. The storm drains in this part of town go directly to the Cannon River.  Come for 15 minutes or stay all day!  No gardening experience necessary.  Bring gloves and a shovel if you have them. Please wear comfortable clothing and sturdy footwear.  

Questions?  Contact Leslie at 507-786-3915 or leslie@crwp.net.

With summer approaching, many of us have started to acquire unrealistically massive reading lists. If you’re like me, the list serves more as a fantasy than a goal. You’ll probably get through about one eighth of the list if you’re lucky - not surprising considering that the list includes items like “all of Dostoyevsky.” But why relegate the pleasure of reading to some far-off summertime when you have inexplicably acquired the ability to read a book every minute and sunlight dapples your favorite reading spot round the clock? Carleton classics professor Clara Hardy and Carleton Educational Studies professor Anita Chikkatur have created a way to enjoy reading, *gasp*, during the school/work week!

The idea for the event was planted when Clara heard an NPR story about a protest in Tunisia where protestors sat in the street and read. The protest was to mark the lifting of a ban on protests on one of Tunisia’s most symbolic streets, Habib Bourgiba – the original ban had been placed because street vendors complained that they were losing business.

The school year's end is approaching fast!  The Northfield Public Library's summer reading program is just around the corner!  It's so important for children to read during the summer to help keep their skills fresh and help eliminate "summer reading loss" for the next school year. To help kick of the 2012 "DREAM BIG-READ! summer reading program- some crazy people will entertain us all on Saturday, May 19th at 11 am.  We will be outside on the Washington Street side of the library, or if the weather is not cooperating we will be in the meeting room.  "Mixed Nuts" has tickled funny bones throughout the region with its special blend of hilarious hijinks, guaranteed to produce side-splitting laughter! 

The Friends of Way Park invite you to a benefit concert for Way Park on May 12 at Northfield's First UCC Church. The music of Edvard Grieg, and the Vestlandet and Telemark fiddle styles that inspired it, will be performed by Andrea Een, Hardanger fiddle and violin, and Sonja Thompson, piano, along with guest fiddlers from the Lars Skjervheim Spelemannslag of St. Olaf College. The concert will be followed by a dessert reception.

Saturday, May 12 at 7:30pm. First UCC Church, Third and Union St. Doors open at 7pm.

Suggested Donation: $15 general admission, $10 students, $5 children 12 and under. Total donations up to $3500 will be matched dollar for dollar!

The second annual Latino Play Festival/Coffee House Gathering is happening this weekend with the play festival and coffee house gathering at 6pm in the high school auditorium on Friday, and the play festival only at the same time on Saturday.

The annual Girls Night Out is happening downtown on Friday, with shopping, giveaways, hors d'ouvres, refreshments, music, and more. Music on Friday includes New Moon Trio at the Cow 5-7pm, Sasha Mercedes at the Tavern Lounge 8-11:30pm, Ova Yonder at the Upstairs Rueb 10pm-1am, Whiskey Trick at Froggy Bottoms at 9:30pm, and Fred the Bear at the Cow 11pm-1am.

It's Girls' Day Away on Saturday at the Cannon River Winery with music by Michael Loonan in the afternoon. The Northfield Arts Guild's 2012 Spring Dance Concert is happening at 3pm at the high school. Saturday's music includes Jim Lenway at the Cow 5-7pm followed by Jon Larson 8-10:30pm, Keeley Susienka at Hogan Brothers 6-8pm, a Grieg and Norwegian Folk Music Concert at the First United Church of Christ at 7:30pm, Jon Manners at the Tavern Lounge 8-11:30pm, Willie Murphy at the Grand at 8:30pm, and Chad & Russell at the Frog at 9:30.

For the second year, Jennifer Lompart's English as a Second Language class will present a Latino Play Festival at the Northfield High School auditorium this Friday and Saturday evenings, May 11 and 12. The perfomances start at 6 pm each evening, followed by coffeehouse entertainment on Friday night from 8-10 pm. Admission is $5.

According to Lompart, the first half of the show will delve into challenges that Latinos face living in America. Examples are living with parents who work long hours in factories, misunderstanding the importance of athletics, and even stories about how some students came to live in Northfield. The second half will be more upbeat, taking a peek at the positive aspects of the actors' lives and their dreams for the future.

Peter Ubel, Carleton Class of 1984, a noted physician and behavioral scientist whose work has focused on the idiosyncrasies of human nature that impact our lives, will deliver Carleton College’s convocation address on Friday, May 11. Ubel’s presentation, “Battling Over Health Care: The Weird Clash of Morality and Psychology That Threatens to Bankrupt Us,” will explore the framing of the health care debate in the United States, including such topics as informed consent, shared decision-making and health care rationing. Convocation is held from 10:50-11:50 a.m. in the Skinner Memorial Chapel, and it is free and open to the public.

Carleton College will hold its annual Empty Bowls fundraiser for the Northfield Community Action Center’s Food Shelf on Friday, May 11 from 11:45 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. on the campus Bald Spot. Over 600 handmade ceramic bowls, filled with soup, will be available for sale, with a suggested donation of $15 per bowl. This popular annual event is open to the public.

Now in its eighth year, Carleton’s annual Empty Bowls Fundraiser has raised thousands of dollars for the Northfield Community Action Center’s Food Shelf. Carleton students, alumni, faculty, and friends have hand-crafted over 600 ceramic bowls, while residents of various campus interest houses join in the effort by cooking up pots of homemade soups. A suggested $15 donation will buy a simple meal of soup and bread, as well as the bowl that it was served in.

Mark Dimunation, Chief of the Rare Book and Special Collections Division of the Library of Congress, will give a talk on digitizing library materials. His presentation, entitled “Living with the Real Thing: From the Original to the Digital,” will take place at 4:30 p.m. on Thurs., May 10 in the Carleton College Boliou Hall, Room 141. This event is free and open to the public.

Lila Abu Lughod, Carleton Class of 1974 and a prominent anthropologist whose studies have focused largely on Egypt, will present Carleton College’s weekly convocation address on Friday, May 4 at 10:50 a.m. in the Skinner Memorial Chapel. Entitled “Taking Back the Village: Egyptian Youth in Revolution,” this event is free and open to the public.

Western media’s coverage of Egypt’s 2011 revolution focused almost exclusively on the massive protests in Cairo’s Tahrir Square. Instead, Abu Lughod will examine the way in which the revolution played out in the countryside through the lens of the village where she has spent much of her career studying gender, media, and modernity.  After decades living under a repressive and corrupt regime whose policies led to the disenfranchisement and impoverishment of the village, the revolution led the community’s youth to work to solve local problems within their community, framing their actions in terms of a strong sense of social morality rather than more media-friendly language of rights and democracy.

At their April 2012 board meeting, the Northfield Healthy Community Initiative (HCI) Board approved mini-grants to support eight projects and activities designed to benefit Northfield youth.  Funded projects included:

Writers’ Workshop Poetry Book.  ARTech students participating in the Writers’ Workshop group are compiling prose and poetry they have authored throughout the school year and are putting it into one publication, a poetry book.  Several copies of this journal will be given to the Key and area businesses who have hosted the writers during writing sessions this school year.

Latino Play Festival.  Students in the ESL (English as a Second Language) Performing Arts class at Northfield High School have spent the year writing and preparing plays.  Planned performances will be held at Carleton College and at the Northfield High School.  There will also be special performances for middle school students.  Evening performances at the Northfield High School are scheduled for May 11th and 12th.

Dr. Mary Koss of the University of Arizona will present “Justice that Heals: Outcomes of Restorative Approach to Sexual Assault,” at 12 p.m. on Thursday, May 3 in Olin Hall Room 141 on the Carleton College campus. This event is free and open to the public.

Koss’ presentation will focus on the RESTORE Program, an innovative community-based justice response conducted in concert with criminal justice and victim services to respond to adult sexual assault. The program was the first restorative response to sexual assault globally, and the evaluation involved the largest number of cases yet studied, meaning that the findings provide a foundation for innovative justice and prevention approaches for a variety of other settings.