Today we featured local mom, wife, daughter and business owner (Itasca Dog Lodge) Tiffiney Bartz. She has begun something she calls the #joymovementmn . Besides providing good cheer on facebook, she has been raising money for people in need and publicizing local organizations and groups that are doing good in the community like yesterday's conversation with North In Bloom Floral in Grand Rapids that is raising money to deliver flowers to every person who is in assisted living in the Grand Rapids

Iron Range cookbook author Mona Abel joins Heidi and John on the Thursday Morning Show to talk about her new cookbook “Let’s Party”. Mona tells us about her love for making and eating pasties, when to enjoy cocktail hour, she shares some new recipes and old favorites and most importantly answers the question of gravy or no gravy with pasties. You can find out more about purchasing “Let’s Party” and listen to Mona’s blogs at monascookbooks.com .

Louise Waakaa'igan spent 16 years in prison. During that time, she leaned on a coping mechanism she developed in her early teens - poetry. Inspired and encouraged by the Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop , she honed her writing skills while incarcerated. Her first collection of poetry This is Where is autobiographical, symbolic, honest and steeped in her Ojibwe culture. Louise discusses her poetry, prison life and freedom in this segment of Area Voices. ...this life is beautiful and crazy and

…rather than looking at the incident itself that led them there or the series of incidents, I turn over the platform for these incredible poets and prose writers and memoirists to share their words and to share their humanity in a hope that we can collapse that gap between us and them... And I think that this project We Are All Criminals certainly does seek to shine a spotlight on the racial disparities within our criminal legal system from the start to the end and then back again... Prisons…

Sonja Merrild, a local election judge in the Grand Rapids area, joins Heidi Holtan on Making Sausage. Sonja moved here from Denmark years ago, then become a US citizen in 2016, in time to vote in that year’s election. This election year she asked herself what she could do to help her community and made the decision to become an election judge. Sonja talks about what it means for her to serve in this position and she tells us she feels confident that in her county, things will remain fair and

We’re living in a politically divided pandemic. We look to our leaders hoping for some understanding beyond politics. Understanding of the complexity of everyone’s lives. For many of us, there is someone who understands. Who gives us hope. But sadly, she’s not running for president. She’s been described as the most powerful, least political feminist in the world. That person is Dolly Parton. There’s a new book out by award winning writer Sarah Smarsh . In her writing and journalism she explores

Since March, all of us in Minnesota have had a different life. All of us in the world are figuring out how to live in a pandemic. Politics have divided not just our small towns and families, but the Minnesota Legislature and the executive branch. Governor Walz is one of 49 governors around our nation that still hold executive power. During the pandemic, along with President Trump. Each month, the Governor calls a special session to deal with what didn't get done during session - like passing a

A statewide conversation with Minnesota’s Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan. It is a time for all of us to learn about the State of Minnesota's response to this COVID-19 pandemic. This week the Lt Governor answered questions about how the school year is going, travel to boarder states like Wisconsin and the Dakotas as well as new saliva testing in Duluth and " No Barriers" testing from the MDH like next week's in Bemidji. The Minnesota Department of Health is holding free Covid-19 testing

A statewide conversation with Minnesota’s Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan. It is a time for all of us to learn about the State of Minnesota's response to this COVID-19 pandemic. This week the Lt Governor answered questions about the new saliva testing in Minnesota, the Census, high school sports and COVID-19 and many other topics including large gatherings of people protesting over the shootings in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Have you filled out your census yet? You can sign up online here. If you

The 19 th Amendment of the United States Constitution gave women the right to vote. It was ratified on August 18, 1920 and put into law on August 26 th , 1920. On the 100th anniversary of the ratification, Cate Belleveau joined the morning show to discuss the history of the women’s vote, the struggles that women (and male allies) endured trying to make it a reality, and considers what the original suffragists might think of where things are at today and how people view their right to vote in