Imagine Frogtown & Rondo

Imagine Frogtown Rondo is a big, family-friendly block party for neighborhood connection and community organization. This free event is a fantastic way to experience artists, musicians, and local businesses from the neighborhood and imagine a better future together.

When the Minnesota Highway Commission (now the Minnesota Department of Transportation or MnDOT) routed and constructed I-94 through the urban core of the Twin Cities in the ’60s, it destroyed hundreds of homes and businesses and displaced thousands. Now, as MnDOT evaluates options for the highway’s future, we have the opportunity to influence one of the biggest policy decisions in decades.

Join us as we joyfully organize around the future of I-94.

Visual Artists

• Design Your Frogtown & Rondo Hero with Broderick Poole: Visual and textile artist Broderick Poole will invite community members to design their own hero using textiles and other materials to transform a 2-D paper person into a neighborhood hero that represents the past, present, or future of Frogtown & Rondo.
• Reforesting Rondo with Michele Spaise: Photo, video, and puppeteer artist Michele Spaise will invite neighbors to participate in an open mic and open projector collaborative experience where people will connect, heal, and make art through storytelling and shadow puppetry.
• Community Screen Printing with Courtney Cochran: Anishinaabe artist, filmmaker, and community organizer Courtney Cochran will invite community members to contribute to a screen print design. Then, community members can make their own print of the design created that day or of a design created by Ain Dah Yung youth.

Entertainment

• Mt. Olivet Baptist Church Choir
• ComMUSICcation Youth Choir
• Heart and Soul Drum Academy
• Atim Opoka, vocal artist
• Boi Apollo, drag performer

Food

• Good Vibes African Cuisine
• The Wright Creation
• Fusionrolls
• Taste the Real Nawlins Flavor
• Delly J’s Jamaican Catering Services
• Life Juices
• Jamison Hibachi Kitchen

Business & Community Organizing

Evie Carshare, Small Sums, Mind the Crown, Tiny Workshop Productions, Spoon and Theory, African American Survivor Services, Boss Queen, KMK Publishing, Legal Rights Center, Justice Bell Bey Books, Black Garnet Books, Unity in Community, Neighborhood Network for Seniors, SoLux, Sneaky Link Permanent Jewelry, Lucius Shake Down Rubs, Glitter Shine & Everything Fine