We had a small crowd at the Smart Recycler presentation last night, but those who attended left with a better understanding of the way the city of Saint Paul and Ramsey County partner to make sure we are doing all we can as a community to reduce waste and protect our environment. Rae Eden Frank, Planning Specialist II with the Environmental Health Division for Ramsey County shared news about upcoming services to help keep us moving in the right direction.  In May, we will be able to pick up countertop organic waste buckets—small and perfect for apartment dwellers. With the free bucket, you will get a few compostable bags to use, and when you drop off your full bags at a approved site for composting, you will be issued a few more bags—all at not cost to you! We learned not only how to compost, but how to use your compost to help grow healthy lawns, fruits and vegetables, trees, shrubs and flowers. Spreading compost around plants helps to reduce weeds! 

Rae also shared great re-use information. The county offers free Fix-It Clinics at various locations every month. Instead of throwing out that old CD player or VHS player, you can bring it into the clinic and a volunteer (who likes to tinker) will fix it while you watch. This way you can learn how to do it yourself if the problem arises again. In addition, they offer fee disposal of household hazardous waste at their Saint Paul (Bay West) location where you can bring your leftover gasoline, antifreeze, bug killers/repellents, paint and spray paint and many other products. You can also pick up partial containers of these products! Need just a little paint for a project? Check out their stock! 

For hours, locations and more information, please check out the website at www.RamseyRecycles.com.

Attendees also shared their tips and ideas. We learned how easy it is to make and use our own laundry and dishwasher detergent so we don’t need to buy and get rid of the big packaging and we know exactly what is in what we clean our clothes and dishes with. 

Thank you to Rae Eden Frank and Saint Paul - Ramsey County Public Health for helping us be better environmental stewards, and to Joann Ellis of the Program Committee for planning the event.

Click here to read our March-April 2018 The Voter Newsletter!

LWV-Upper Mississippi River Region Inter League Organization Newsletter for January 2018.

LWV St. Paul January 2018 Voter Newsletter.

Thank you to everyone who joined us on Wednesday for our panel discussion, "End Human & Sex Trafficking in Minnesota," either at the SPNN studios or from your homes. During the event, our panelists discussed the problem of sex trafficking in Minnesota: sharing stories of victims, dispelling misconceptions about trafficking and sex work, and educating us all on the evolution of how human trafficking and sex work have been approached by law enforcement and prosecutors.

The panelists included John Choi, Ramsey County Attorney; Terry Forliti, Executive Director of Breaking Free; Sergeant Nikkole Peterson, St. Paul Police Department; Ed Heisler, Co-Executive Director of Men As Peacemakers; and Lorena Pinto, Director of the PRIDE program.

Special thanks to League of Women Voters - Minneapolis and Saint Paul Neighborhood Network (SPNN) for their partnership in coordinating and promoting this important discussion.

Watch or Listen to the Panel Discussion

You can watch replays of the panel on SPNN (channel 19) in Saint Paul on Friday, January 12 at 9:30 p.m., Sunday, January 14 at 8:00 p.m., Monday, January 15 at 4:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m., Thursday, January 18 at 8:00 p.m., Friday, January 19 at 2:00 p.m., Saturday, January 20 at 8:00 p.m., and Sunday, January 21 at 5:30 p.m.

You can listen to an audio replay of the panel on AM950 radio Saturday, January 13 at 10 a.m. and again on Monday, January 15 at 8 a.m.

You can also visit The Uptake's Facebook page to watch the video now.

Get Involved

If you want to help end human and sex trafficking, visit:

• MN Human Trafficking Task Force to learn more and click "get involved" to take action.
• The Safe Harbor for All strategic planning page to learn about the importance of expanding the age guidelines of the Safe Harbor Act.
  

Thank you!

Read the November issue of the LWV St. Paul Voter Newsletter.

Read the November issue of the Upper Mississippi River Region Inter-League Organization newsletter.

As part of our core service of the League of Women Voters of St. Paul, informing the electorate, we completed two major projects in fall 2017: mayoral candidate forums and sharing voter registration and election information. This work wouldn’t have been possible without the help of 17 different volunteers, 30 St. Kate’s students, and the direction and efforts of Amy Perna and Sig Johnson. In all, 73 two-hour shifts were worked!

We hosted four mayoral candidate forums in four quadrants of Saint Paul. Each was a success! Our September 27 event at Hallie Q Brown had a full auditorium with 175 people in attendance. Our October 10 event at Wellstone Center was in a round table format and garnered 150 attendees. The October 11 event at Highland High School had a full auditorium with over 300 attendees! And, lastly the Minnesota Humanities Center, another round table format event hosted on October 17, had 100 people in attendance and required many extra folding chairs to be added to the room!

Besides the host community organizations, other community partners for these forums included: the District of Counciles of Highland, Mac-Groveland, Payne Phalen, and WSCO; the NAACP; the African-American Leadership Council; and the Neighborhood House organization.

We received kind praise for these forums:

“I really appreciate the League’s fairness and courtesy for a minority party advocate like me,” stated one candidate.

“I’m really glad I came. It helped me decide what candidate I want to vote for and who to choose for my second choice,” shared a forum attendee.

We also completed voter registration work and shared election information between September 6 and October 17. This included work at nine branch libraries in multiple shifts; two weekly shifts at food shelves at Merrick Community Services and Hallie Q. Brown; tables at Metro State, Century College, and Hubbs Learning Center; plus opportunities at Highland Fest, Mt. Airy Boys and Girls Club, and a Communications class at St. Kate’s University.

Through this effort we submitted 120 voter registration forms (with registrations and address updates). We also provided voters with the Voter Guide of mayoral and school board candidates, flyers on the candidate forms, and information on Ranked Choice Voting for the 10 mayoral candidates. We reprinted the Guide and flyers several times.

Thank you to everyone who made this work possible!

You can use these voter guides to candidates in local races on your 2017 ballot.

The LWV Upper Mississippi River Region Inter-League Organization is a regional organization linking more than 50 local LWV Leagues and four state LWV Leagues in protection of the Upper Mississippi River. Read the September 2017 issue of their newsletter!

Read the October 2017 edition of LWV St. Paul's The Voter Newsletter!

Our voter registration efforts are continuing to go strong. We have lined up a few more locations/dates in which you can make a difference. If you can volunteer to help us register voters at any of the below opportunities, please email Wendy Jones (wajone@gmail.com).

Metro State University (700 7th Street E, St. Paul, MN 55106) would like us to have voter registration available at 6 p.m. on September 22, 2017 to coincide with the Mayoral Candidate Forum taking place. 

Century College (3300 White Bear Avenue, St. Paul, MN 55110) and Metro State University would like to have voter registration available from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on September 26, 2017. The Hubb Center for Lifelong Learning (1030 University Ave W, St. Paul, MN 55104) would also like to have volunteers register voters from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. that night. This is National Voter Registration Day so we'd love to have volunteers to make this happen!

We are so thankful for the continued volunteer efforts of our League members and friends.

We are seeking volunteers to translate our 2017 Voter Guide into Hmong, Spanish, and Somali. 

We are also seeking volunteers to provide interpreter services during our candidate meet and greet on October 10 for Spanish, Oromo, Karen, Somali, and Amharic.

If you would like to volunteer, please contact us at office@lwvsp.org.