Kyle "Guante" Myhre: A giant using words to move and motivate

I'm a rapper, spoken-word poet, freelance writer, activist and educator.  So much of what I've done over the three years I've been in the Twin Cities has been about finding the places where all these different identities overlap-- without that kind of synergy, it's easy to burn out.  So for me, it's important to do what I love, do what I'm good at, and get paid for it all at once (whenever possible).  A good example of that is my position as arts coordinator of the Canvas, a Saint Paul teen arts center-- it's a little arts education, a little community organizing and a little performing arts all at once.  I also organized the Hip Hop Against Homophobia concert series, facilitated a bunch of arts and activism workshops during the National Poetry Slam (where my team took first place, for the second year in a row, incidentally) and continue to lead performance and writing workshops in Twin Cities schools-- all good examples of this synergy.  It's exhausting, but so is love, when it's real.  That's how I like to look at it.

Laura Zabel and Betsy Altheimer share their Giant Steps

Laura Zabel and Betsy Altheimer of Springboard for the Arts take a minute to share their giant steps with us.

Danny Schwartzman: Community + Good Food Giant

I have been working as a grassroots organizer for political campaigns and non-profits and really enjoyed many aspects of what I was doing, but decided that I wanted to figure out how to connect the values I care about with a business.  As I was thinking about the kind of business I wanted to try to work for, the idea that had been sitting in the back of my head for many years to open up a cafe kept on coming back up.  During the following six months I sketched out the basic plan for a restaurant that would serve good food made from scratch with high quality local and organic ingredients, operate in an environmentally friendly way, serve as a community meeting place, and pay a living wage.  I met with about a 100 people to get feedback on the ideas and get help fleshing it out and in the summer of 2007 we opened the doors.

The most rewarding part has been meeting so many people who are working on all kinds of things and love the cafe -- we're lucky to have amazing regulars.  Pretty frequently I see people I don't know showing friends around the cafe and telling them about what we do with our garden and composting and such -- that's exceptionally rewarding.

The most challenging part is managing growth.  We only have one location, but since opening three years ago we've just about doubled in size, both in sales and number of staff.  Growth has been especially quick in our catering -- everything from large corporate events to weddings to simple office lunches.  It's an ongoing challenge to plan and manage growth when there is always a long list of things that need to be done immediately.

Learn more about  Common Roots Cafe and how Danny and his team are pushing the cafe concept forward here: www.commonroootscafe.com