The Zumbro River needs some reputation management; few in my home town of Rochester, Minnesota can talk about this river without thinking “Scumbro”.  To counteract this, I am working with the Rochester Department of Public Works to create a series of public engagement events that teach participants about their impact upon the water quality of the Zumbro River and create moments of emotional connection with the river. Our goal is to create a cultural shift that results in Rochester residents valuing and protecting this major resource.

The engagement events inform and guide the design development for a permanent storm water best practices demonstration garden that I am designing with a team of leading-edge specialists that includes enlightened civil engineers and engagement strategists employed by the Public Works Department and Kimley Horn.

Held at the Rochester Art Center during a Free Family Day in February 2018, the event drew a couple hundred people spanning many generations.  The focus of the day was a storytelling/ sharing event with multiple supporting activities happening throughout the facility: Art Center staff led water-related activities for various targeted age groups, the Public Works Department and the Zumbro Watershed Partnership welcomed visitors into the main hall where the storytelling took place with informational displays and river-related activities, and I suspended the Rainfall Ribbonscape Canopy created in June 2017 during a previous series of engagement events in the three story atrium – encouraging children to play in the “rain” and write/ draw their memories of or hopes for the river on lengths of ribbon that they could then take home with them.

The event tied-in to a national effort led by the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture. I recorded the river stories shared by community participants that day and uploaded them to the national archive being compiled for the People’s State of the Union Address. It is important that the participants understood that their words and actions that day were contributing to a national effort to gather, to connect, and to talk about what we value.

More information about the Zumbro River Starts Here project and the grant funding it from the Environmental Protection Agency can be found HERE.