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Journeyman jazz artist indulges passions for music, education and all things creative
Journeyman jazz artist indulges passions for music, education and all things creative
©by Leo Adam Biga
Paul Serrato exudes a New York state of mind acquired from decades of Big Apple living.
From the time the classically-trained jmusician discovered jazz via radio during his Omaha youth, he was drawn to America’s arts center. Excelling on piano, he no sooner graduated Creighton Prep then went East, first to Boston, then New York. He arrived in the era of The Beats, Miles Davis and Andy Warhol. He was there for the British invasion, the bust of the 1970s, the boom of the ’90s and the terror of 9/11.
This journeyman jazz pianist gigged in clubs, recorded his original music and composed-performed for off-off-Broadway shows. He worked various jobs before becoming an English as Second Language instructor.
At 83 he makes no concessions to age. Since returning to Omaha in 2011, he’s continued performing-creating and indulging his appetite for literature, art, film, theater and dance. He’s still releasing CDs on his own Graffiti Productions label. His latest, “Gotham Nights,” has charted nationally. He plans a new jazz project for 2020.
“Age for me is mostly a number,” says Serrato. “I can’t spend time worrying about how I’m supposed to feel or what I should be doing at my age. My life has focus in music and education. I have degrees in both. In music I find excitement and energy as a pianist as well as composing, producing and promotion.
“Presently, I’m writing vocal music. particularly setting poetry to music. I’ve always composed and produced what I wrote. The pattern emerged in high school when I went into a studio and made my first single – a song with a fellow student on vocal.”
He teaches ESL for Metropolitan Community College. He tries “to make it comfortable” for recent arrivals “to adapt to a new culture and a new land.” “Cultural transference or acculturation – that’s an ESL teacher’s job.” His class assignments encourage students to celebrate their own heritage, too.
The bilingual Serrato stays in touch with former students from around the world.
In 2016 he combined his music and education passions in a project commemorating 9/11. He was teaching that day near ground zero.
“We had to vacate our building. After we were allowed back in a few weeks later I had my international adult students write about their impressions of that day. They were from Taiwan, Japan, Turkey, Korea, Chile, all these different countries. They wrote eloquently about that and I saved their essays. Fast forward 15 years later and I asked some of my ESL students in Omaha to read these testimonials set to music I composed at a Gallery 72 event commemorating that tragic day. I was very proud of how that event turned out.”
Years earlier, New York’s hothouse of creativity found Serrato working with Warhol Factory personalities Jackie Curtis, Candy Darling and Holly Woodlawn.
“Some of that material for these crazy talented trans performers and underground figures was rather risque.”
In jazz circles, Serrato got tight with “master Latin percussionist” Julio Feliciano, whom he recalls “as just full of energy and vitality and ideas.” “He contributed his deep musicianship to my many recording sessions and New York gigs. We enjoyed that vibe that enables the most successful collaborations. That also includes Jack ‘Kako’ Sanchez. They were a percussion team. It’s evident on my record ‘More Than Red.’ which made the national jazz charts.
“I’ll never find another like Julio. It was like (Duke) Ellington with (Billy) Strahorn – the two of us together. We had a tremendous collaboration. He was a Vietnam vet who OD’d on prescription pain killers. It was tragic. So young, so talented, so brilliant. We were like brothers musically and spiritually.”
Serrato still records all his music in New York, which serves as a muse for his work.
He enjoys traveling. He once used a guide book to see Europe on five dollars a day. He followed bull fights in Spain and smuggled back copies of banned books from Paris. A former ESL student from Japan twice arranged for him to do music tours there.
He accepts that few jazz artists ever really make it big.
“For every artist like that,” he says, “there’s a legion of others like myself that don’t have that kind of profile.”
He describes “a tectonic shift in the jazz culture” that’s turned this once popular music into a niche thing.
“In a lot of people’s minds, jazz is not that important because it doesn’t make much money and doesn’t get much media attention, so we work however we can. But it’s always been a struggle, even in the golden era.”
The Life can take a toll.
“I remember as house manager and sometime performer at the Village Gate in the ’60s you’d have to make it through 2 a.m. gigs. It’s a tough life. No wonder there was alcohol and drugs and everything.”
Gigs are hard to come by here. His music gets labeled “sophisticated” or even “avant-garde.” He insists “Gotham Nights” is accessible with its Latin melodies.
He enjoys encouraging his students to follow their dreams. Having patience in this age of instant gratification is tough but can be rewarding.
“We are living in a culture of fast celebrity and quick social ‘likes’ – and just as quickly forgotten. My advice to any young artist is to keep focused on long-term possibilities. In other words, stick it out for the long-haul. You never can predict when or how your work will pay off. I speak from experience. I got a big payoff a few years ago from HBO for a song I wrote in 1971 they used in ‘Cinema Verite’ with James Gandolfini.”
Until your ship comes, he advises to get busy living and creating.
Visit http://www.paulserrato.com.
Free Gospel Concert in the Park Kicks Off North Omaha Summer Arts
Free Gospel Concert in the Park Kicks Off North Omaha Summer Arts
North Omaha Summer Arts is back for year nine with:
A Gospel Concert in the Park
Saturday, June 15 at Miller Park, 5 to 7:30 p.m., Free
OMAHA, NE––North Omaha Summer Arts (NOSA) celebrates nearly a decade of free arts programming in 2019. The summer-long festival kicks off its ninth year on Saturday, June 15 with the annual A Gospel Concert in the Park.
Omaha-based-soloists and ensembles. led by the Church of the Resurrection and Trinity Lutheran Church choirs, will raise their voices to the sky in praise. Music of the soul and spirit takes center stage at this grassroots, no-frills, family-friendly gospel concert in Miller Park.
There is no admission charge.
The 5 to 7:30 p.m. concert happens in the southeast section of the park, at approximately 24th and Kansas Avenue, right across from the ball-field.
Whether you get comfy on a blanket or a lawn chair, you are invited to sit back and let the sounds of inspiration wash over you. And if the spirit so moves, then raise your hands or get up and dance. Somebody, though, remember to say amen.
Hot dogs and refreshments (or bring your own picnic dinner).will feed the body along with the soul.
Look for more NOSA events, including writing workshops, art pop-ups and the annual August Arts Crawl.
Television, the Hamer Way: Father-son tandem of Dave Hamer and Roger Hamer own combined 76 years in the TV news industry
Television, the Hamer Way
Father-son tandem of Dave Hamer and Roger Hamer own combined 76 years in the TV news industry
©by Leo Adam Biga
Appearing in the June 2019 edition of the New Horizons
Outside of Mike and Chris Wallace, there may not be another father-son tandem in broadcast journalism history with the pedigree and longevity of Omaha’s own Dave and Roger Hamer.
Retired television newsman Dave Hamer. 89. enjoyed a 1953 to 1991 career distinguished by many firsts. He was the first journalist to work at all three major Omaha network affiliates. He was America’s first local TV journalist to file stories from Vietnam. He was the first civilian reporter to fly a mission with the U.S. Air Force’s airborne command and control center, Looking Glass.
He covered the horror and hysteria of the Starkweather murder spree. As a street reporter-photographer, he covered storms, accidents, riots, political rallies and athletic events. He wrote-produced newscasts and documentaries, He captured the return to Omaha Beach of a Heartland veteran who survived D-Day. He gave back to his profession as president of the Omaha Press Club, the Nebraska News Photographers Association and the National Press Photographers Association. He taught TV news at UNO and co-chaired the annual News Video Workshop at the University of Oklahoma.
He’s been honored for his contributions to the field as an inductee in the Omaha Press Club’s Journalists of Excellence Hall of Fame and the Nebraska Broadcasters Association Hall of Fame.
Roger Hamer, 61, never intended following the family trade yet his 38-year TV news career now equals that of his father, Roger creates packages that see him do photography, reporting, editing. He also produces. He succeeded his father as a teacher at UNO. He, too..has earned much peer recognition for his work, including an Edward R. Murrow Award. He is well on his way to joining his father as a lifetime achievement honoree.
They have a combined 76 years in the business. Their professional paths formally intersected once, in 1991, when Roger, who began at KMTV, joined WOWT, where Dave worked his final decade. Roger is still there today.
“I kind of backed into the business. He never pressured me,” Roger said of his father.
“I don’t think I ever tried to talk you out of it either,” Dave told hm. “No, you never did,” Roger replied.
“i’ve been fortunate to always be surrounded by smart people very good at what they do. Of course, this guy,” Roger said, indicating his father, “helped me a lot when I was starting out. We would have lunch breaks in the edit booths at 3 (KMTV) and 6 (WOWT). I’d show him tapes and he’d critique them. We’d talk how to do stories. I learned a lot that way. He let me pick his brain. He was always generous in dealing with me.”
Then there came the workshop his father put on for newcomers and veterans.
“You don’t know how you’re going to act when your dad pops your videotape in and plays it in front of all these people and comments on it,” Roger recalled. “I hoped he was going to be as nice as he was when we were alone in the edit booths. But it was something along the lines of, ‘If this guy came in and wanted a job, I’d tell him to sell shoes,’ It was like the air in a balloon going out.
“But that was the best thing that could have happened because you need a kick in the pants now and then. The effort wasn’t there that he expected and that inspired me. It gave me a clue I could do better.”
By the time Roger established himself, TV technology transitioned from film to video. It’s since gone to satellite uplinks and digital streaming.
“Now he’s shooting live shots alone with a tiny camera,” Dave marveled.
“No truck, no cables, no nothing,” Roger confirmed.
“As long as you’re in range of a cell tower, you can send a live picture anywhere,” Dave said, “It staggers my imagination.”
“There’s an app on my phone called TVU Anywhere,” Roger said. “All I have to do is to call into the station. They pull me up – and we’re on. It’s instantaneous.”
“I try to avoid saying, I wish we had that back when I was in TV,” Dave said, “but I do wish we had that. But what goes along with this is that you’re under more pressure.”
“Yeah,” Roger said, “the technology is phenomenal, but it’s a blessing and a curse. The blessing is you can be live in a moment. The curse is the technology far exceeds our human capability of gathering information.”
Then there’s the rabbit hole of Google search results.
“With this avalanche of information you have access to, it can be overwhelming,” Roger said. “You have to determine when to stop because information overload can set in. There comes a point when you have to pull back and say, Okay, I know what I need to know.”
Roger’s grateful to have learned from a master like his father. “He’s a pioneer.”
A Wayne, Nebraska native, Dave Hamer segued from taking still photos in his hometown to stringing for KVTV in Sioux City. The eye he developed for composing portraits helped him transition to moving images.
A generation later his son Roger went from taking photos for the UNO Gateway and Papillion Times to breaking in at KMTV.
“The difficult part of going into motion (photography) was coming up with a closer,” Dave said. “You’ve told the story, but you have to have something at the end to cap it. You need the exclamation point.”
“Even now I struggle with closes.” Roger acknowledged.
They both love storytelling
“Every story’s got to have a beginning, middle and end. That’s utmost in television news,” Dave said. “You don’t just leave it hanging out there. I don’t think anybody ever told me how to do that. I just naturally fell into it.”
Both learned to cut in the camera.
Telling a story you pitched is preferred. “I had, and I think Roger has, the freedom to go to the front office and say, ‘Hey, this is a helluva story, We ought to do it.'”
Any excuse to get out of the newsroom.
“The daily routines never appealed that much to me,” Dave said. Same for Roger, who likes being “free from a desk” and “someone looking over my shoulder.”
Creativity and ineginuity come in handy on assignment.
“You run into situations you didn’t expect,” Dave said, “and you have to think on your feet, improvise and go with the flow. We always used to say, Have in mind where the story’s going to go but don’t be locked in because things will change. You’ll find better stuff than you imagined.”
When revisiting perennials, such as the winter’s first snowfall or spring flooding, Roger said, “the challenge is to make it different from the story before or different from what your competition’s doing.”
“That’s the fun part of it.”
Then there’s following your instincts and, as Dave said, “making your own luck” by being where the action’s at and seeing-capturing what’s happening around you.
The year Roger was born, 1957, his father helped launch Omaha’s KETV on the air.
“I had been there only a week,” Dave said. “There were only four of us in the news department. Six days a week were the norm. Sometimes Sunday, too, It was a challenge and great responsibility, but also fun. You had to do everything – shoot it, write it, maybe voice it.”
He left KETV for KMTV, where he worked the bulk of his career and where his colleagues included future network stars Floyd Kalber and Tom Brokaw.
“What his generation did set the groundwork for what we do today,” Roger said admiringly. “The whole idea of visual storytelling – of stories that are concise, make sense, have impact, elicit emotion and are accurate.
“Today, I think we’ve lost a little bit of that desire to find out as much as we can and make it as accurate as possible. In the rush to get things on the air NOW, we don’t always have the information to back it up exactly.”
“That’s a helluva challenge.” said Dave.
Adding to it is an ever more competitive environment.
“Now,” Roger said, “it’s Channel 7 tweeted this or Channel 3 tweeted that. Personally, I don’t care because I live by what I learned from old pros Steve Murphy and Mark Gautier – ‘I don’t care about being first, I care about being right.’ That doesn’t seem to exist like it used to.
“It’s a matter of feeding the beast” – otherwise known as the 24/7 news cycle. “You have to do all this social media stuff my father’s generation didn’t have to worry about or deal with.”
When Dave Hamer started, there were just two newscasts per day. “and even with that and the technology being so much slower,” he recalled, “we were still pressed for time.” “I wrote for nine years the six and ten o’clock newscasts on Channel 3. You barely got six o’clock on the air before you started writing the ten o’clock. You were always up to the wire.”
Early news pioneers didn’t have access to the vast amounts of video-on-demand content Roger Hamer and his colleagues have at the ready on devices.
“It would take us three or four days,” Dave said.
Today’s constant content demands and deadlines can be exhausting.
“You just don’t have the longevity of people in the field anymore,” Roger said. “People get burned out.”
Professionals with his equivalent experience in the biz, are “getting fewer and fewer,” he said, “and it bothers me because I don’t see the next wave of lifers coming up – and I wonder about that.”
Oddities and happy accidents are bound to happen over careers as long as the Hamers. Once. Roger shot news footage of a pileup on an ice-covered section of Leavenworth Street south of downtown. “We sent it out to NBC,” he said. A couple weeks later the video showed up in an SNL skit.
“‘They pirated my video for entertainment purposes. It took a couple months, but I got 750 bucks out of them and gave them a tongue-lashing. How do you know people didn’t die in that crash? That blurring of the line between entertainment and news shouldn’t happen. Once you send video somewhere you don’t have any control over what happens to it. But even if i don’t send it, somebody else will. Many different people have access to my video than ever before.”
Standard protocol is for networks to ask local affiliates to provide video.
“Sometimes it was a bother because I’d be working on my piece for the six o’clock and they’d want something right now,” Dave said. “You would do everything you could to get it there.”
“It just may not be right now,” Roger said. “I’m not going to send it to them until we air it. My obligation is to my station first.”
Dave once fielded an NBC request for footage of a blizzard raging in Nebraska. They needed about a minute’s worth. He dutifully shot the storm.
“The network’s Huntley-Brinkley newscast switched to Omaha live. I was on the phone with the producer from New York. He told us when to roll the film. We’d built it logically to show the storm getting worse and worse. Well, the last shot came up and the film broke. We were on live coast-to-coast and I was like, Oh, my God. The producer comes on and says, ‘Great job, Omaha, Man. what a storm – I couldn’t see anything in that last shot.’ We never told him.”
Memorably, Dave Hamer scooped the networks with his 1962 Vietnam reporting.
“The French had been kicked out in 1954. There was very little American involvement until about ’61 when we sent military advisers over. In April ’62 the first Nebraskan was killed in Vietnam – Army Special Forces Sergeant Wayne Marchand from Plattsmouth. He was wounded and captured in a firelight with the Viet Cong, then taken off and killed.
“We ran the wire story on the air. That was all we knew. Our general manager said, ‘What the hell was that all about? How come we’ve got people in – where is that place again? Within a month I was there because the front office said this is a story that should be told.”
Hamer and writer-producer Bob Fuller went as a two-man team.
“We did Marchand’s story, but while we were there we covered everything else we could find. We even did stories on Vietnam’s agricultural economy.”
The reporters stuck to a strategy.
“The first thing we did when we got in Saigon was check the overnight police reports for bombings, rocket fire at the airport and such to know what the hell was going on.
“We carried Department of Defense clearance paperwork that we never had to show. We had orders that allowed us to travel on military transport. If we couldn’t get military transport, we did what we could, even going by pedicab for God’s sake. Several times we hired a car with a driver. Sometimes we hired an interpreter. We could go anywhere we wanted. We checked in with the press office in Saigon when we got there and checked out when we left, They didn’t know where we were those three weeks. We were all over the country enmeshed in what was going on every day.”
Hamer and Fuller quickly learned U.S. involvement was larger than reported.
“There were 5,000 Americans in-country.. We went on helicopter support missions. Americans were flying planes and helicopters carrying South Vietnamese troops. The rule was fire only if fired upon,”
The entire western press corps in Vietnam then, he said, consisted of New York Times, AP and UPI correspondents, “and two guys from Omaha.”
“We had the whole story to ourselves. We did four half-hour documentary segments.”
The series was cited for special commendation by the Radio Television Council.
Fast forward three decades when Dave’s last major assignment took him to another war zone to cover Nebraska military personnel in Saudi Arabia.
Over time, he had offers to join the network in Washington DC, New York and Paris, but he and his wife Verla deferred each time. They liked Omaha.
Roger Hamer “tested the waters” in other markets but stayed put.
Father and son “competed” when Dave was at WOWT and Roger at KMTV. They were briefly at WOWT at the same time but never covered a story together.
Roger said there’s much they share in common. “One thing we share is we’re not the story – the people are the story. Nobody wants to see us. They want to see the people living the experience.” They each derive satisfaction, he said, “just knowing that we did a good job and put a good story together.” “You get those four, five, six stories a year where you go, I nailed it. That’s what keeps you going.”
“We show up with a camera and people stop what they’re doing because they know you’re going to tell their story. It’s important to them,” Dave said.
“You have to be genuinely curious and caring and want to be involved in your community, and in telling the stories of its people,” said Roger, who, like his father, is grateful for the many fine collaborators he’s worked with. “It’s wonderful to work with people as passionate as you are and who are dedicated to their craft.”
A love for teaching is something else they share. “I found teaching very rewarding,” Dave said. “The satisfaction of sharing what you know and seeing the light bulb go off is a big part of it,” Roger said.
Not to be forgotten, Roger added, “We’ve both been blessed being married to very strong, supportive women that understood what we do and tolerated it.”
Dave and his late wife Verla were married 61 years. “Verla was interested in what we did and was our best promoter,” he said. The couple lost their other son, Dennis, to a coronary occlusion in 2002.
The quiet-spoken, TV news trailblazer gets choked up talking about family. “I’m very proud of this guy,” he said, clasping Roger’s knee. “Roger is his own man, has made his own reputation. and lives it every day on every story. He earned the Edward R. Murrow Award. I was never even close.”
Roger appreciates what his father’s given him – from leading Scouts canoe trips to being “a great mentor.” “He taught me that if I’m not trying, if I’m not pushing myself, if I’m not putting product out I’m happy with, then it’s time to walk away.”
There may not be a third-generation Hamer in the field “Never say never,” cautioned Dave, a grandfather of two. Meanwhile, Dave writes a newsletter, Window on 53rd Street. he shares with family and friends. Like the man, it’s a warm, witty, sincere, humble take on a life well-lived and a career well-earned.
Though louder and more outspoken than his father, Roger is a mensch among newsmen just like his old man. A passing of the torch has occurred in another way. Where Roger used to be asked, Are you any relation to Dave Hamer?, now Dave is asked, Are you related to Roger Hamer?
“Roger and me reversed roles.” Dave said. “I’m very proud to be asked if I’m related to Roger.”
“I’ve always been proud of my dad, ” Roger said. “He’s my hero.”
Read more of Leo Adam Biga’s work at leoadambiga.com.
Metro class series features guest filmmakers and their films
Metro class series features guest filmmakers and their films
OMAHA, NE––If you’ve ever wondered what it’s like to watch a film with its maker, then a summer Metropolitan Community College class series is your ticket to that cinema insider experience.
Filmmakers and Their Films is the name of the six-class series running weekly on Saturdays from June 15 through July 20 at MCC’s North Express in the Highlander Accelerator Building.
The non-credit adult Continuing Education class, which meets from 1 to 4 p.m., is taught by Omaha film author-journalist-blogger Leo Adam Biga (“Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film”). Biga has secured guest appearances by at least one Oscar-winner in retired film editor Mike Hill and a mix of narrative and documentary filmmakers. All are Nebraskans.
A work by each guest will be screened followed by a moderated discussion with the maker. Students will have the opportunity to ask questions.
The Filmmakers and Their Films schedule:
June 15
Mike Hill
“Rush”
Oscar-winning editor Mike Hill worked in Hollywood for many decades as one of two primary cutters on Ron Howard’s feature films. Hill shared the Academy Award for his work on “Apollo 13.” The now retired Hill will discuss his career and specifically his work on Howard’s 2013 Formula One race car drama, “Rush.”
June 22
Lew Hunter & Lonnie Senstock
“Once in a Lew Moon”
Lew Hunter was a network television executive who wrote and produced landmark TV movies. His book about screenwriting became a bible to aspiring scenarists. A UCLA class he taught included future filmmakers. Lonnie Senstock’s documentary captures hLew’s bigger-than-life personality and appetite for life.
June 29
Mele Mason
“I Dream of an Omaha Where”
Documentary and network news photographer Mele Mason travels the nation and world for her work. She also trains her eye locally, “I Dream of an Omaha Where” follows the collaboration between performance artist Daniel Beaty and Omaha families affected by gun violence in the creation of an original work of theater.
July 6
Nebraska Filmmakers Showcase
Sample the screen work of Nik Fackler, Omowale Akintunde, John Beasley, Camille Steed, Mauro Fiore, Tim Christian and other Nebraskans who make films. Some of these professionals will be on hand to discuss their work in front of the camera or behind the camera. Camille Steed will share her documentary “A Street of Dreams” about Omaha’s North 24th Street and Vikki White will share two of her short films.
July 13
Jim Fields
“Preserve Me a Seat”
During efforts to save the Indian Hills Theatre, Jim Fields documented the passion of historic preservationists, film industry professionals and movie fans. He then expanded the story to document similar efforts around the nation that turn into classic clashes between grassroots groups and big business interests.
July 20
Brigitte Timmerman
“The Omaha Speaking”
The few fluent speakers left in the Omaha Tribe are featured in this audience favorite documentary at film festivals, Brigitte Timmerman presents the urgency that fluent speakers and educators have in preserving and passing on this rich cultural legacy before it’s too late.
urprise film guests can be expected.
The registration fee is $10 per class or $60 for the entire series. Register at: https://coned.mccneb.edu/wconnect/ace/CourseStatus.awp?&course=19JUCOMM201A.
The class meets in Suite 306 of.Metro’s North Express at the Highlander Accelerator, 2112 North 30th Street, in North Omaha.
Abstract Mindz: Group gives artists a voice and showcase
Abstract Mindz: Group gives artists a voice and showcase
©by Leo Adam Biga
Appearing in El Perico (el-perico.com)
Abstract Mindz founder Jose Antonio “Tony” Barrales, 25, wants to give young artists what he didn’t have growing up.
The Omaha Central High School graduate started the artist collaborative in 2013, he said, to give underrepresented youth “an opportunity to showcase their talent.”
“There were tons of people in the South Omaha community whose work wasn’t being seen and who weren’t being offered the opportunities others were. I had this idea to create an arts group that would hopefully become a gallery in the future. No one would be rejected based off their art style, age, ethnicity.
“There’s a ten year build-up of passion behind this group. Growing up in traditional Mexican homes trying to pursue art as a career wasn’t something our parents deemed worth pursuing or spending money on.”
In addition to lack of support at home, he and others found inequity at school, where, he said “certain students got opportunities others didn’t,” such as mentoring. “That’s when my passion to create the group was really sparked because I was one of those overlooked kids. I was like, Hey, I’m doing artwork, too – why am I not getting a shot to show what I’ve got. I saw other people who deserved their shot and didn’t get it, and they gave up.”
Barrales wants to affirm others.
“There’s real talent out there, but people feel like they can’;t make it on their own or there’s no one to help them out. i just want people to have a free wall space where they can express who they are and show people what they do.”
Artist Ari Marquez, 28, helps run the collaborative.
“Art was like my escape for expressing my emotions. A lot of our members are the same,” she said. T”hey don’t like to verbalize what they’re feeling or going through. Instead of saying it, they draw or paint or photograph it.
“Sharing their work can help with the healing process from hardships and darkness they have. It’s hopefully an escape to express themselves in ways that maybe the adults in their lives wouldn’t accept. Some of the kids are expressing a scream for help or attention. We create a safe space for them to express without being judged.”
It’s a catalyst for work to be made and seen.
“We’ve learned there’s a whole bunch of kids who have this secret talent no one knows about,” Barrales said.
“They have that passion to do things, but they might be scared to try or don’t know who to talk to about creating opportunities for themselves.”
Barrales knows from experience “it’s really hard establishing yourself in the art community.” You’re bound to be asked, what have you done? and where have you shown?
“Most of our artists do abstract art, graffiti art – things that are more urban. We want them to know that can be marketable. We have artists who’ve gone to local galleries with their portfolios only to be turned away because the professionals said their art style is not what they show in their spaces.
“That’s something we want to change. This urban art is really popping in other cities and we want it to be seen that same way here.”
He’s working on the organization becoming an LLC.
“We’re looking at getting our own dedicated gallery. We want to be based in South Omaha. Most art galleries around here are collectives, We’re shooting for the same thing. We want this to grow to where we have mentoring programs and can support locations in Fremont and Lincoln, so people can have showcases in their own communities.”
Without a space of its own, Abstract Mindz has thus far relied on partnerships to show work in loaned spaces.
“Luckily we’ve found a welcoming space in the Bancroft Street Market. Our first show in 2015 was there. We had 15 artists. Each sold one piece. That motivated us to continue.”
More shows there followed. A Day of the Dead exhibit included performance by the local band.Mariachi Patria Juvenil. The largest and longest running show displayed 50 pieces for a month at Hotel LR.
Bellevue Social Center hosted another exhibit.
South Omaha entrepreneur Macros Mora donated a booth space for the group at the Cinco de Mayo market.
Local playwright Ellen Struve has worked with the group in different ways..
“She’s been sending us to the right people to talk to. She’s been great in helping with our outreach,” Barrales said. “She also presented us a great opportunity to participate in her new play EPIC for the Great Plains Theatre Conference. We were one of the groups she did story circles with. We told our own personal stories to help create the backstory for her play.
“The high school-age kids really loved it. She did an activity to open them up to speak. It’s something they usually don’t do. They felt really comfortable in that circle. They are amazed knowing their story is implemented in this play.”
Abstract Mindz members range from high school and college students to college grads working full-time jobs. Their ranks include Shantee Zamora, Sergio Gomez, Salem Munoz and Gerado “Polo” Diaz.
Abstract Mindz presented a solo show of Diaz’s work.
“He was a little more mature in his craft and body of work,” Barrales said, “so we gave him an individual showcase. He’s one of the main artists we have who wants to make this his career.”
Members pay minimal dues and get help with framing, portfolios and marketing.
The group’s planned next show, Visual Sounds, is in need of a venue. Participating artists were asked to create a large piece based on a song of their choice.
“This collaboration of music and visual arts will be our first interactive gallery. As spectators view each artwork they can put on headphones to listen to the correlating song.”
A place and date is in the works.
Follow Abstract Mindz on Facebook.
Read more of Leo Adam Biga’s work at leoadambiga.com.
Maya community asserts indigenous self-identity and roots itself in relationships
Part I:
Maya community asserts indigenous self-identity as a people
©by Leo Adam Biga
Originally appeared in El Perico (el-perico.com)
EDITOR’S NOTE:
In a two-part series, El Perico looks at the local Maya community through the eyes of Comunidad Maya Pixan Ixim executive director Luis Marcos.
In this first installment, he discusses the challenges faced by his indigenous displaced people in asserting their identity and being understood.
Guatemala’s tired, poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free have come north for decades seeking new lives in the United States, Among them, the Maya comprise an indigenous minority group who escaped persecution by the Guatemalan government. Over time, they’ve made lives for themselves around America. A small community of perhaps 1,500 people of Maya origin live In Nebraska – mostly in South Omaha.
Luis Marcos left Guatemala at 16. After living in California and Iowa he settled here in 2005. Two years later the self-taught Marcos helped form the local Maya community center, Comunidad Maya Pixan Ixim. It’s where his people practice their traditional culture and support each other in adjusting to life here and getting others to understand their plight as a displaced people.
Everything about the center, located at 4513 South 32nd Street, is steeped in Mayan ways and informed by the experiences that brought its members to America. Even though Marcos is its executive director, he said, “Our process of decision-making is very collective. We are a community.”
His story echoes that of other Mayans.
“I left Guatemala in 1989 due in part to the war and the genocide happening against my people at the time. The state was recruiting young people my age for forced military service where I would be trained to go back and kill my own people. Lack of educational opportunities was another reason I decided to emigrate.”
Where his story diverges from most is his involvement in Maya governmental affairs. Comunidad Maya’s mission is rooted in social, cultural and political concerns.
“We basically desire to keep our identity,” Marcos said, “and be recognized as a displaced indigenous people and respond to the complex needs and aspirations of the Maya community.”
Macros acknowledged getting a fix on his people’s heritage can be elusive for outsiders since the Maya are dispersed in several Central American nations and yet Spanish is not their first language,
“If we’re sitting face to face you would readily assume I am Hispanic or Latino because I look like one. If I tell you I come from Guatemala, it will seem to confirm I am Hispanic or Latino. The reality is we are not. I am lucky to speak Spanish and English fluently but that does not make me Latino or Hispanic or Caucasian. I just speak the languages. I am not of those cultures. I don’t even understand those cultures, as much as I try.
“That becomes a life and death situation for us when it comes to encounters with the health system. Because of the historical discrimination against indigenous peoples and the desire to avoid pain, most likely a Mayan would indicate they speak Spanish and nod to whatever you’re saying, without really understanding what’s happening when it comes to their health.”
His organization bridges those information gaps.
“Any activity we do is done with the objective of educating the health, educational system, legal systems and religious institutions. Recognition of us as a displaced indigenous people is really important. It has taken a lot of education and explaining.”
Though he said Omaha and other American cities are “very welcoming,” there’s still ignorance where Maya are concerned. Many people he meets believe the Maya disappeared hundreds of years ago when the great civilization they built was dismantled by conquerers. Though subjugated, the Maya retained their culture.
“It has not been easy,” he said. “We invite people from the wider community to our festivals so we can introduce our music, our dress, our language. That’s when the recognition, welcoming and support come.”
The Maya still have much to learn about this country.
“It hasn’t been easy for us to understand the values of the wider community. There’s been a lot of lessons for us to learn. Where we have shared our experience, our culture, our language, we also have learned from the dominant culture and from other cultures values that give us hope to be a flourishing community. It’s been a painful experience but also joyful at times.”
The intent, he said, is to help others understand “we are one people as defined in international law.”
“We have our own language, story of creation and spiritual sovereignty. We have clearly defined territories. We have our own philosophical understanding, government and way of organizing socially. We are a people and a people in international law has a right to self-determination.”
He’s participated in conventions with otter Maya leaders from around the U.S. and. he said, “We have chosen to identify not as migrants or refugees but as displaced native people. That’s the path we have chosen.”
That path, he said. is “very similar” to the experience of Native Americans.
“The root cause of our suffering as indigenous peoples in the western hemisphere goes back to the Doctrine of Discovery. This series of papal bulls decreed we can’t govern ourselves and we can’t own land. They declared our land ’empty land.’ European nations used the doctrine as a way to justify their invasion, domination and exploitation of the continent.
“In the process of assimilation you either become Christian or you die. That was the experience of the boarding schools native people’s suffered in, where we were forbidden to speak our language.”
Further binding the Maya with Native Americans, he said, is their spiritual beliefs.
“The spirituality of indigenous peoples is the same. It’s earth-based.”
Formal working relationships exist between the Maya and the Omaha tribal council in Nebraska.
Visit pixanixim.org
Read more of Leo Adam Biga’s work at leoadambiga.com.
Next week: Part II – Rooted in relationships
___ ___ ___
EDITOR’S NOTE:
In a two-part series, El Perico looks at the local Maya community through the eyes of Comunidad Maya Pixan Ixim executive director Luis Marcos.
In this second and final installment, he describes how the community center he leads and the overall Maya community here rely on relationships to advance their mission of autonomy and integration.
Part II:
Maya community rooted in relationships
©by Leo Adam Biga
Originally appeared in El Perico (el-perico.com)
If a nonprofit is to thrive, it needs partnerships. That’s especially true for the Omaha nonprofit Comunidad Maya Pixan Ixim. It represents a minority community of indigenous people, the Maya, who have fled persecution in their Central American homelands.
The center serves Mayans who’ve come here from Guatemala and other troubled nations where they have suffered oppression and violence. The Maya were drawn to Nebraska in the late 1980s-early 1990s by meatpacking and manufacturing jobs. South Omaha is home to most of Nebraska’s Mayan population today. The Maya community center is located there. Much of its programming centers around celebrating and preserving traditional arts and culture. Some of its key activities are based in and supported by relationships with the larger community.
Those relationships include a pastoral care program with the Archdiocese of Omaha for Catholics of Maya origin, a Maya Community Health Collaborative through the Creighton (University) Medical Students Association and initiatives with the University of Nebraska Center for Reducing Health Disparities, One World Community Health Centers and the Immigrant Legal Center.
“We educate our community and the legal system on our preexisting rights as indigenous peoples to travel our continent, we provide accompaniment to people seeking political asylum and we provide contributions to attorneys,” Comunidad Maya Pixan Ixim executive director Luis Marcos said.
The Maya are an insistent but “loving, peaceful people,” he said. “What we want is a true understanding of historical events and to start over from a common understanding of where we have come from.”
The community center marcos leads presents cultural events throughout the year that incorporate traditional art, music and dance. The group also promotes a health initiative and a youth mentoring program.
Maya youth are paired with area college students to expose them to post-secondary opportunities.
“Most of our youth will be first-generation college students,” he said, “and we want to plant the seed that college is the ultimate goal.”
English language classes are offered at the center.
Maya are often mistaken for Latino-Hispanic. While they share similar features with their Spanish-speaking bretheran, most Maya are not fluent in Spanish. Instead, they have their own native language.
The organization weathered a 2014-2015 crisis that saw some key local leaders detained and deported.
“It was a very difficult experience to recover from,” Marcos said. “We didn’t do much for a long time. We had to regroup. We were successful in securing the release of two of our leaders.”
The center has since resumed a nearly full menu of events and programs. Resiliency in the face of hardship is engrained in its people.
“We stay together. We survive. We’ve survived multiple cycles of violence and genocide and all this stuff, so we stick together no matter what,” Marcos said.
Following that episode, the local Maya community has focused on civil and human rights.
“We work to implement the United Nations declaration of the rights of indigenous peoples. On that we work closely with the Huehuetenango Maya government. Now we have an extension of the Huehuetenango government in the United States. We have a Maya parliament with presence in California, Iowa, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Nebraska. We have a council of elders. I am one of them.”
Mayan communities across the U.S. “are connected on many different levels” and well-established by now. “We have come a long way.,” Marcos said. “We have been fortunate to have very harmonious relationships with institutions, faith traditions, nationalities.” This includes a deep relationship with the Catholic Church. Locally, a partnership between the Archdiocese of Omaha and the Diocese of Huehuetenango, Guatemala sends delegations there.
Comunidad Maya Pixan Ixim is supported by the Omaha Community foundation and other groups.
“The Latino community has taken us under their wing,” Marcos said by “inviting us to have a presence at the Cinco de Mayo festival.
The local Mexican consulate invited the Maya community to be part of a binational celebration.
A current exhibition of indigenous Mayan textiles at El Museo Latino includes education programs that highlight various aspects of this traditional culture.
All are opportunities to share the Maya story.
“We continue to articulate our presence as a people as opposed to letting ourselves be assimilated into the dominant culture,” Marcos said. “We have been able to tell our stories.”
Omaha playwright Ellen Struve has presented another avenue for sharing the Maya story. Intrigued by the culture and charmed by the people, she became active with Comunidad Maya Pixan Ixim and then researched a new play based on the lives of Maya and the stories in their ancient sacred text, the Popul Vuh.
“She’s very loved in the community,” Marcos said of Struve. “She’s learned our Maya language. She’s very open-minded to our concerns. We invited her to be a member of our board of directors. We’re really honored to have her in that role.”
EPIC is the name of the play Struve developed with Mayan themes and shorelines. it will be performed May 29-31 at Metropolitan Community College’s south campus.
“This will be a way to empower, highlight the community and the culture,” Marcos said of the production, “and to show that as an indigenous people we can contribute something to the wider society. I think this will be good for others to know us better, which at this time in our history is what we need most.”
For more information on the Maya community center, visit pixanixim.org. For details on the play’s showtimes and venue, visit http://www.gptcplays.com/playfes.
Read more of Leo Adam Biga’s work at leoadambiga.com.
Filmmakers and Their Films
Filmmakers and Their Films
Dates: June 15 – July 20, 2019
Meets: Saturdays from 1:00 PM to 4:00 PM
Location: MCC North Express 306, Highlander Accelerator 2112 North 30th Street, 3rd Floor
Instructor: Leo Adam Biga, film author-journalist-blogger (“Alexander Payne: His Journey in Film”)
Registration Fee: $60.00
Register at–
https://coned.mccneb.edu/wconnect/ace/CourseStatus.awp?&course=19JUCOMM201A
There is no better way to see a film than to view it with its maker. This summer, MCC offers movie lovers the opportunity to see diverse films alongside their makers. Guests include producers, directors, writers, cinematographers, editors and actors. All the films and makers share Nebraska ties. Following each screening, the guest will discuss the film and their career and field questions from students. Don’t miss this chance to see compelling movies by Nebraskans and to intimately engage these cinema creatives in conversation.
June 15—Mike Hill
“Rush”
Oscar-winning editor Mike Hill worked in Hollywood for many decades as one of two primary cutters on Ron Howard’s feature films. Hill shared the Academy Award for his work on “Apollo 13.” The now retired Hill will discuss his career and specifically his work on Howard’s 2013 Formula One race car drama, “Rush.” View the trailer at https://youtu.be/s43KIRThDDc.
June 22—Lew Hunter and Lonnie Senstock
“Once in a Lew Moon”
Lew Hunter was a network television executive who wrote and produced landmark TV movies. His book about screenwriting became a bible to aspiring scenarists. A UCLA class he taught included future filmmakers. Lonnie Senstock’s documentary captures Lew’s bigger-than-life personality and appetite for life. View the trailer at https://youtu.be/tRWBq0HiArg.
June 29—Mele Mason
“I Dream of an Omaha Where”
Documentary and network news photographer Mele Mason travels the nation and world for her work. She also trains her eye locally, “I Dream of an Omaha Where” follows the collaboration between performance artist Daniel Beaty and Omaha families affected by gun violence in the creation of an original work of theater. View the trailer at https://vimeo.com/197125222.
July 6—Nebraska Filmmakers Showcase
Sample the screen work of Nik Fackler, Omowale Akintunde, John Beasley, Camille Steed, Mauro Fiore, Tim Christian and other Nebraskans who make films. Some of these professionals will be on hand to discuss their work in front of the camera or behind the camera.
July 13—Jim Fields
“Preserve Me a Seat”
During efforts to save the Indian Hills Theatre, Jim Fields documented the passion of historic preservationists, film industry professionals and movie fans. He then expanded the story to document similar efforts around the nation that turn into classic clashes between grassroots groups and big business interests. View the trailer at https://youtu.be/TtMvpFPT9BY.
July 20—Brigitte Timmerman
“The Omaha Speaking”
The few fluent speakers left in the Omaha Tribe are featured in this audience favorite documentary at film festivals, Brigitte Timmerman presents the urgency that fluent speakers and educators have in preserving and passing on this rich cultural legacy before it’s too late. View the trailer https://youtu.be/lFK9Sj_Olx8.
NOTES:
South Omaha melting pot features Mayan flavors in new play at Great Plains Theatre Conference
South Omaha melting pot features Mayan flavors in new play at Great Plains Theatre Conference
©by Leo Adam Biga
Appearing in the May 2019 edition of The Reader (www.thereader.com)
Among the melting pot South Omaha subcultures.that Ellen Struve’s new play EPIC dips into is the Maya. The Omaha playwright’s original work will premier in three free performances May 29-31 at 7:30 p.m. on Metropolitan Community College’s South Omaha Campus, ITC Building 120, at 2909 Edward Babe Gomez Avenue.
EPIC is part of the PlayFest Neighborhood Tapestries program in MCC’s Great Plains Theatre Conference (GPTC). Program works are developed through community engagement that playwrights and directors do with residents. Struve met with several South Omaha groups in researching EPIC.
Abstract Mindz Collaboration was one.
“They’re an artists collective of very creative, talented young artists,” Struve said, “They have a fabulous amount of energy that sort of pops right off the walls.”
Additionally. she met with the artists behind the South Omaha Mural Project, whose works depict various South O cultures. The group’s prepping a Maya mural to be completed this year.
Ellen Struve
Finally. Struve reached out to Comunidad Maya Pixan Ixim, an organization of indigenous Mayans whose oral histories inform both the mural and EPIC.
“Witnessing people overcome trials with bravery and compassion is incredibly inspiring and certainly every one I’ve met at Comunidad Maya Pixan Oxim has done that time and time again while exhibiting an overwhelming sense of compassion,” Struve said.
“I have found there a wish for well-being for our shared humanity despite many obstacles. Executive director Luis Marcos, for example. came to America from Guatemala at 16. He taught himself English and Spanish. He’s trilingual. His people have been persecuted. There was a genocide against the Maya in the 1980s. To not only survive but to maintain such a strong sense of community and compassion and a deep appreciation for the arts is inspiring and connects with my own values and interests.”
Maya community members
Struve already volunteered at the Maya community center when GPTC producing artistic director Kevin Lawler asked her to create an original PlayFest piece.
“I immediately thought of Luis and how much I admired Comunidad Maya Pixan Ixim,” Struve said, “and asked if he would be interested in partnering with us. He was.”
The project dovetailed with related interests that bleed into Struve’s life, including a passion for immigration rights. Her play The Dairy Maid-Right examines issues about immigration in Nebraska. She’s advocated for DACA rights through the Heartland Workers Center. She interfaced with Dreamers while working at a Chicago music school. More recently, she’s discovered a Latino ancestry she never knew. She’s still deciding “how to creatively process” her own family story.
EPIC draws on the Popol Vuh – an ancient book of sacred Mayan stories – and it’s intersection with stories of first and second generation Americans.
Luis Marcos asked her to adapt it.
“It’s a beautiful epic poem I was unfamiliar with prior to working on this,” Struve said. “It tied in beautifully with the artist narratives and the idea of murals. I developed a narrative about a company of young artists creating a mural in South Omaha that turns out to be about the Popol Vuh and the way it speaks to our current moment and the ways we can make a better world.”
Struve and director Michael John Garces from Los Angeles conducted story circles with artists and Maya community members. The resulting script dramatizes ancient sagas and personal tales of South O natives, migrants and refugees who, Struve said, “are experiencing events in their lives reflective of events in the Popol Vuh. “Some of their stories are definitely impacted by the current immigration policies in the U.S.,” she said. “There are also timeless family stories of sons and daughters having second generation issues with first generation parents and timeless issues of artists coming into their own and connecting with a really important piece of art, the Popol Vuh, that is part of our hemisphere.”
Popul Vuh
Struve considers the Popul Vuh “a fabulous document of a great civilization akin to the The Odyssey or the Egyptian Book of the Dead.” She even learned a Mayan language. “It has been a complete joy for me.”
Her play is in Maya, Spanish and English.
“Not only is it exciting to bring these community stories to the stage, but we’ll do it with production elements that are exciting for me to work with.”
In addition to community members acting on stage, certain things will be represented via shadow puppetry.
“I’ve always wanted to work with a puppeteer and we have a wonderful puppeteer and designer in Lynn Jeffries.”
Jeffries, who works with Garces at L.A.’s Cornerstone Theater Company, enjoys bringing the Popul Vuh to life. “It’s a fabulous story just on the level of storytelling. It’s funny and complex and has a lot of things that lend themselves to puppetry,” she said. “There’s a lot of action. It’s a very fluid mode of storytelling with multiple layers and characters who are often one thing and another at the same time.”
The production will use overhead projectors to make small shadow puppets manipulated on stage. Local artists will bring their own aesthetic to the figures.
Rather than a limitation, puppetry is a luxury.
“You can create a lot more with shadow puppetry because you can make a bunch of small things out of paper and fill the room with them,” Jeffries said.
Garces called puppetry “a wonderful theatrical device.” “Particularly for any element on stage that is supernatural,” he added, “it gives it life theatrically in a way that doesn’t feel forced as sometimes it does when people wear costumes. Audiences will accept things that puppets do and will really go on a journey with them in a way that’s harder to achieve with actors embodying those same features. Shadow puppetry allows us to more evoke things than do them. It’s quite a supple medium. I like that a lot about it.”
Technical aspects aside, Struve aims for audiences to have their curiosity peaked about Maya culture.
“I hope people learn more about the literature and the contribution the Maya community is making to make our city a more vibrant and exciting place to live.”
Michael John Garces
Garces became familiar with Maya culture and the Popul Vuh years ago working with a theater company and writers collective in Chiapas. Mexico.
“The experience of working on Mayan-themed shows had a big impact on my career. It’s part of what led me to work at Cornerstone and it’s a reason why I embraced theater community engagement work.”
This marks the fourth time Garces has come to Omaha to flesh out a South Omaha-based play for the Great Plains festival.
“All the plays are an attempt to answer the questions, how did we get here and where do we go from here. These are vital origin questions. All these folks in the community are, like all of us, trying to figure out how to move things forward.”
South Omaha Mural Project
Collecting the stories of EPIC fed his already “intense curiosity about South O denizens and allowed him to “delve much deeper into a wider range of this community where I’ve developed relationships.”
“If you’re going to be a serious theater practitioner,” he said, “you have to genuinely cultivate the part of you that is curious because if you don’t you’re just not going to have quality engagements with the subject matter you’re working on.”
There’s nothing he’d rather do than community engaged theater that grabs audiences.
“I’m very blessed to do the work I do and I’m grateful for it. It is hard work, but it’s satisfying and joyful.”
As for Struve, she said, “This has been a really humbling way to approach theater for me because my job is to serve the people who have contributed their stories and experiences to the project. It’s incredibly rewarding. It takes it out of your ego and it gives you a different kind of purpose than perhaps you had before.”
Visit http://www.gptcplays.com/playfest.
Read more of Leo Adam Biga’s work at leoadambiga.com.
Passion, vision, defined mission make nonprofits click
Passion, vision, defined mission make nonprofits click
©by Leo Adam Biga
Appearing in the May 2019 edition of The Reader (www.thereader.com)
Nonprofits thrive when they find a community niche no one else serves. Next comes getting influencers and supporters to catch their vision and invest in the mission. The entrepreneurs behind the six Omaha nonprofits featured here don’t lead the largest or the most well-known organizations. But each oversees a distinct work borne of passion and vision that serves a specific population. Each entity stands apart from the crowded nonprofit field by filling a need or gap that otherwise wouldn’t be satisfied.
Sweat and soul make these nonprofits click. It all starts and ends with the people who dreamed them up. Each founder is still at the helm, refining the vision, steadying the course, and retelling the story.
The Bike Union and Coffee
As mentoring efforts go, Bike Union and Coffee follows an unconventional path not unlike that of founder-executive director, Miah Sommer.
For starters, its human services are intentionally scaled-down to serve a handful of young people. Bigger isn’t always better the way Sommer sees it.
“There’s a point of diminishing returns,” he said. “Do we want numbers to feel good about how many we’re serving or do we want results? We’ll only grow if we feel that makes the most sense.”
Union-Coffee mentors mainly young adults who’ve aged out of foster care. Most have a history of trauma. They struggle reentering society as independent young men and women. Devoting attention to a few clients, Sommer said, “hasn’t been real popular with some funders, but I really think that’s the only way to tackle trauma. I want to make relationship-based programming. In some way that’s what I was lacking at their age – meaningful adult mentor relationships.”
Clients learn social-job skills working alongside staff and volunteers and dealing with customers at this combo repair shop and coffeehouse at 1818 Dodge Street. Experts provide GED preparation, reading comprehension, financial literacy and other services.
Mindfulness meditation and cooking-nutrition classes are offered participants.
Bike repair and coffee revenues help fund operations.
Though Sommer was never in the system, he grew up adrift and estranged. He dropped out of high school, only earning his GED at 27. He majored in history and religion at college. He turned a serious cycling passion into a retail career that spawned a recreational trek biking program for inner city youth, BUMP. It’s now part of his social entrepreneurship mentoring endeavor.
“I left my job to start this in 2015 with a month’s salary, a wife, kids and a house, so I had to make it happen. I blinded myself to all the challenges of starting a nonprofit that is also a business.”
Employment program participants are referred by Project Everlast and Bridge to Independence. Originally designed for new cohorts of four mentees to graduate every 12 months, real life dictates a looser timetable.
“Now we understand this is a for-keeps relationship we need to stay involved in. We might have five in the program right now, but ten might come through the door each week needing services. Some don’t go through the 12 months. They just aren’t ready to work on themselves or they exit early when they find another job. Others stay 16 months until they’re ready to move on.”
“Until they’re ready” is the new mantra.
There are breakthroughs and setbacks. The camaraderie and training, including peer-to-peer mentoring, keep drawing participants in.
“Some just come to hang around. Others need help with problems they’re having. Even the kids that have been fired still come back. It’s a safe place for them, It’s a place where they feel accepted. It’s like a big family.”
Illegal or threatening behaviors are not tolerated.
“Generally, those kids are weeded out at about three months,” Sommer said. “They usually end up leaving on their own free will.”
For those who stick it out, there’s no hard and fast goal.
“The programming is designed to achieve what they want to achieve. There’s no, you’ll do this, this, this and this. It’s like, where do you see yourself? It works differently for different people.”
The focus is on getting participants to overcome doubts, face fears and achieve realistic goals.
“They come from a place where they’ve been told they can’t do things or they tell themselves they can’t do things. We’re all about telling them you can do this thing. They end up with all these small victories.”
Rites of passage moments like getting a driver’s license, opening a bank account, graduating high school, getting a GED, starting college and finding steady employment are celebrated, he said, because those “are huge” considering where clients have been.
“Each is a step in the right direction and makes them feel more connected to society,” he said. “Belonging and connecting and doing things that are societal norms is real important. Everybody has a need to belong and the people we serve are no different. They want the same things everybody else does. It’s not a question of ability, it’s a question of opportunity.”
The public can support the effort just by bringing in a bike, buying coffee and interacting with participants.
“It’s great to like us on Facebook” Sommer said, “but this doesn’t work if people don’t come in.”
Just don’t confuse what happens there with charity.
“We don’t do this out of pity. We do this out of solidarity and standing on the margins with young people whose resilience to keep moving forward is pretty pronounced.”
Visit http://www.thebikeunion.org.
Saving Grace Perishable Food Rescue
Beth Ostdiek Smith was a 59-year-old former travel industry professional and nonprofit executive when she launched an organization poised at the intersection of food waste, hunger, access and healthy eating.
The core mission of Saving Grace Perishable Food Rescue (SGPFR) is capturing and redistributing fresh and prepared edibles – 1.6 million pounds and counting since 2013.
“We’re not taking it for us. We don’t warehouse anything,” Smith said.” As fresh as everything we get, our clients get it.”
Four refrigerated trucks wrapped in the logo of an urchin girl holding a spoon un on a tight schedule. Professional drivers-food handlers make all the pickups-deliveries.
“In this perishable food business,” she said, “you have to show up when you say you’ll show up.”
Her service redirects some metro food waste – an estimated 40 percent of food ends up in landfills – to people who need it, including an estimated 20 percent of children who otherwise go to bed hungry.
She started Grace to bridge the excess-want gap.
“I noticed there was always excess food at events. I asked around Omaha and nobody was doing food rescue at scale. I took a leap of faith and put Saving Grace together. It’s a nonprofit business that provides a charitable service to our community.”
She based it on an Arizona food rescue program– hiring away its operations director, Judy Rydberg.
Smith’s networking has gotten hotels, conventions centers, restaurant chains, grocers and wholesale food suppliers to consistently donate their excess.
“That’s the movement we’re trying to have happen. It takes the community to do that. My expertise is really bringing people together I’m a builder and entrepreneur.”
The organization also has a mission to raise awareness around food waste and hunger. As it’s neither a pantry nor a food bank, Smith said, “it’s a different model than everybody’s used to.” It’s why she spends much time “explaining who we are and what we do.”
She recruits most food donors but more are calling her. Major recipients include pantries.
“We get the right food to them by doing a food match based on client needs. They’re not having to go out and source all this food. We bring it to them.”
Heart Ministry Center Pantry in North Omaha is a primary user. Grace will supply even more food there once the center’s expanded pantry opens.
“For some of our larger nonprofit partners we are just a small portion of the food they give out because they purchase from Food Bank of the Heartland. Others don’t qualify for the Food Bank because they’re too small and so we are their only source for food.”
Education efforts encourage people to make better choices in shopping for food in order to reduce waste.
“We’re trying to deliver those messages through our Food for Thought programs,” Smith said.
A recent program partnered with Hillside Solutions on excess food as composte.
Saving Grace is also identifying “on that whole food chain where excess should go and ways to get it to more people,” Smith said, including those who don’t quality for a panty but need food assistance.
Smith plans visiting perishable food rescues to assess what they do and envisions a national food rescue consortium for sharing best practices.
She doesn’t want o grow just for growth’s sake.
“We’ll always be lean and mean. We get a lot of in-kind donations.”
Grants tend to follow SGPFR’s clear, easy-to-track outcomes. Smith would like more multi-year grants to fund a reserve or endowment. She’s looking to build a revenue stream by partnering with a local brewer who would make beer out of excess bread and retail it.
A September 30 dinner and wine pairing at Dante Pizzeria will celebrate Saving Grace’s sixth anniversary.
Smith acknowledges her efffort is one piece in a collaborative mosaic addressing food insecurity.
“We cant be everything to everyone. We don’t do all of it. But we have a model that works for a lot of it.”
Visit savinggracefoodrescue.org.
Intercultural Senior Center
After years learning how nonprofits work at One World Community Health, Carolina Padilla ran the Latino Resource Center, which assists young women and families. When some women requested services for their aging immigrant mothers isolated by language and transportation barriers, she realized the organization was ill-equipped to do so. Wanting to address this community need going unmet, she left to found the Intercultural Senior Center (ISC) in 2009 with help from the Eastern Nebraska Office on Aging.
“I found what I really wanted to do,” said Padilla. “I thought, I have to do this and I’m going to make this happen whatever it takes. Then I realized I could do it.”
Working with immigrant and migrant elders appealed to Padilla because in her native Guatemala she lost her own mother at age 6 and was raised by aged aunts.
“They made my life. I always felt strongly that one day I will give back in some way.”
She also identified with the challenges newcomers face having moved to the U.S. with her husband and children. Thus, she created “a place where people share what it means coming to a different country and having to adjust to many cultural differences.”
“They come to share their thoughts and their lives.”
The center started exceedingly small – Padilla did everything herself – and operated from leased South Omaha sites always short on space.
Her mentor and former One World boss, Mary Lee Fitzsimmmons, guided the center in obtaining its 501 C3 status and finding donors.
“Great foundations have been behind us helping us grow our membership, programs and services,” Padilla said. “When we started, we focused just on the basics serving maybe five or ten people a day and 20 to 25 in a week. Right now we have 60, 80 even 100 people a day and 400 a week.”
There’s no participation or membership fee. As the numbers have grown, so has diversity, especially since ISC added senior refugees to its service outreach. On any given day, this melting pot accommodates seniors from two dozen or more nations.
Center programs include:
ESL classes
Basic computer skill classes
Health-wellness classes
Yoga
Case managed social work
A monthly pantry
Door to door transportation
Interpreters help breech language divides.
After four sites in nine years Padilla asked her board to lead a $6.3 million capital campaign to give ISC a home of its own.
“They helped me get that dream.”
ISC moved into its new 22,000 square foot home at 5545 Center Street in March after extensive remodeling to the structure. There’s more room than ISC has ever had, including dedicated spaces for classes and
private conference rooms for social services .
“I’m so happy and proud of what we have.”
More meaningful than the facilities, Padilla said, participants “have each other.” “This center gets them out of isolation. It provides opportunities to learn, to stay active. It becomes people’s second home.
“Coming here lets them see they still have so much to do. It helps them not become a burden to their families.
People are really happy here. They feel welcomed. It’s a warm place. Our staff is welcoming. They love our seniors. Sure, we have programming and a structure, but it’s more about the way people feel here.”
ISC partners create intergenerational opportunities between seniors and young people.
“We work very closely with UNO’s Service Learning program. Students come here and get involved in different activities and programs year-round. Elementary, middle and high school students participate in those projects. Youth interact with seniors making art, exercising, playing games, sharing stories.
“College and university nursing students work with seniors in our wellness program. It’s a way for students to put their skills into practice and learn what it is to be around diversity.”
Longtime ISC partner Big Garden is moving raised beds from the center’s previous site to the new location “so our seniors can garden again,” Padilla said. “We’re a grassroots organization. We depend on partnerships. Partnering allows us to better serve the community. That’s the beauty of doing things together.
“What we have built is the base and we’re just trying to get better. There’s still so many things to do to improve serving the aging population.”
She’d like to add physical therapy and additional wellness components.
Padilla is banking on ISC receiving accreditation from the National Council on Aging.
“I think this will help our organization to be seen in a different way, so we can bring more resources to the center
Though she has a staff of 18, she personally keeps close tabs on operations.
“I am hands-on in every single thing that goes on here.”
Padilla said working with seniors sparks “a new appreciation for life.”
“It’s an honor to serve this community. It’s a mission I feel. It’s not a job – it’s part of me.”
Making it all worthwhile is having octogenarians become citizens. learn to write their name, develop English fluency and earn their GED.
“That’s big and we are making that possible.”
If the center’s diversity has taught her anything, she said, it’s that “regardless of educational-cultural backgrounds and financial stability, all of our seniors have amazing stories of happiness, struggles and hard work and they all have the need to be loved and to hold someone’s hand.”
Then there’s the balancing act seniors who are transplants to America must negotiate in terms of assimilation versus holding onto native cultural identities. Padilla said the center helps promote mutual respect and understanding of cultures. It’s all about welcoming the stranger and adjusting to new ways.
“It’s difficult, but they do it.”
ISC’s August 22 World Bash fundraiser is at St Robert Bellarmine Church.
Visit http://www.interculturalseniorcenter.org.
Heartland Workers Center
Guatemala native Sergio Sosa won victories for meatpackers as an Omaha Together One Community labor organizer in the early 2000s. He advised Latinos in the packing and hospitality industries in staging mass demonstrations for immigration reform. Flush with success among this constituency, he launched Heartland Workers Center (HWC) in 2009.
“The vision was to improve the lives of Latino-Latina immigrants in the Heartland,” said Sosa, “Our strategic mission’s major programs are leadership development, workers rights and civic engagement.”
Sosa and his team of community organizers conduct their work in the streets, in people’s homes, at community centers, churches and schools.
“We do not provide services. If we do, it’s only to affect what we do for people who will be part of the solution of their own problems. Our rule number one is never do for others what they can for themselves.”
With lead organizer Abbie Kretz, Sosa “built the capacity of the center, got the trust of major funders, went from a couple employees to almost 20 and expanded from one site, in South Omaha, to offices across the state.”
The first ever South Omaha Political Convention followed in 2015. The biennial event is expected to draw 1,000 participants when it happens again November 10.
Year-round civic engagement revolves around statewide Get Out the Vote (GOTV) efforts that mobilize minorities to register, vote and run for elected office.
A major emphasis, Sosa said. is “bringing leaders from rural and urban areas together to think of this as one state.” “Economically,” he said, “the goal is to find investments to improve communities in terms of housing, infrastructure, education.”
Another focus is advocating immigration reform and workers rights issues in the Unicameral.
“We train people how to testify before state legislators and how the Unicameral works,” he said.
Recently, HWC activists supported bills preserving SNAP benefits and increasing worker’s wages from tips and granting protection from employer retaliation.
Before Gabriela Pedroza became a HWC organizer, Sosa said, she never even visited Lincoln. “But now she’s testified, trained others to testify and knows the ins and outs of the Unicameral. Next year she will be in charge of the Unicameral effort.
“That’s how change happens,” said Sosa, adding, “Women are becoming a major voice and catalyst for change. The traditional institutions are not reinventing themselves. That’s why they’re dying. Youth and women-led movements are spawning new institutions with grassroots political power.”
The Center cultivates new leaders. “We teach organizers where they can find leaders,” he said. “It can be through canvassing neighborhoods.” Once captured, HWC “mentors, teaches and activates them.”
On the micro level, he said, “It’s about people investing in their own neighborhoods and communities and being the agents of change themselves rather than waiting for the city to act.” South Omaha’s Brown Park had fallen into disrepair and a coalition of neighbors “are now working with leaders to fix it.”
“People have to learn how to act for themselves,” Abbie Kretz said. “Otherwise, they create dependency on organizers to do those things. It’s learning how processes and power work and building relationships with public officials and nonprofit leaders. You have more capacity and power when you do it collectively.”
In Schuyler, Nebraska, HWC-led efforts increased voter participation by the Latino majority and resulted in
four Latinos in public office, Kretz said. Parents there demanded dual language programs and “a collective of folks from the schools and the community working together got one started.”
“That’s what democracy is all about,” Sosa said. It’s a very patient work, but in the end it pays off.”
HWC has established itself with that steady work.
“By building relationships with people over time they understand who we are and what we do,” Kretz said,
“and that’s helped to build bridges versus burn them.”
“Rural Nebraska doesn’t see us as foreign outsiders coming to their small towns,” Sosa said, “because we hire people from those towns.”
Inroads for inclusive leadership and representation are happening statewide. In Columbus, HWC partners with entrenched organizations on community-wide events. Latinos in Grand Island are now part of the Nebraska State Fair planning committee. Traditional Latino celebrations and memorials are embraced by more towns as part of the fabric of life there.
“So, it’s changing,” said Sosa, who sees it as proof that “if you combine love with power, you get social justice.”
Change starts from within.
“If you don’t change you, nothing around you is going to change. You have to give yourself that permission to dream big,” he said.
Gabriela Pedroza knows from experience.
“That awakening keeps me going,” she said. “Realizing who you are and having that relationship with yourself is hard work and it takes time. But once you start, you want to do it with others. You want others to know you have more power than you think.”
Despite how polarized the U.S. is, Sosa said, “we still have open political spaces that provide an opportunity for compromise and change – and we better be active now in teaching others to do it so we don’t lose it.”
Visit http://www.heartlandworkerscenter.org.
Young Black & Influential/I Be Black Girl
Omaha native Ashlei Spivey has generated two buzz-worthy black-centric empowerment movements that reflect her late mother’s passion.
“My mom and I spent a lot of time talking about, what do you want your life to mean? what does that look like? how do you create impact for folks? So I think I’ve always had that embedded in me,” said Spivey. “Growing up there was a lot of systemic inequity happening around me. There was the richness of the black community but due to racism and oppression also lack of jobs and those things.”
Her father was incarcerated most of her life.
“My mom wanted to protect me from the situation surrounding me and made sure I had every opportunity. I was fortunate to have a parent who really poured into me in a way that added value. She saw all the potential I had.”
Spivey went to college down South, returning to Omaha eight years ago following her mother’s death. “It was very sudden. That was really hard. We were very close. I came back to be the guardian to my sister, who was 12.”
Spivey’s grandmother helps raise her 5-year-old son.
Working at College Possible and Heartland Family Service led to Spivey’s current post at Peter Kiewit Foundation. Wherever she’s worked, she’s been the only or first African-American. “Thinking about empowerment for the people on the receiving end of inequity” led to Young Black & Influential (YBI) in 2015 and I Be Black Girl (iBBG) in 2017.
“YBI was created to say we can affirm black folks doing things for the black community based on our own definition. You don’t have to look, talk, have certain experiences in order to be deemed an influencer. The people we recognize may have a degree or not, may work in a corporate setting or not. may have been incarcerated or not. There’s the whole spectrum
“It’s about supporting, acknowledging and showing leadership in different ways. It’s about creating your own narrative and owning it and affirming this is who I am and no one can take that away or negate that.”
Influencers from the community are recognized at a YBI awards banquet – The next is June 30 at The Living Room in The Mastercraft.
“There are some dynamic folks doing awesome work under the radar. We also do leadership development at the grassroots level. We’ve launched a board training program to get black folks on nonprofit boards. We’re really trying to build power.”
IBBG’s name riffs off the best-selling children’s book Be Boy Buzz celebrating what black boys can be. Spivey sees IBBG as “changing narratives and creating space for black women to have access to different spaces.”
The organization “holds networking events and does programming around things that affect black women and girls,” such as a recent screening of Little.
IBBG’s advisory committee intentionally includes women workIng in philanthropy, Spivey views it as “disrupting power structures.” “We feel like this might be a place where we are creating philanthropists that don’t look like Omaha’s very old, white, male philanthropists now.”
An IBBG Giving Circle with a goal of $10,000 raised $50,000. In May, IBBG is awarding $35,000 in grants to innovative approaches that advance black girls and women. Grant awards will be made annually. New Giving Circle donations are being accepted.
The funding, Spivey said, “is all about making possible seats at the table and building an institution you have to check in with before you do service delivery or interventions for black women and girls in the community.”
Both IBBG and YBI are tapping into “a restored pride in being black, in how we take care of community and how we make decisions about community,” she said. “This is a way people can engage and add value with whatever their investment in the community is.”
Adding stability to these changemaker efforts is fiscal sponsor Women’s Fund of Omaha. “They have been great partners. Allyship is important.”
Spivey’s exploring the addition of entrepreneurship and youth leadership development programs.
“My energy and effort is really building power that not only addresses racism but other intersecting isms people may encounter based on their identity,”
She feels her movements align well with where Black America’s arrived.
“Our people have always wanted to pursue their own vision of success and to help raise up our community. The issue has been access, resources and opportunity – that’s what it’s about. Now people are reenergized on how to have ownership over their community.
“A lot of young leaders are not concerned with assimilating or wanting to perpetuate patriarchy. They want to do things radically different and I think radical change is key. We were always ready – we just didn’t know we were ready. Now people are focused on that collective agenda on how things can be black-led.”
IBBG hosts a June 23 celebratory event at The Venue.
Visit http://www.ibbgomaha.com and http://www.ybiomaha.com.
Read more of Leo Adam Biga’s work at leoadambiga.com.
The Lucky Coin: How a Vietnam War memento is helping American military return home safe from overseas deployment
The Lucky Coin
How a Vietnam War memento is helping American military return home safe from overseas deployment
photos by Bill Sitzmann
story by Leo Adam Biga
Appearing in the May-June edition of Omaha Magazine (https://omahamagazine.com/articles/the-lucky-coin)
In the aftermath of the 1969 Tet Offensive, U.S. Marine Pat Peterson found a Vietnamese coin on the ground while serving a tour of duty in the Vietnam War. The date on the coin was 1966—the same year he graduated from Holy Name High School in Omaha. That persuaded Peterson to adopt the memento as a personal good luck charm. He carried it with his dog tags.
As the runt of his infantry squad, Peterson was often lowered by his ankles to inspect openings in underground tunnels. If he saw mounds of steaming hot food below, the tunnel was in active use by Viet Cong. Then they would pull him out and toss grenades inside. One time, after the grenades dropped, screaming women and children fled from the other end of the tunnel. That image—and other horrors—seared into his mind.
He battled post-traumatic stress from Vietnam for the rest of his life. But Peterson was a fighter; he endured, even surviving a bout with cancer.
The coin got Peterson safely home in 1970. He punched a hole in it and wore it on his keychain. He threw himself into veterans affairs. Two decades elapsed before he passed the coin to another serviceman going off to fight in the Gulf War.
So began a tradition that saw him give the coin to deploying servicemen—always on the condition they bring it back. They all did.
Homecoming and a Funeral
The last recipient to return with the coin was National Guardsman Cody Rauch, who carried it to Iraq and Afghanistan while deployed with the U.S. Army.
Now, the coin is in the hands of its latest recipient, Air Force officer Dave Shonegal.
Rauch returned the coin to Peterson in 2017. The coin’s owner passed away the following year. Peterson was 70 when he died from a brain hemorrhage in December. Rauch came to pay his respects. At the reception following the funeral at Holy Name Church, he said, “It got back to its rightful owner in time, and that’s what’s important.”
Rauch also recounted his part in the coin story. He was on leave between tours when, by chance, he and his mates ended up at Nifty Bar on the Radial Highway. The neighborhood watering hole was such a regular hangout for Peterson that a brass plate with his name engraved in it is screwed into the bar at his traditional spot.
The two men met as strangers. By the time the gregarious Peterson swapped war stories with Rauch, and everyone had washed down salutary beers and shots, they were buddies. Peterson offered his coin with the usual stipulation, “Bring it back in one piece.”
“Do you mean bring myself back in one piece, or the coin?” Rauch asked Peterson.
“Hopefully both,” Peterson replied.
Rauch accepted.
Supporting Fellow Soldiers
Peterson’s concern for active duty or retired military extended to serving as a Veterans of Foreign Wars post commander (VFW Post 2503) and as a volunteer services representative at the VA Hospital.
“He was very active in everything veterans,” says Teresa Burks, Peterson’s longtime partner who has worked as a nurse at the hospital for 32 years. “He cared deeply about veterans. He would come to the hospital for a veterans service meeting and stay there for two hours afterward just going around talking to people. ‘Hey, are they treating you right? Anything I can do?’ It was pretty cool.”
Although Teresa and Peterson never married, her son Jed Burks considered him his stepfather. Jed’s children called Peterson “Papa Pat.”
Peterson’s devotion to loved ones was rivaled only by his commitment to fellow vets.
“He would go to the end of the world to especially help another military member,” Jed says. “If he couldn’t help you, he knew enough people to direct you to whatever you needed. It didn’t matter.”
Peterson proudly wore his patriotism—bedecking himself and car with American flag symbols. His father Bernie Peterson was a wounded World War II veteran.
“You knew from way down the road that Pat was coming your way,” recalls Jed, whose oldest daughter may be entering the military in a year.
Peterson’s goodwill went beyond vets.
“He seemed to hone into people who needed help,” Teresa says. “If he knew of someone having trouble paying their utilities, he would give them some money. If somebody asked him for two dollars, he’d give them two dollars even it was his last two dollars. He was very generous.”
When it came to vets, no request was too much.
“He made sure, if anybody had surplus medical equipment, he’d get it to the VA—wheelchairs, walkers, canes,” she says.
Peterson and a fellow Marine veteran, Nick Sloan (who died in 2015), organized an annual Marine Corps birthday party at Nifty that packed the joint. The Nov. 10 bash celebrated the birth of the Marine Corps.
The Coin’s Journey Continues
The coin tradition was another aspect of Peterson’s giving.
“I thought it was a huge rite of passage to send it off with somebody else and then to get it back,” Teresa says. “I thought it was beautiful. He didn’t brag about it or anything. If he heard about somebody going, he would approach them and ask, ‘Can I give this to you as long as you bring it back?’ He felt like it was a good luck charm. But it wasn’t something he kept to himself—he shared it. It was part of his nature to care and share.”
At his standing-room-only funeral Mass, Teresa shared the tale of handing the coin off to those bound for overseas duty and her desire to continue the tradition in his memory. A nephew, Eric Peterson, knew a friend, Dave Shonegal, who was set to leave for Afghanistan in March on his sixth deployment. The nephew connected Shonegal with Teresa.
Dave Shonegal, the current keeper of the lucky coin
“She asked me if I wanted to keep on the tradition,” Shonegal says, “and I told her, ‘I’m honored to even be asked to do something like this. I’ll gladly accept this, take it on my trip, and bring it back.’
Shonegal is the coin’s seventh recipient in a tradition now spanning multiple generations, different military branches, and various theaters of war.
Teresa entrusted it to Shonegal on Feb. 16 at a going-away party at American Legion Post 374 in Millard.
The legacy he inherited is not lost on him.
“We’re talking 50 years. I don’t think I’ve heard of anything like this that longstanding, especially getting passed onto strangers,” he says. “It’s kind of crazy, but at the same time really cool. A responsibility comes with it. It’s now my responsibility to carry on this tradition. There’s a little nervousness about that. I don’t want to be the one that loses it after all these years.”
Shonegal says the legacy will continue after his return from deployment.
“It’s something I hope that, even after I give it back, continues for as long as it can—until we’re done deploying or there’s just nobody left to give it to,” he says. “It’s a really neat story and something I really feel needs to be shared as much as possible.”
Teresa agrees.
“I feel honored, absolutely honored,” she says, “and very, very proud. Pat would be proud.”
She says it was important for her to convey to Shonegal what kind of man Peterson was “because he’s carrying a piece of Pat with him.”
“I told him, ‘I want you to know who you’re carrying,’” she says.
The Legacy of a Lucky Coin
Shonegal is sure he and Peterson would have made fast friends.
“He was for the vets, and I can always stand with a guy like that,” Shonegal says. “That’s really where I feel like I’m heading. When I hang up the uniform, my next purpose is to help veterans in many of their situations.”
Jed learned about the coin in the wake of Peterson’s death, and it only confirmed what he already knew about his stepfather.
“Learning about the coin was awesome,” he says, “but it didn’t change anything for me because that was him. Not one part of the story of the coin surprised me because he always went above and beyond the call of duty to pay it forward to military members.
“For me, it embodied what Pat was about—taking care of people. That good luck coin got him through Vietnam, and that’s why he passed it on—to take care of others. For me, it showed that even when you’re done [serving], you’re not done. You still take care of your brothers and sisters in the military. It’s a family.”
Inspired by Peterson’s example, Jed began practicing mindfulness.
“I’ve changed a lot of things about myself as far as showing more gratitude, telling people I’m proud of them, thanking them for being part of my life—things that Pat did and that I didn’t tell him enough,” Jed says.
He’s also taken a cue from Peterson’s charity.
“There have been multiple times when I thought, I wish I could help, but I can only do this,’” he says. “Well, why not only just do that? Maybe that’s more than enough. To me, it might be small, but to somebody else it might be huge.”
Meanwhile, Teresa is keeping Peterson’s legacy and wishes alive through the coin. After traveling around the world multiple times, surviving dangerous treks, and escaping so many life-and-death firefights, she says there is still plenty of life left in this memento from the Vietnam War.
“It was very important to him to keep it going, so I’m not going to let it go,” Teresa says.
She suspects many of us carry a protective token.
“Maybe you don’t know what your good luck charm is,” she says. “If you do, hold that piece dear and share it with others.”
An internment for Pat Peterson is pending at Omaha National Cemetery. The date was not confirmed when this edition of Omaha Magazine went to press.
This article first appeared in the May 2019 edition of 60PLUS in Omaha Magazine. To receive the magazine, click here to subscribe.
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