Best Steve Volan / Plateia Media Podcasts (2025)

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221 [S4E15]: Melanie Vehslage and the Youth Services Bureau 37:54

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1d ago37:54

37:54

Melanie Vehslage works for the Youth Services Bureau, which serves to "reduce negative childhood conditions" in Monroe County. A department of county government, the Bureau also strives to promote what they call "safe, stable, nurturing relationships and environments" for local youth, which is part of Vehslage's job as their Prevention Coordinator.…

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220 [S4E14]: Defending Tenants with Stacee Williams of Student Legal Services at IU 36:19

3d ago36:19

36:19

The local university enrolls 43,000 students in person but only houses 13,000 of them. The other 30,000, almost all of them tenants, live in the city of Bloomington, a city that is only 80,000, students included. That's where our guest comes in. Stacee Williams is the director of Student Legal Services at IUB. They're a full-service civil law firm …

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219 [S4E13]: Protecting Local Waters: Maggie Sullivan of the Friends of Lake Monroe 35:20

9d ago35:20

35:20

Lake Week at The 812 continues with Maggie Sullivan, the Watershed Coordinator for the Friends of Lake Monroe. It's a non-profit organization whose goal is to bring together the many entities that have some responsibility for the reservoir: the Army Corps of Engineers, the Indiana Department of Natural Resources, Monroe County, and the City of Bloo…

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218 [S4E12]: Lake Lemon Conservancy District Manager Adam Casey 36:59

11d ago36:59

36:59

By Steve Volan / Plateia Media

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217 [S4E11]: The Community Kitchen Tackles Food Insecurity: Vicki Pierce and Kyla Cox Deckard 33:36

16d ago33:36

33:36

The Community Kitchen of Monroe County is part of the local safety net for people experiencing food insecurity. While it targets those in need, there are no eligibility requirements to receive a meal there. Vicki Pierce, their executive director for more than 20 years, and Kyla Cox Deckard, their treasurer who's been on their board of directors sin…

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216 [S4E10]: Elizabeth Conley of BridgeUSA at IU, on Constructive Political Dialogue 33:02

18d ago33:02

33:02

There have been cries lately for "viewpoint diversity" in academia, but for years in this college town there's been a student organization actively soliciting viewpoint diversity. Our guest today, Elizabeth Conley, is the president of the IU chapter of BridgeUSA, since 2017 a national organization of students devoted to constructive dialogue on pol…

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215 [S4E09]: Mark Figg on the Cooling Bloomington Rental Market 34:38

23d ago34:38

34:38

When it comes to the housing market, we've had city departments, and we're working on guests who can talk about the demand side of the equation such as advisers for tenants' rights. This week, we're talking with people from the supply side of the housing equation. Mark Figg is a developer who built hundreds of units in Bloomington, in projects larg…

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214 [S4E08]: The State of the Housing Market with Real Estate Broker Tracee Lutes 33:43

25d ago33:43

33:43

The affordability of housing in Bloomington, or rather, its increasing unaffordability, has been an issue for more than a decade. Indiana University has grown its enrollment without growing even its first-year-student housing stock, per a recent story in the Herald-Times. Interest rates have been relatively high, and only now are starting to come d…

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213 [S4E07]: Susan Hingle and the Monroe County Women's Commission 30:59

30d ago30:59

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Although we hope to have a representative from the City Commission on the Status of Women, we're talking today about the separate, seven-member Monroe County Women's Commission. Where the city commission has a budget to throw events like the annual Women's History Month luncheon, the county's focuses more on policy. Our guest today is the chair of …

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212 [S4E06]: Anna Killion-Hanson on Housing, Redevelopment and Habiltability 36:32

1M ago36:32

36:32

It's another round of questions for Anna Killion-Hanson about the city Housing & Neighborhood Development, which she directs. She tackles questions like what's happening now in the Hopewell development where the hospital used to be, good advice for tenants new to town, like how a tenant with a complaint about a habitability issue should proceed, an…

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211 [S4E05]: Caleb Hoagland and Dan Caldwell from the Severe Winter Emergency Shelter 35:56

1M ago35:56

35:56

Our topic today is emergency winter sheltering, the last resort for Bloomingtonians with no place to call home when it is most dangerous outside. For years there was a coordinated effort among local churches called the Interfaith Winter Shelter, but...well, it ended. We talk about why, and what's required to replace it, with the leadership team of …

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210 [S4E04]: Danielle Benedek and the Medical Child Abuse Clinic 30:45

1M ago30:45

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Our guest today is a Nurse Practitioner who specializes in OBGYN, and works for IU Health as the Regional Director for Advance Practice Providers. But Danielle Benedek is also a co-founder of the Riley Physician's Medical Child Abuse Clinic, hosted at the Bloomington branch of the nonprofit child advocacy center known as Susie's Place. We talk with…

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209 [S4E03]: Eddy Riou on the South Central Community Action Program 35:54

1M ago35:54

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There are almost a thousand agencies around the country called "community action programs", whose mandates are to reduce the extent and impact of poverty in a given area, and date to the 1960s War on Poverty launched by the administration of LBJ. Our guest today, Eddy Riou, is the executive director of SCCAP ("skap"), the South Central Community Ac…

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208 [S4E02] Lisa Ridge and Toby Turner Explain the County Highway Department 35:05

2M ago35:05

35:05

Any roads outside Bloomington, Ellettsville or Stinesville are the jurisdiction of Monroe County. Today, we talk to the County Highway Department about how they manage the condition of more than 700 miles of roads.Our guests today are Lisa Ridge, the Highway Dept. director, and her deputy, Toby Turner, the Highway Superintendent. They talk about wh…

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207 [S4E01]: Rafiul Shefar, Producer of the "government.exe" Podcast at WFHB's Youth Radio 37:45

2M ago37:45

37:45

The 812 is back after an extended summer break with a new season! Our premiere guest of season 4 is a fellow traveler. He too started a local government reporting series...and he just finished high school. Rafiul Shefar graduated at the beginning of this month from Harmony School, an independent K-12 school in Bloomington. Harmony students have to …

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206 [S3E53]: Shelli Yoder Returns with a Post-Mortem on the 2025 Legislative Session 35:17

4M ago35:17

35:17

Shelli Yoder returns to The 812, now as the Indiana Senate minority leader (a title she got unexpectedly the day after she was last here in December). Whatever plans she mentioned then for this legislative session were upended by the behemoth changes wrought by Senate Bill 1. Localities around the state are still reeling from the impact of the tax …

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205 [S3E52] Godzilla Day in Bloomington, with Beth Bredlau, Godzilla Scholar 35:49

5M ago35:49

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On June 27, the Buskirk-Chumley Theatre will host a screening of the original, uncut, 1954 Toho Studios film Gojira, in Japanese with English subtitles. There will be a special presentation before the film, and a Q&A panel discussion afterwards. That'll be followed by original Japanese cuts of two more Godzilla films the next two nights, rarely if …

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204 [S3E51]: Steve "Roc" Bonchek, Founder and Principal of Harmony School 38:51

5M ago38:51

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Steve Bonchek, whom everyone just calls "Roc", is founder and principal of Harmony School, the independent, non-religious school not funded by the state, which is about to celebrate its 50th anniversary, 40 of which have been in Bloomington's old Elm Heights School, which itself is turning 100 next year. Bonchek talks about how the school came to b…

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Next episode out Tuesday 0:12

5M ago0:12

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Due to unforeseen circumstances, the episode scheduled for today has been delayed until tomorrow, Tuesday, June 3. Look for it in your podcast feed then! Support the show A production of Plateia Media ©2024-5. All rights reserved.

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203 [S3E50]: Nathan Ferreira of the BHA: Filling Housing Needs in a Difficult Time 37:41

5M ago37:41

37:41

When last here in December, Nathan Ferreira was the director of real estate development for the Bloomington Housing Authority. He's now executive director of the BHA, and at a trying time for government-assisted housing, with cuts facing the Housing and Urban Development grants that fund so many housing authorities around the country. We'll get a s…

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202 [S3E49]: Helping People with Horses: Christine Herring of PALS 36:42

5M ago36:42

36:42

People and Animal Learning Services, or PALS, is a nonprofit center, dedicated to providing meaningful, therapeutic hands-on experiences with horses for individuals with disabilities, veterans, senior citizens, and underserved youth through partnerships with entities like the Monroe County Youth Services Bureau. We talk with Christine Herring, the …

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201 [S3E48]: Erica Penna, Managing Stormwater in Monroe County 39:45

5M ago39:45

39:45

NOTE: The 812 will take Memorial Day off; new episodes resume Wed., May 28. Stormwater needs to be channeled somewhere -- lakes, rivers, retention ponds -- or it becomes floodwater. If there aren't ditches or box culverts near where you live or work, you may have been wading around last weekend. Communities do their best to manage stormwater, to no…

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200 [S3E47]: Erin Reynolds and Katie Hopkins on the Status of Children and Youth 39:25

5M ago39:25

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Children have very real-world needs, and sometimes face problems that adults would have trouble dealing with. That's why the city's Commission on the Status of Children and Youth exists. The commission advocates for local youth, collects data on their needs, and debates how to solve persistent problems that those under 18 are having in our communit…

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199 [S3E46] Councilmember Sydney Zulich (D-6) on Ongoing Improvements to Downtown Bloomington 38:40

5M ago38:40

38:40

City councilmember Sydney Zulich (D-6) returns to the show to talk about: downtown beautification, including planters and the new art going up at last on traffic control boxes; some of the logic behind this year's Kirkwood closures; Bloomington Transit's summer experiment with a new downtown shuttle; and the breaking of ground on the convention cen…

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198 [S3E45]: New Services Galore from Bloomington Transit 33:33

5M ago33:33

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There's bus service to Ivy Tech and Cook at long last. A dozen new fully-electric buses in the fleet. And, this summer at long last, the first experiments with a free downtown circulator. John Connell, General Manager, returns for a 2025 update with Shelley Strimaitis, BT's Planning & Special Projects Manager, to discuss many improvements coming or…

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197 [S3E44]: Comparing "College Metro" Notes with West Lafayette City Councilmember David Sanders 39:32

5M ago39:32

39:32

We talk shop with our counterpart in the state’s other major college-dominated metropolitan area. The city of West Lafayette, the home of Purdue University, only became a second-class city like Lafayette and Bloomington in 2013, with a mayor and a nine-member council. Now a city of 45,000, it's experienced 50% growth in a decade, thanks to pressure…

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196 [S3E43]: County Assessor Judy Sharp Talks Senate Bill 1 35:44

5M ago35:44

35:44

Judy Sharp, the Monroe County Assessor, has seen it all in her decades in office, and is back with an update on property taxes. We talk with her about the debate between whether assessors should be elected or appointed, and in the second half, all about Senate Bill 1, which passed the statehouse in April, and had a number of surprises, mostly unple…

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195 [S3E42] Liz Feitl, Monroe County Councilmember (At Large) 33:08

5M ago33:08

33:08

Liz Feitl served as a union organizer and leader at IU and then with United Way of Monroe County for decades. Seven years ago she won the Toby Strout Lifetime Achievement Award from the City of Bloomington Commission on the Status of Women. Since winning the local Democratic Party caucus on January 19, Feitl is the newest member of the Monroe Count…

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194 [S3E41]: Rethinking "Public Safety" in Bloomington with the CAPS Commission 36:50

5M ago36:50

36:50

The murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis in 2020 exploded into the national consciousness and raised many questions. One of the most important was: knowing that our society has plenty of biases, knowing that perception is reality for a great number of people, should we count on sworn officers alone to improve public safety? In …

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193 [S3E40]: Miah Michaelsen, Executive Director of the Indiana Arts Commission 34:53

6M ago34:53

34:53

To the present. Miah Michaelsen is an old hand at the intersection of government and the arts. She's been at the Indiana Arts Commission since 2015, where she's now Executive Director. Before that, she served eight years in the Kruzan Administration, serving as Bloomington's first Assistant Economic Development Director for the Arts. As if that wer…

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192 [S3E39]: Amy Oelsner, Founder and DIrector of Girls Rock Bloomington 35:46

6M ago35:46

35:46

We speak with Amy Oelsner, the founder and director of Girls Rock Bloomington, which teaches girls from ages 8 to 14 all the elements of a rock and roll band. Girls Rock has been the beneficiary of grants from the city Arts Commission as well as from the Monroe County Council's Sophia Travis Fund. Oelsner is also a musical artist in her own right, …

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191 [S3E38]: Mia Beach and Hannah Airriess of Redbud Books, A New Third Place in Bloomington 36:14

6M ago36:14

36:14

We've been highlighting some of the programs of the Center for Sustainable Living, an organization that acts as an umbrella for nonprofit ideas that might be too small to be their own 501(c)(3). One of the constituent organizations in the CSL incubator is Redbud Books, which opened just over a year ago at 408 W. Kirkwood. A one-room bookstore entir…

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190 [S3E37]: The 50-Year Tradition of Public Access TV in Bloomington, with CATS GM Martin O'Neill 35:29

6M ago35:29

35:29

Community Access Television Services is the television station in the Monroe County Public Library. For 50 years, CATS (formerly known as Bloomington Community Access Television, or BCAT) has provided access to channels over cable and the Internet for public meetings and then some, and has provided access to equipment and studio space for the publi…

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189 [S3E36]: About the Bloomington Fire Department, with Prevention Officer Tom Figolah 36:03

6M ago36:03

36:03

It's The 812's first look at one of the most basic local services, the fire department. Our guest, Tom Figolah, is the Department's Fire Prevention Officer, and his title reflects a trend that may not be self-evident to people who are used to fire departments being just about putting out fires. That's reactive; better is to anticipate potential fir…

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188 [S3E35]: MDWST FABLE and the Power of a Grant from the Arts Commission 35:56

6M ago35:56

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Today's show is a case study in Bloomington's arts economy. Our guests are the founders of MDWST FABLE, a series of performing-arts shows that involve other artists in the Bloomington area, largely centered around storytelling. Tristra Newyear and Matt Rice, both of whom work for local creative media companies and who are creatives in their own rig…

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187 [S3E34]: GIS Coordinator John Baeten, on the Mapping of Monroe County 36:14

6M ago36:14

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John Baeten came to town as a visiting assistant professor in IU's geography department, where he spent time doing, among other things, a reconstruction of maps of Bloomington from the past. That led to his current post as the GIS Coordinator for Monroe County. GIS stands for Geographic Information Systems, of which there are many at the county. In…

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186 [S3E33] Getting to Know Bloomington's Sibling City with Vicki Veenker, Vice Mayor of Palo Alto 37:53

6M ago37:53

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So you may know that Bloomington has been a sister city to Posoltega, Nicaragua since 1988, and to Santa Clara, Cuba since 1999. Sister Cities International has been pairing cities across national borders for many years now. But Vicki Veenker asked herself: why can't two American cities be sibs? And that's how Bloomington, Indiana became the siblin…

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185 ]S3E31]: Understanding Ellettsville with Its Town Council President Scott Oldham 36:39

6M ago36:39

36:39

In the incorporated place that is Bloomington's primary official suburb, there's no mayor. The part-time town council in Ellettsville is the legislative and executive body -- sort of like the board of commissioners that runs the county -- but they're also the fiscal body. They're everything; in Indiana, only counties and cities have separation of p…

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184 [S3E31]: "Big Mike" Glab Makes Big Talk about Bloomington (and Chicagoland) 39:01

6M ago39:01

39:01

Today is a Work Session, an interview with a member of local media where we talk about the city and local issues of the day. Michael "Big Mike" Glab is a former reporter for the Chicago Reader who's covered every kind of news, hard and soft. After 50 years in the Windy City, he eventually found himself in Limestone Country, where he became the host…

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183 [S3E30]: Tackling Problemas with the City Commission on Hispanic and Latino Affairs 39:57

7M ago39:57

39:57

The 812 converts to "El Ocho Doce" for the day, to welcome representatives from the Commission on Hispanic and Latino Affairs, which "works to identify and research the issues which impact those populations in Bloomington, especially in the areas of health, education, public safety and cultural competency." They help break the language barrier that…

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182 [S3E29] All About the Trashion Refashion Runway Show, with Devta Kidd and Stephen Hale 36:37

7M ago36:37

36:37

One person's trash is another's treasure...or so the Trashion Refashion Runway Show tries to demonstrate. The 16th annual event will be presented by Plato's Closet at the Buskirk-Chumley Theatre April 13. The virtually all-volunteer event presents and models clothes designed almost entirely from waste, recycled, or upcycled materials. We talk about…

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181 [S3E28]: The Taste of Bloomington Returns, Says Jordan Davis of the Chocolate Moose 37:28

7M ago37:28

37:28

Even before they make the formal announcement later this morning, we have details on the official revival of the Taste of Bloomington, the summer celebration of this city's bustling local restaurant scene that happened for 35 years before the pandemic said we couldn't have nice things. Anyway, the Taste is back -- for at least one year, anyway -- c…

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180 [S3E27]: Andrea "De" de la Rosa on Managing the Bloomington Urban Enterprize Zone 34:43

7M ago34:43

34:43

We talk about the Bloomington Urban Enterprise Association. It's run by a city board of directors appointed by mayor and council. The BUEA oversees the city's Urban Enterprise Zone. Businesses and residents of the Zone can benefit tax-wise from the Enterprise Zone's Investment Deduction; revenue from the EZID generates a pot of money in the mid-six…

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179 [S3E26]: How Court-Appointed Special Advocates Go to Bat for Children in Need 37:46

7M ago37:46

37:46

A person who advocates in court for those who can't for themselves is known as a guardian ad litem. But there's an even greater need for children who have suffered abuse and/or neglect and find themselves lost in the justice system. Every state except North Dakota has court-appointed special advocates, or "CASAs" for short. Despite being an integra…

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178 [S3E25]: The Lake Monroe Water Fund: Raising Money to Protect Bloomington's Watershed 39:54

7M ago39:54

39:54

Today we're talking specifically about a topic that could take several episodes to discuss: the primary source of drinking water in metropolitan Bloomington. The reservoir commonly known as Lake Monroe is the largest body of water inside the state of Indiana. It was the state's idea to put a university in the middle of nowhere in 1818, and the city…

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177 [S3E24]: The 812 Work Session with Herald-Times News Director Jill Bond 35:28

7M ago35:28

35:28

We continue our series of Work Sessions — interviews with members of the local media discussing issues involving local government — today with Jill Bond, News Director and Editor of the Bloomington Herald-Times newspaper. We ask about her editing philosophy (which she just gave a TEDxIU talk about). Then we dive into some of the big issues the city…

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176 [S3E23]: Downtown Bloomington Inc. and the 40-Year Revitalization of the City Core 37:38

7M ago37:38

37:38

Forty years ago, Bloomington's downtown was all but over. Half of the land had been cleared for parking lots to compete with auto-centric development at College Mall and other places on the outskirts of the city. A coalition of downtown businesses assembled to try to reverse the trend. As a result, Bloomington is one of the few cities in the state …

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175 [S3E22]: Geoff McKim on the Issues of the Moment in Monroe County 36:39

7M ago36:39

36:39

When friend of the show Geoff McKim was on the show last May, he was in the final year of his four-term, 16-year career as a member of the Monroe County Council. Now in retirement, he rejoins us to discuss issues of the new term, like the development of the new justice complex, and the impact of the recently discovered $3.8 million shortfall in the…

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174 [S3E21]: Sura Gail Tala, on How the Center for Sustainable Living Fosters and Incubates Nonprofits 34:15

7M ago34:15

34:15

Our topic today is the Center for Sustainable Living, a peculiarly Bloomington institution. Since the 1990s, it has been a kind of not-for-profit co-op, foster projects that help the environment or allow people to live more sustainably. Their projects include Discardia which puts on the annual Trashion/Refashion show at the Buskirk Chumley; the Sou…

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173 [S3E20]: Julie Duhon and Erin Loughery of Tandem, on the Birth of a Midwifery Service Provider 39:42

8M ago39:42

39:42

Our guests today are from Tandem, the perinatal and reproductive resource center. Through Jack Hopkins grants, the city of Bloomington helped Tandem launch in Bloomington five years ago, with a certified nurse midwife, who's considered an APRN, an advanced practice registered nurse, in the state of Indiana. They now also offer a postpartum house wi…