Before we spend Legacy funds on a stadium, consider what those funds are doing

By Barbara Wiener

Barbara Wiener is executive director of TVbyGIRLS, which describes itself as "a nonprofit organization that works with girls ages 10 to 18 to build leadership, compassionate and collaborative working skills, critical thinking and engagement in social justice and the issues of their communities."

The kitchen is a disaster. Piles of dishes stand in both the sink and the drainer. The living room is a pile of socks and unopened mail. The bathroom is piled with empty toilet paper rolls and old water-wrinkled magazines. The bedroom -- well you can just imagine.

Why is this house such a mess? Because I have been working, frantically. Taking on more and more work to try and bring in more income. You see, my occupation falls into the general category of "artist". To be specific, I am a filmmaker, teacher, mentor, editor, writer, executive director, youth worker and nonprofit employee.

I do a lot of things to keep the bills paid. And I have been doing a lot of things for a long time: 28 years, since I moved here to go to grad school. Right now I am teaching at a small college, working a project for the Minneapolis Institute of Arts and running a nonprofit that works with teenage girls, called TVbyGIRLS.

You've probably never heard of it because we don't have the funds to do much publicity. We just keep working ... mentoring teens, writing and teaching curriculum about how today's media affect us, writing grants and paying the bills, keeping the files and paperwork all straight and making films with girls about the world around them. Besides me, TVbyGIRLS has one employee and a couple of interns, and we work out of my house so we don't have to pay for an office or utilities or all the other things that cost money.

We have cut back from tiny to teeny to try and survive. Most months, I don't get paid.

Because I am an "independent," I pay my own health insurance and taxes. My health insurance is $913 a month, and because I have diabetes I pay an additional $300 a month for prescriptions. Let's not talk about all the other basic things that require money -- from insurance to gas to utilities to food to rent. Because I am "independent" I don't qualify for unemployment help when my work doesn't pay me anymore. But I keep working, taking on more and more teaching or arts jobs, grateful to get them. But they are all high demand and low pay. The last grant we got, to make a 12-minute film about teen dating violence, was actually called a microgrant. Those who awarded the grant understood how small the funds were.

TVbyGIRLS is girls making films about the pressures they encounter and the things they see and want desperately to talk about and solve. We're about teenagers (boys and girls) having a voice and hence being a part of the solutions for our troubled world. All good things, right? Stuff we want, right?

But we want a new stadium, too.

The Legacy funds -resulting from the amazing legislation voted upon by the citizens of Minnesota -- prove that our state understands what we need as individuals, as members of our communities. We understand that the arts, environment, and cultural heritage are going to take the back seat when times are tough -- but that they are essential to who we are and what we do. Especially when times are tough.

Last year, thanks to Legacy funds, TVbyGIRLS was able to take our media workshops and filmmaking projects to communities all over the state of Minnesota. We worked with teens and partnered them with elders in Gaylord and made seven short films about important places in their town. We brought a family workshop to International Falls and profiled a community dance project in New Ulm. We helped a library in Albert Lea learn how to make films so it could capture the stories of World War II from elders and we worked with a group of teens at the Franklin Library to look at the conflict between the Somali and Native communities on that street.

And in the process, we were able to pay our bills. It was a win on all sides. We were just one of many doing similar work. That is the power of the Legacy funds.

But now the Legacy funds are in danger of being carved up and derailed to address other needs -- like a new stadium. As the Russian proverb goes, "When the soup gets thin, the knives get sharp". Everyone is having a hard time. As resources get limited, the big guys get a little smaller. The small guys have nowhere to go.

I like big new stadiums too, and I like that we have big important sports teams. But I don't think the Legacy funds are about that -- not when the consequences are gutting the resources for artists and small communities.

So, my house is a mess and I work hard, hard, hard to find new avenues, new ways of thinking. I bat around the idea of just getting a corporate job with health benefits. (Then again, those aren't readily available either.)

Today I will clean my house. And I will believe that everything is going to be fine again. After all, I live in Minnesota, the home of the people who voted for the Legacy amendment to support the arts, and the future.