BEMIDJI — Jess Saucedo returned to her hometown after 13 years in the Twin Cities, beckoned by her reverence for the woods and water.
She returned, she said, with the intention of making Bemidji even better than she remembered. So she started something new.
As owner of the Rail River Folk School, Saucedo created a public gathering space that has been home to various nonprofit organizations and charter schools. The goal, she said, is to provide opportunities to break down social barriers and build meaningful community connections.
Rail River's business model — using education and entertainment — is intended to create a more resilient community through relationships, trust, and opportunities for understanding. Saucedo said when people bring their diverse expertise to the table, the community grows and thrives.
“I know what ails this city," Saucedo said. "I came from Bemidji High School. I know the ilk of the racism that runs through school and community. I am here to kind of say, ‘Bemidji can (be) and is better.'"
Home to anchor tenant Indigenous Environmental Network, Rail River Folk School also features the organization's robust half-acre learning garden. The garden contains beehives, native plants, vegetables and herbs and is intended to enhance the land through sustainable measures.
Apple Blossom Village, a nature-based school, is also a tenant, along with a secondhand store. The nonprofit organization Shifting Gears, with a mission of upcycling bicycles to get them into the hands of kids in need, can be found there as well
A gathering space for cultural learning as well as entertainment, the space hosts a wide array of experiences including Bemidji Pride, Lakeland Public Television's Backroads program, and ongoing organizational efforts surrounding missing and murdered Indigenous relatives.
"(There is) everything from private weddings to tanning hide workshops, to local grassroots nonprofits, and social justice and environmental justice causes convening there," Saucedo said. "We've tried to keep a model to say 'yes' to things that are often said 'no' to in Bemidji. So everything from hip-hop to a 24-hour funeral fire for a traditional service for a memorial.
"Those are things that have allowed us to kind of make true connections and find ways to uplift the things that really do need space in our town. ... Trust is the currency that operates this place."
Rail River Folk School will be host KAXE/KBXE’s upcoming Record Store Day, 10 a.m.-3 p.m. April 22. That evening, reggae band Dred I Dread will perform in the River Room.
"Trust is the currency that operates that place."Jess Saucedo
Area Voices is made possible by the MN Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund and the citizens of MN.
