Bonnie (00:04):

Hi, Susie.

Susie (00:06):

Hi, Bonnie. Happy Friday! We’re going to talk about why you’re standing in your unfinished attic at the end of our video today. We’re super excited that we are going to be sponsoring another SOMa Cross Cultural Works event to celebrate something near and dear, to me, the Asian-American Pacific Islander Heritage Month. It’s a mouthful, AAPI Heritage Month. I’m embarrassed to say that I had to do some research because I only learned about AAPI Heritage Month I think a couple of years ago when we sponsored the Lunar Fest event, which is not in the heritage month, but heritage month is in May every year. And it actually started out as only a week. It was instituted in 1978 and then became a full month in only 1990, which obviously was not that long ago.

Bonnie (01:12):

Right.

Susie (01:13):

And it says a lot about our country. It was started by Congressman Frank Horton and the genesis of it was Jeanie Jew, a former Capitol Hill staffer who worked for Horton and approached him in the mid 1970s. Black history month was decreed by President Ford in 1976. And Hispanic heritage week was designated by Lyndon B Johnson in 1968. But this event didn’t become a commemoration until, as I said, 1978 and then 1990 as a full month. So there’s a lot more about this online, of course, but I was interested to see that it is a fairly recent development and we are excited to be sponsoring the first event in Maplewood.

Bonnie (02:08):

Yes, which will be May 7th, right in downtown. I’m excited. They are going to have a lion dance, which is really fun to watch Bollywood dancing, which of course is really fun and a DJ. And it’s an outside event. I also don’t know a lot about Asian Heritage Month and I’m excited to learn more and to see all these people gather. And it’s just a wonderful way that we can celebrate our community and the diversity of our community. So that’ll be May 7th, which is a Friday in downtown Maplewood. Everything will be outdoors, so you can do some social distancing and stuff, and they are doing an additional event on Sunday, May 23rd. And that will be in Memorial Park. Soyeah, it’s exciting for both of us and all of us in our community to come together and to support the Asian community and to learn more about the Asian community. And we’re excited.

Susie (03:07):

Yeah, we’re particularly excited obviously as current events have cast a brighter spotlight on the Asian-American community and some of the things that we’ve had to deal with in the past couple of years. And I also want to mention that Elizabeth Tapia from Guaranteed Rate will be helping us sponsor this event. So we are excited and grateful to her. And finally, I want to mention that we are in our second week of voting for our Startup Showdown so please make sure to vote. Voting is up until midnight on Saturday, which is tomorrow. We are down to four finalists. They’re amazing. You really want to learn more about them and support their businesses. So be sure to vote and Bonnie, why don’t you talk about why you’re in that attic?

Bonnie (03:56):

Well, real quick, go to startupshowdown.com to vote. You can choose two out of, out of the four. Vote by tomorrow night because next week it’ll be down to two and we’ll be voting for the winner and it’s very exciting, so every vote counts. It gets to be really close in the end. We would love for you to cast a vote. I am in my attic because I came up here to check on everything. And next week we are going to be talking about how you can finish an attic and what a dormer is. A lot of people don’t know. There’s a little sneak peek of mine and we will be talking all things attic and dormer next week.

Susie (04:33):

And yes, things to consider, you know, pitfalls and things to think about before you start your project and all of that good stuff.

Bonnie (04:40):

So when you’re shopping for a house to know what the potential can be…

Susie (04:44):

Yes, that’s right.

Bonnie (04:46):

So we’ll do that next week.

Susie and Bonnie (04:46):

Have a good weekend! All right, bye.