Our family had little civics field trip through Iowa on the way home from Christmas with family in Missouri. We checked out a few campaign stops–Rick Perry, Ron Paul, and Mitt Romney–and we visited the Occupy the Caucus headquarters in Des Moines. Pretty interesting. I’ve posted a few photos, and here are a few more.

Protesters at the Ron Paul rally.

Well, it’s been quite awhile since I posted of a Seward business. Life got busy, I guess.

I visited Los Campeones on Franklin Ave. (near the Seward Co-op) quite a number of weeks ago. I had walked by many times and peeked in the door, but I hadn’t had the full tour. Everyone was very friendly and welcoming. I returned a few days later to photograph a women’s boxing class. Thanks to everyone!


the owners

I had an opportunity to visit and photograph Growing Lots, an urban farm located next to Coastal Seafoods in Seward.  Stefan Meyer and the Growing Lots folks started with a couple of parking lots, brought in a whole lot of soil, and now they have amazingly lush gardens.  The farm is an urban CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). They have 24 subscribers, who bought a share in the farm at the beginning of the season and get weekly veggies all summer long. I happened to be there on the last day they had chickens, so I the chance to meet many of the lovely gals (and rooster) before they moved to new homes. Thanks again to farmers Stefan and Jake for the visit.

Sorry folks, I’ve been rather swamped with work and haven’t been out photographing Seward businesses.  But here I am.  Last week I visited Zipps Liquors on Franklin, owned and run by the same family for 50 (is it 51?) years.  Impressive!  They’re known for their well-stocked shelves and knowledgeable staff.  Thanks, Jennifer, and the Zipps staff for letting me visit.

Last week we had our monthly Seward Civic and Commerce Association (SCCA) meeting at the Vine Arts building.  (SCCA is the Seward neighborhood business association.)  As a part of the meeting, we the opportunity to tour some of the businesses housed in the building.  I had to run off to another meeting right afterward, so sadly I didn’t get to complete the tour (and I was moving pretty quickly).  Perhaps I’ll get back there with my camera another day . . .

Anda Flamenco:

kristina at Anda Flamenco

Kristina de Sacramento, Artistic Director

Nguyen Architects:

Tan Nguyen

Babs Casting:

Barbara "Babs" Shelton

Ellie Kingsbury Pictures:

Ellie Kingsbury

Ellie Kingsbury

 

 

This week’s business is Siewert Cabinet.  And just FYI, they make a lot more than just cabinets–work stations, reception desks, and other products for businesses, as well as a whole variety of lovely residential woodwork.  Thanks to Rick and Cindy Siewert and staff for the visit.

siewert cabinet

Rick Siewert

I visited Wood from the Hood this week, a Seward business that reclaims wood from the Twin Cities and makes flooring, cabinetry, furniture, picture frames, cutting boards, etc.  They keep track of the zip code the tree comes from, so you can get a cutting board from your very own neighborhood.  Cindy and Rick Siewert own the company, and the cool thing is they’re also our neighbors. Rick also owns/runs Siewert Cabinet, but that’ll be a subject for another day.

Wood from the Hood's John Buck & Cindy Siewert

I had the pleasure of hanging around photographing at Caption Max today–a superstar closed captioning company right here in Seward.  There are just a handful of companies that do this work in the US–they have an office is California as well, where they do most of their captioning for live shows.  Along with closed captioning, they do subtitles, translation, and audio description for blind viewers. Thanks to Max Ducker and all of the friendly folks at Caption Max for welcoming me today.

liquor store

This week’s Seward business photos are of the Seward Cafe on Franklin Ave.  A cooperatively run and owned restaurant that’s been around since 1974.  My favorite breakfast, by the way, is the Super Green Earth (eggs, hash browns, broccoli, and cheese).

I visited the Women’s Prison Book Project this week, which is housed in the new Boneshaker Books behind Second Moon.  They’re an all volunteer organization that collects and distributes books to women and transgender folks in prisons all over the US.  They’re looking for donated paperback books–their most requested topics are dictionaries (English and Spanish), African American fiction, drug and alcohol recovery, abuse issues, arts and crafts, mysteries, and romance.  They’ve got a donation box outside of Boneshaker Books.  They’re also happy to have volunteers–especially in the summer, they said, when college students aren’t around.

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