Good. You shouldn't have to do anything on that. >> Well, good evening everyone. Thank you for coming to the Chaza Human Rights Commission meeting for Thursday, May 28th, 2026. Um, first up on our agenda this evening
is our roll call. So, Elise, will you do roll call for us? Commissioner McCcluskey >> present. >> Commissioner Duffy, Commissioner Carlson >> here. >> Commissioner Han, Commissioner Me >> here. >> Commissioner Hagga >> here. Commissioner Sanderson
>> present. >> Chair Hubard. >> Okay. So, we have an agenda that was sent out to us last week. Um, are there any, uh, changes, additions, deletions
for our agenda? Having heard none, uh, may I have a motion to adopt the agenda >> and seconded? >> Motion made by Hana, seconded by Kevin. Thank you so much. Is there any discussion? Having heard none, all in favor signify
by saying I. >> I. >> Opposed? Eyes carry. Well, we're really excited tonight um because mental health month has been observed
for in the month of May in the United States since 1949. And for the Human Rights Commission, it's especially our chance to stand with our community and show them that no one struggles alone.
That's why we've invited Matthew to be with us tonight um to talk about an organization that he started called Slam the Stigma. I read some interesting statistics today. Mental health that includes
anxiety and depression affects over 32% of our teens and adolesccents. That's pretty significant. Having a meaningful connection and tools to move forward is part of the healing
that I think Matthew's organization brings and we're glad that you're with us tonight. So, I'll turn it over to you, Matthew. Perfect. Thank you. Uh again, I'm Matthew Shrod. I'm the founder and uh executive director of Slam the Stigma.
We are a new nonprofit for youth mental health focusing on high school teens. Uh we've been around about a year now. Uh just over a year in March. Um go ahead. Um, when we talk about mental health, I kind of like to start with having a
little bit of a a definition so everyone kind of is on the same page. Um, and I have it listed up there. It's a state of well-being in which the individual realizes his or her own abilities, can cope with the normal stresses of life, can work productively and fruitfully.
And then the part that I really like to focus on is and is able to be make a contribution to community uh at Slam the Stigma. One of our biggest pieces that we focus on is building that community um especially around people because when
you're dealing with depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues. Um one of the biggest struggles is a feeling of isolation and being alone. Uh, and we're trying to to break that stigma. Uh, if
you go ahead. Uh, a couple other interesting statistics for you. Um, the one that really stands out to me is 22% of high school students have seriously considered attempting suicide. Um,
that's almost a whole grade level. When you look at 9 through 12, like that's a whole grade level. Um, and for me that's just absolutely heartbreaking. Um, and then when you go in and look at 67% of
young adults with mental health systems, mental health symptoms do not receive care. Uh, there's a lot of reasons for that between um cost barriers, just having access, finding a therapist can be difficult, especially nowadays. um
there's so much demand that it's hard to get into therapy. >> Um and so those are some of the things we're trying to help eliminate some of those barriers to give them some kind of access to mental health support. Um I
always like to start with telling my and sharing my story. I think it's very important. Um I grew up in Iowa. Don't hold that against me. um uh what you would call a a quote unquote normal family. Uh my parents are still
together. Had an older brother and a younger brother. We grew up in a rural community. Um you know, everything seems normal the way it was growing up. Uh little bit of bullying get growing up as a kid, I used
to get motion sick. So kids would make fun of me on the bus when the bus would have to stop to let me get sick. Um, and so like that, >> you don't realize how much that can affect you throughout the course of your your life. Uh, starts really early and you start having some self-doubt in
yourself. Um, but I went on and I played multiple sports and activities in high school. Uh, we did I did football, basketball, I played tennis my senior year. Um, I've been in plays, musicals, choir. Um, probably don't ask me to sing
right now cuz haven't warmed up. Uh but then I went off and I played a year of college basketball at a small school in Arkansas. Um part of that was trying to just get away from everything. Uh I thought if you get away from everything, you uh you can start fresh. Um but some
of those negative thoughts still follow you along. Um so I played a year in in Arkansas and then decided I wasn't a very good student. So, uh, for the student athlete and I went back and transferred to the
University of Iowa, finished school or went to school there and then I moved up here in about I think it was 2006 into Minnesota uh, actually into the Chaza community. Um, started helping coach at Holy Family 16
years ago uh, for boys basketball uh, and I do baseball now as well. Um but being around young people always made a big impact for me. Um I spent most of my career working at uh CH Robinson in
Prairie doing transportation logistics. Um and as I was getting older, you know, comparing myself to my brothers, comparing myself to other people, um just not feeling like I was far enough along in life. Um, and that comparison
we always try to tell people is is the thief of joy. Uh, you take your weaknesses and compare them to somebody else's strengths and you lose that battle 100% of the time. Uh, kind of the issue with some social media stuff nowadays. Um, all you see are positives
and it and it really impacts you. Um, so from that original self-doubt that I started having from a young age to comparing myself with other people, uh, it just starts compacting on top of yourself. Uh, I got to a point, you
know, started having negative thoughts, um, just not confident in myself and started getting into some suicidal ideiation. Um, and I know that's a term that gets thrown out there quite a bit and people don't always explain that
very well either. Um, and it means a lot of different things for different people. For me, I had a lot of days when I was driving to work where I was thinking, I wonder what it'd be like if I drove off that bridge or I wonder what it would be like if I was in a car
accident. Not necessarily that I wanted to die that day, but the pain or to see if anyone would show up at the hospital. Um, it all kind of just accumulated. And I wish people I wish I would have known
that that was a red flag that I should have started seeing someone for help, but I didn't realize that at the time. Um, in February, February 1st of 2018, um, I hit my my lowest point, um, I was
in my garage with my hand on the garage door opener, um, thinking that, uh, the world would be a better place without me. Um, luckily that day, I did not take my life. Um, I went to work, which was
the greatest day I can remember. Uh, I remember sitting there and and wondering if, you know, thinking that all the people that would walk by me, none of them would notice if I was gone, if I wasn't there that day. Um, and I had to go to basketball practice. And when I
walked into basketball practice, I had two of my sophomores, uh, David and Rory, who came up to me that day and gave me a high five and said, "Coach, we're so happy to see you. Uh, how's your day?" and just it it made me it snapped me out of it. It made me realize
that there's people that actually care about what happens to me. Um and those two saved my life that day. >> Uh which goes to show that it doesn't matter how old you are. Um everyone can make an impact on somebody else just by being nice. Um
the coolest thing about that story is those two players are two of my closest friends now. We go golfing together. We we text all the time. Um they they've graduated from high school, they graduated from college. Uh and it's fun to like we've had the conversation about
how they made an impact on me and then they've been able to share how I've made an impact on them as well. Um and so it's a really cool uh being able to to grow with them and and share that with them. Um from that I went on and got a
lot of my own mental health help. I joined a group up in Shore View uh that was called the face the Face It Foundation which is for men that deal with depression and anxiety and it's a lot of peer support groups. Um so you have a group of guys that are sitting around
talking to each other and talking about life and and what's going on and being able to share moments with each other. Um, and so that peer support has really helped me grow and led me to wanting to grow awareness for mental
health. Uh, a few years ago, I I left working in transportation and I wanted to do something different and I took my passions of young people from coaching and mental health and put them together. Um, I had reached out to a group up in Elk River and Rogers called uh, Thumbs
Up and they asked me to be their first affiliate. So, I'm an affiliate with Thumbs Up. Uh, and so that got the process started of starting my own nonprofit. Um, and so that's where where we are
today. Uh, if you go ahead. Um, the programs that we're offering at Thumbs Up, we're starting right now. We've got our after school and weekend dropins. Um I know school's just getting done, so we haven't done a lot of after
school, but we've we've started in February, we started doing Saturday dropins from 11 to 2. Starting in June, so next week we're going to be doing Wednesdays from 3:00 until 6:00. So that gives them a couple other options to come in as well. Um basically it's a
space for high school kids to come in and build a community. We've got board games and TV and couches and just arts and crafts, things for them to do and hang out and just build that community of of friendship. Um, we teach each
other uh healthy uh deep stressing techniques. So, breathing techniques, journaling, meditation, all those different types of things, tools to use to help you manage stressful situations in life. And then
ultimately it'll turn into a safe place to talk about mental health. Uh as you get comfortable with the people around you, you feel safe to be able to talk about the things that are bothering you. And sometimes just getting that out in the world can help you succeed. Um,
we're also looking at uh we're building a therapy referral program with local therapists in the area so that when kids are looking for therapy, we can help refer them to therapists and and other groups like the grief club or um Brighter Days, which is in Ian Prairie.
Um, and we're working with those groups to try to fill gaps so that kids can go to multiple spaces to find uh support that they might need. And then uh we're looking to do in the future to do an assistance program as well which will uh
help hopefully cover the first five therapy sessions for some students. We have to get that all funded and and processed first, but that's uh in the process that we're going. Um and then basically the best way to help
is is being okay to talk about mental health. Um spreading the word to people. That's why I'm here. We want to be out and we want to talk to people and we want everyone to understand that everyone struggles at some point and it's good to be able to reach out to
your friends or to to people and be able to talk about struggles and that it's okay to talk about struggles. Um we're always looking for connections and volunteers. So, if there are people in the community that are interested in volunteer at our drop in um on Saturdays
or on the Wednesdays starting soon, um we're always looking for volunteers to come in and and be an adult supporter to help these kids. And then, uh that's kind of where we're at. Um, and then if
there's any questions, um, I'm free to open any questions that you guys might have if anyone has any. boys and men or is it any students? >> It's any students. It's high school students. >> High school. Okay. >> Um I was a b I am a basketball coach and
so I've kind of done the basketball logo. Yeah. >> But we're not just for athletes. We we want to include everybody and you also don't have to be struggling with mental health to come in. >> Um as the numbers show, uh there's a huge population of students that are
going to face mental health struggles at some point. We want to try to help be proactive and invite everyone in so you start building your toolbox now so that way you're able to uh take on those struggles head on
and and have friends that you can help get through those. >> Um is your drop in center in the schools or do you have a separate location or how's that set up? >> We we are in uh we're actually just down the street. Um, we're right by at we're at 812 Walnut Place. So, right next to
like the Sarpinos and Fantastic Sam's uh across the street from the old Coopers. Two things. One, your story has a lot of like eer is I don't know if eerie is the right choice of words, but like it was almost like looking in the
mirror to my story. So, I there was a lot of it. And I'm like, "That's me. That's me, too. That's me, too." So, >> be surprised how many times people say that once you get in a group setting. >> That's the That's the point, right? None of us go through it alone. >> Yep. Yep. Um,
is there like right now you just have that the two drop in sessions. Is there a plan to grow like like on this day like here's like a set of like set of things we do on Monday's this, Tuesday's that, Wednesday's this. Um,
and obviously like you're not you're not there yet, but like grow it into something like that or is it like TBD? >> Absolutely. So, as we grow, as we have more students come in and we have more volunteers, we will have more multiple days open throughout the week. Um, more
after school type situations. During the summer, we'll figure out what's best for the students because that's kind of how we want to arrange it. Um, but we are planning on doing um a lot of different activities. So, uh, we've had therapy dogs come in from You're You're
Not Alone. Um, we want to have someone come in and do yoga or Pilates, things like that. I had, uh, someone come in and speak to the kids that have been there about, um, performance anxiety a couple weeks ago before they got to
finals. So, trying to do a lot of different uh opportunities for people to come in and speak and and do other fun activities, whether it be going across the street to the park or or workouts or whatever it might be. Uh we do have a plan of adding a lot of different
activities. And I do have some brochures, too. I I'll give those to you in a little bit. Well, what I've learned from >> what I've learned from you over the past year that I've known you is is that
um healing from mental health is not just the absence of symptoms. Um it is so many things but I think that the what your organization is doing is bringing
an opportunity for um our young uh adolescents, adolesccents, young teens to to like you said build their tools in their toolbox going forward knowing that a community
is around them. And of course from the human rights standpoint, we want to be able to stand with you and really appreciate your opportunity to offer this to us. And for our viewing public, of which
there are hundreds, if you have any questions or if you want to connect with Matthew, um, do we have a slide with Matthew's information or contact? >> No. But do you want to do you want to share your uh
>> our website is slamthestigma.org and you can email me at matthew two t's m a tt h ew at slamthestigma.org or info at slamthestigma.org works as well. >> That's great. Do you have any questions
for us? >> Not at the moment. No. >> Okay. Anything else? >> I had a question. >> Yes. Um, I know that you're kind of growing and expanding now, so this might not be a true sort of photo, but what is
kind of your demographic now of young people participating? >> So, currently, um, I have a lot of connections with Holy Family. Being a coach there and I substitute teach there. So our current um students that
have been coming um is kind of a split but boy and girl um but most of them have been coming from Holy Family. So high school and and we focus on high school teens currently but we're we're uh we do have information to district
112 and all the counselors have information. Um, and we're working on connecting with like Southwest Christian as well, but we want to try to continue getting in front of the schools to um, be able to invite all students to be
there. And we're working with first responders as well to great >> some of their programs trying or trying to anyway. >> Well, if we can help as you expand your programming, please let us know. we're
all available to support activities like yours here in Chaska. So, thanks so much for making time for us. >> Thank you for inviting me. >> You're welcome. >> I appreciate >> and you'll leave brochures for us. >> Yes. >> Excellent. Thank you so much.
Okay, so we have a shorter uh meeting agenda for this evening. Um, we were sent uh minutes from the April 23rd meeting. I was not here, so of course I read them in detail to make sure that I could catch up with everybody. Um, did
anybody note any changes, deletions, suggestions? Having heard none, may I have a motion to approve the minutes of April 23rd? So moved. >> Motion made by Brit. Is there a second? >> Seconded.
>> Was that you, Kevin? >> Yes. >> Thank you, Kevin. If there's no further discussion, um, all in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> Opposed? The eyes carry the treasures report for
this month is on the final page of your packet that's in front of you. Um Elise, would you be happy to go over that with us? >> Uh certainly. Uh commissioners, uh what you will see that is different
from the April meeting is we have began to um purchase items related to the Pride event which will be held next month. Um, you may also remember at the last meeting you approved a $3,000 budget for Pride. So that is reflected
so in there. So t-shirts have been purchased. They just arrived this afternoon. Um, and then you see the remaining balance of that $3,000 budget and then what your total balance is for the remainder of the year.
Wow. >> Are there any questions? Shall we hold a bake sale? I'm smiling. >> Um, if there's no questions, may I have a motion to approve the treasures report for May?
>> Motion made to approve the report. >> Excellent. Kevin, is there a second? >> A second. >> Thank you so much. If there's no further discussion, all those uh in favor of approving the May 2026 treasures report
signify by saying I. >> I. >> Opposed? Eyes carry. Thank you, Elise. Um, so our activities this evening will talk about uh the Pride celebration, the
River City Days opening celebration and any new business um that we have this evening. Um, so I guess we should probably talk about the Pride celebration or do you want to wait to go into that during work session?
So the plan for this evening is just to give a brief update on where these two committees are at. Um so if one of the committee members wants to provide an update, otherwise I'm happy to. And then um just to make sure everybody's on the same page and then we will when we are
finished with the meeting, we'll break into our subcommittees that are working on these and continue to work on it. Um, this was something new that chair Hubard wanted to try to be able to I know there's a lot of meetings during the day when people are working so that gets to
be tough. So utilizing this opportunity so I'm happy to give an update or if >> I mean I can I can start um in terms of changes from our last
meeting. I I can't say there's a a lot of changes that have taken place. We've just sort of moved forward with securing reservations for some people. Um kind of narrowing down final decisions in each of the sort of
categories we were looking at before in terms of um like a bounce house or what kind of ice cream we wanted to provide. um getting the DJ in place, those types of things. Um so high level, that's sort of where
we're at. And I know Elisa has been doing a great job double like kind of cross-checking the materials we have from last year and seeing whether we need to buy stuff for this year, hence the t-shirt purchase. But I know that um our
photo booth materials are all still in good shape. And oh man, I had a couple other things to touch on. >> It's okay. >> They went out the window. Um, we are
thinking this year about doing a what are we calling a rainbow a rainbow catwalk where people get to kind of dress up in festiv kind of dress up clothing and walk down a runway rainbow runway. There's aliteration. Yes. Yes.
Um, and I think the focus was going to be on getting kind of kids to participate. So there could be like boas and headpieces and capes or something. It's cool. Yeah, we're still kind of figuring out what we want that to look like and then there'll be obviously
music for them to strut their stuff to. >> So, yeah. >> Can you remind us all and for our viewing public when is Pride? >> It is celebration. >> It's June 27th from 3 to 6:00 p.m.
>> at Lion's Park. It changed so Yes. So, it's at Lion's Park. >> That's great. Thanks, Elise. That's a Saturday. >> Yeah. In case I got the date wrong, it's a it's a Saturday of that weekend.
>> It's that same Saturday as Twin Cities Pride, >> correct? >> Yes. >> Okay, great. Great. Um, >> I have to work >> I have to work Twin Cities Pride for my full-time job. So, this gets me out of working on that Saturday.
>> So, I'm not opposed to that. >> Well, I think we should probably just share u that our our event um is this year number six. >> Yeah, year number six for our is a
family celebration and we have all sorts of fun activities and um and have lots of fun while we're there. So, um, plan on coming to, um, support your community.
>> Okay. Do you have any other details you wanted to offer? >> I don't think so. >> Okay. Great. All right. River City Day's opening celebration. >> Go ahead.
Uh so you may remember at the last meeting um we briefly brought up this uh asked by River City Days to do an opening celebration um event that celebrates the the
diversity in our community and um the ask of the human rights commission was to help coordinate it. The funding for it the event would be provided by River City Days. Uh so Chair Hubard looked into it a little further and um said, "Yeah, this would be um something that
the human rights commission would like to do." So we gathered the River City Days group um and have an additional um subcommittee member helping from um our our Chesa residents and
um started to develop what this looks like. So it'll be Friday evening of River City Days, July 24th. um from the time is about it starts at 4:00 goes till 7 or 8 however long we can fill it. The idea is um to bring in
these different groups and be able to showcase them given opportunity. uh the length of time will depend on how many groups we get um and be able to just share with the community and I think it's really similar to what this commission has done with the celebrate
Africa celebrate India events that we've had over the years and so it's just an extension of that but um more broad so uh again the subcommittee met a couple weeks ago started to brainstorm these groups and in the work session tonight continue that discussion
>> it sounds exciting exciting. >> Um, is there any new business that needs to come before us this evening? Okay, having heard none, I'm I'm feel certain that we should talk about something else. Is there anything else that we're supposed to talk about tonight
under new business? No. Okay. All right. Um, our next meeting date will be June 25th, 2026. Um, as mentioned in the April meeting minutes, uh, we do have another speaker that will be coming in April, excuse me,
at our next meeting in u June and I'm looking forward to her remarks also. So, um if there is nothing else and no announcements tonight, no announcements either, then um may I
have a motion to adjourn this meeting? >> A motion to adjourn. >> A motion has been made. Is there a second? >> Second. >> All right. All in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> The meeting is adjourned. Thank you so much.
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