Author: Joanna Werch Takes

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Joanna Werch Takes began her professional journalism career at a weekly community newspaper in Iowa. After moving to Minnesota, she spent several years as an editor at a magazine aimed at hobbyist woodworkers. Joanna and her family have lived in Eden Prairie for over 20 years. She is a former member and officer of the Eden Prairie Women of Today service group and a former Girl Scout leader in Eden Prairie.

Panelists, subject matter experts, and Eden Prairie community members convened this week for a discussion of artificial intelligence (AI) and its impacts – current and potential – on our lives. The town hall-style event, titled “AI: Hype, Harm, or Hope?” asked participants to weigh in via interactive polls at the beginning and the end of the event on which of the three options best described their personal feelings about AI. The number of participants choosing “hope” for their poll response at the end of the event increased from the results of the poll at the beginning of the event, with…

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Kids grow fast – and outgrow their clothes, toys, and more. It’s a fact of life, and the basis for the Just Between Friends (JBF) consignment sales. Eden Prairie’s fall edition of the pop-up sale takes place this year, Oct. 12-14, at Champions Hall. Jeni Crabtree, an EP resident, has owned the Eden Prairie JBF franchise since 2020. Although she owned the Edina franchise for a few years before that, her first experience with the JBF sales was as a shopper at the Eden Prairie event in 2014, while expecting her first child. “I remember going with my mom and…

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After 26 years in Eden Prairie, the Prairie School of Dance (PSOD) studios are moving across the border to Chanhassen. Classes begin this week at the new location just west of the intersection of Dell Road and Highway 5. “It was a long-term goal for us to consolidate all of our studios into one place,” said Sarah Steichen Stiles, owner and executive director of PSOD. A construction project at Grace Church in Eden Prairie that meant PSOD would be unable to use its studios at that location accelerated the search for a new space. Founded in 1997 by Sarah Linner…

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The Eden Prairie Lions Club hosted its annual Corn Feed on Saturday, Aug. 5 at Round Lake Park. Over 4,000 ears of corn arrived freshly picked that morning from Untiedt’s Vegetable Farms in Waverly, Minnesota. The total shipment was 85 bags of corn, with 4 dozen ears in each: 4,080 ears of corn. As of Saturday afternoon, Lions Club member Darrell Rodenz had been chopping the tasseled ends off fresh corn for several hours, making his way through 30 bags. After the choppers finished that task, the ears were loaded in wheelbarrows and made their way to the cooking area,…

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Currently “on tour” at Eden Prairie’s Pax Christi Catholic Community is a Heritage Edition of the Saint John’s Bible. Commissioned 25 years ago in 1998 and completed in 2011, the Saint John’s Bible is the first handwritten, hand-illuminated Bible to be produced in more than 500 years. A collaboration between St. John’s Abbey and University in Collegeville, Minnesota, and Donald Jackson, calligrapher to the late Queen Elizabeth II, the 7-volume, 1,150-page Bible was crafted by Jackson and a team of calligraphers on calfskin vellum using turkey, goose, and swan quills and handmade inks. The Heritage Edition is a fine arts…

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By the afternoon of Saturday, April 1, volunteers from the Eden Prairie chapter of Let’s Go Fishing were frying fish in the parking lot of Immanuel Lutheran Church – a parking lot that had been buried under eight inches of snow from the previous night’s storm earlier in the day. While the church’s snow plow service cleared the lot, the Let’s Go Fishing volunteers had plenty of their own tasks to do for their annual fundraiser, which offered a dine-in option this year for the first time since 2019, as well as take-out meals. For instance, they had to defrost…

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As spring approaches, many Eden Prairie families with children are turning their thoughts to summer: summer camps, specifically. You’ll find a wide variety of camps offered in Eden Prairie, in close proximity, or with clear Eden Prairie connections. Offerings range from full- and half-day camps to overnight camps, with themes covering fine arts, nature, sports, and more. Many religious organizations also run summer programming. Some camps may have already opened 2023 registration, while others will open soon. Eden Prairie Local News cannot guarantee camp availability; some camps may be full and/or have waiting lists. Below, you will find an alphabetical…

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