In 2016, the Minneapolis Parks Foundation teamed up with Humans of Minneapolis street documentarian Stephanie Glaros to produce a series of 15 portraits of visitors to Minneapolis neighborhood parks.

Here, we’re re-posting Stephanie’s series of portraits of parks visitors from her Humans of Minneapolis blog. Look for all portraits in the series on this blog – 2016 and, coming soon, 2017 – by clicking on the Humans of Minneapolis category.

—

Chris, at North Commons Park

“How long have you been playing kickball here?

This is my third year. I know the guys who formed the league. It’s a fun time. Especially with things going on the way they are, it’s good to be able to have a family environment. Sort of an oasis. It’s just good all around. ‘Cause you’re on the Northside. And we know the stereotypes and the perceptions of the Northside. You have to have things like this to sort of counterbalance. Because everything is not gonna be positive. That’s just not realistic.

The Northside is battle-tested. I’ve been to a lot of places and there’s nothing like it as far as the togetherness of the people. There’s things that go on, yeah. But overall it’s excellent.

Tell me about your business…

Necessity is the mother of invention. My company is because I needed a way to get some money. Simple as that. The clock was ticking. You need an income. So Salery Cap was born from that thought.

It’s a logo company. A hat is a good way to sell a logo and still own the logo. This is the Northside logo that I created for anyone who considers themselves Northside. They love that one. I do like ten hats with ten different logos, but Northside is number one based on units sold. If you look around you’ll see a lot of them. So it all comes back to the togetherness thing again.

This company is not for me. It’s for these people. How many seats does the Twins stadium have? Let’s say 60,000. The TC logo is seventy years old, give or take. That logo is for the people who go to the games for the most part. I said, “I want to create something for the people who can’t or don’t go to the games.” There’s many more people who don’t go. So that’s what it was.”

Listen to Chris’ story:

—

Images and content are reposted with permission from Stephanie Glaros/Humans of Minneapolis.