Hannah O’Connor

My work with Quatrefoil, one of only two queer lending libraries in the entire United States, encompassed many different areas of focus within the library. I got the chance to establish a partnership between the library and local roastery Peace Coffee, who are sponsoring a new coffee corner in the library. I also got the chance to complete various organizing projects within the library itself, such as categorizing and re-configuring the back office area of the library, which contains decades worth of reference materials, in addition to book maintenance and office supplies.

One of the projects that culminated my experience was creating a podcast, called The Coming Out Chronicles, which features one individual coming out story per episode, in efforts to foster connection and support within the LGBTQIA+ and broader Minneapolis-St. Paul communities. This was absolutely a personal passion project for me, as someone who recognizes and values the power that storytelling has and just how powerful connections made because of it can be. I felt it was so important to give members of the local LGBTQIA+ community a platform to share their stories, if they so choose to, in a way that can be accessibly distributed to people both in the Twin Cities and beyond. Working on the podcast included partnering with members of the fully online nonprofit, transverse.net, a website that houses valuable resources for the trans and queer community nation-wide.

I’m so incredibly grateful for the connections I made through this experience, both with individuals and organizations. They truly made this fellowship into one of the most memorable and empowering experiences I’ve had in my time at Macalester thus far, and allowed me to grow on both personal and work-related levels. One of my primary goals going into this fellowship was to partner with an organization that I could see myself working within beyond the structured fellowship time period, and I’m excited to continue my relationship with Quatrefoil moving forward. I found a renewed sense of intentionality and purpose with the work that I’m hoping to go into both now and beyond college, which I hope to be able to center around community engagement and advocacy.