Channon Mondoux and Jodi Michaels

[00:03] CHANNON MONDU: My name is Channon Mondu. I'm a canadian expat living in Portage, Michigan for the last 18 years, and I'm happy to be here to share this information and story.

[00:15] JODY MICHAELS: I am Jody Michaels. I am also a Canadian living in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and it is July 7, 2023. And I am delighted to be here with you, Channon Thank you. So we're both canadian. We both live in Kalamazoo. I don't know, an enormous world of Canadians here in our community. However, with part of what we're going to talk about today, you have definitely opened a can of worms for all the Canadians who are around here to get out in a boat and celebrate. So you are launching this year for the first time ever in Kalamazoo, Canadianifest. And I am interested in what on earth brought you to this juncture.

[01:22] CHANNON MONDU: That's something that I've often asked myself and thought a lot about it since this all started and to kind of go back to the origins of when the idea really bubbled to the surface. I was at the end of the pandemic, and I had not seen my family for three years. And it was really brutal not seeing friends or family or anyone from Canada. And in the midst of working on a fundraiser for Ukraine with final gravity brewing, I realized that I'm doing all this work for another country, which is rightfully so. I mean, they need the support. But how interesting is Canada? You know, Canada has amazing food and culture and art and history, and people love Canadians. We have the greatest, friendliest Persona in the world. And I turned to my sous chef and I said, hey, what do you think of this idea? What if we threw an enormous party, which translated into a festival. We threw an enormous party that brought in canadian musicians and artists and food, poutine and beer and curling and fun. And she just said, that sounds like a great party. And so the Canadiana fest was born. I turned around and I drew a canadian flag and wrote Canadiana fest across it, took a picture of it, and that was the nugget of the idea. And I was spurred on by Kevin Christensen of final gravity, who's done a lot of food and music festivals. And I told him my idea. I said, what do you think of this? And he said, Channon you've got to do that. That's going to be an amazing party. And so he kept coming back to me again every month, when are you going to do it? When are you going to do it? And finally, in January of 2023, I got up the gumption to contact the city of Kalamazoo and started the ball rolling. And it's only been six months since this all began in earnest, but yet so much has transpired in that time period. And learning about myself, learning about my country, learning about the people here who are canadian, and we feel like we're kind of hidden in some ways. Man, I can't swing a stick without hitting a Canadian around here. So it's been really amazing.

[03:47] JODY MICHAELS: Awesome. So you had this nugget that, you know, brought you to where you are right now. Has it brought for you feelings or memories or things that. That, I don't know, have you obviously sound so excited about this festival, like, you know, that have made you feel like, you know, I don't know, more canadian or more, you know, in touch with your roots or.

[04:20] CHANNON MONDU: Yeah. Or. Yes. And all those things. And, you know, as I began to connect with people both in Michigan and around the country and being interviewed over and over again and speaking with the CBC and my friends and family back in Canada, you know, a lot of them are like, Channon what are you doing? Like, what are you up to? Like, couldn't you just have a backyard party like everybody else? And I began to realize that this nugget of this idea comes from a very deep and sincere wish to thank and to acknowledge the country that I came from, because, honestly, in other circumstances, I don't know that I'd be here before you today. Everybody has a different experience in Canada. I don't know where you grew up. I don't know what your life was like. People look at me and they see someone who's a successful chef and a writer and a community activist, but they don't know the backstory of all of that and how I got to be here. And that wasn't always my life. I grew up in a very poverty stricken situation. My mother was a single mom. Her and my natural father parted ways, and she left Toronto, came back to Windsor, where she grew up, and she tried to raise me. And, you know, when we started out, she's told me this story. Well, she's gone now, but she told me the story that she worked as a babysitter, and she had a one room apartment, and the only piece of furniture she had was a dresser. And that dresser contained all of my baby clothes, and the bottom drawer was my bed, and that's where I came from. And, you know, my mom did the best she could, and she met someone, fell in love, and got married, and they were together for a number of years, and he, too, wasn't educated. My mom went to 10th grade. My stepdad went to third grade. He was an amazingly talented and creative mandev, but he had a hard time holding the job down. And we lived in poverty for the better part of my growing up. And somebody like me, who comes from a background where, you know, my stepdad's family and even my side of the family are First nations, and his family left the reserve in the early 19 hundreds. There's a lot of stigma to being a French Metis person. And although I may not have suffered that a lot, because I don't necessarily look First nations, we had to climb out of that situation, and with no education, I was the first person in my family to get past high school. And it wasn't handed to me. I worked hard for it. But I'll tell you, without the grants and the bursaries that the Ontario Osapdem, which is Ontario student assistance program, gave me, I would never have been able to make it out of that situation, of that generational poverty. You know, it was a struggle for me in that way. And not just the OSAT program. There were so many social systems that helped me not fall through the cracks. You know, there was children's aid who came out and made sure I was taken care of. At times in my life, they made sure I had social workers that watched out for me. There were. When I was 15 years old, I had to leave home because of the abuse, I had to leave home. And there was a social system where emancipated minors could receive a stipend, a monthly stipend to give them a place to live. They wanted to put me in a girls home. And I know, knowing my personality, that I would have gone in an even worse direction. I was already a troubled teen. I didn't need to have a group of girls who were also even worse than me, because I would have wanted to be the best of them all. And that's not a good thing. In that circumstance, the Ontario government and the people of Canada, their taxes saved my life and gave me an opportunity to be the best person I could be. And so as I'm going through this process of creating this event for my entire community, I realized that that nugget of an idea comes from a place that is so deep. And so when people say, you're leaving no stone unturned, you are working 40, 60 hours a week on this project. I've put aside my business. I had to give up my business because of what's gone into this event. And people are asking me, is it worth it? And all I can say is that when people come to this event and they get to experience canadian culture, canadian music, canadian art, canadian food, and they walk away and they say, that's a pretty cool place. I want to go there. I feel like what I'm doing is giving back, not just to the community I live in now, but to the one I came from. And so it's such a unique experience to sit here and realize this now. I mean, I'm sure I might realize it afterwards, but being in the midst of this, the quagmire of the contracts and the agreements and the emails and the texts and social media and trying to keep everything going and keep above water, I know, as corny as this sounds, that it's a noble cause and that when people take away from this anything, I will have done my job, I will have felt and will feel, I don't know if complete is the right word, but certainly satisfied that we have given them the best I can possibly bring to the table. And so it's a very moving experience for me. It's almost like this epiphany that I realize that all of this is a big old thank you card to Canada and Canadians. And I hope through it that not only do people in Kalamazoo and Michigan and whoever comes from, I mean, we've got people reaching out to me, me from Toronto and Hamilton and East Coast, West Coast, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Minnesota. I mean, they're all like, this is the most amazing thing I've ever heard of. Why hasn't anybody done this before? And it's. I think because they haven't acknowledged that there's something there deeper than just beer and poutine. You know, this is. This isn't. It is an enormous undertaking, what we're doing, but it has enormous ripples. And I want Canadians to also stop for a minute, because I know, you know, Canada has changed and grown, and there's a lot going on over there. It's not a perfect country by any stretch, but I want Canadians to take a moment and say, you know, what we invest in when we pay our taxes, when we create these social programs are people like me who've gone on to not be a burden on society, to become someone who's leading changes and gives back. And without that, that basic tenet of canadian society, which is people first, not always, but mostly, we know, you and I both know, having come from Canada, you know, I moved here 18 years ago. When did you move here?

[13:02] JODY MICHAELS: I've lived here a few times. I am, I believe in my going into my 15th year in Kalamazoo.

[13:13] CHANNON MONDU: So we've both seen substantial lengths of time in both countries, you know, and we can judge better than most the good and the bad and the ugly and all of that in between. And this is not an opportunity for me to bash the United States, because I love here. I love it here. This is one of the most beautiful, generous, kind, educated, forward thinking communities I've ever lived in, including back home in Canada, even, and West Michigan, Kalamazoo in particular, portage, where I live. People are very generous, and I love being here. I was terrified to move here. I was terrified because I grew up in the shadow of a big city in Detroit. I grew up under that, in Windsor my whole life, and I was fearful that it was going to be like that here. And it's not. One of the first things I encountered when I moved here was I volunteered to help out at the local elementary school, and I met a family, and they were literally building playground equipment out of their own pockets and raising money for it because there weren't any funds. Now, in Canada, there would have been funds, but maybe not so many people who were so entrepreneurial about it. So it's a little bit of a difference. But, yeah, this. It comes from a deep place. And as corny as it may sound, I hope that resonates with people. And as I go through this, I talk about building community. And it's not just about being canadian or not being canadian, because I've jokingly said, are you canadian? Curator. Canadian. Envious Canadian. You know, adjacent. Do you know a Canadian? You just like them? Because it's about that, that Persona of that self deprecating canadianism that really I want to share with the world and have people come back and want to do this again and again. So.

[15:31] JODY MICHAELS: Amazing. You just said so much about so many things. I mean, you know, in listening to you, I'm thinking about where we live now and, you know, where we're from at the same time. And, you know, you talk about intergenerational poverty, which is an enormous challenge here today in Kalamazoo right now that so many people are trying to do, you know, good works to help people, you know, find the way to, like, lift up and to be, like, community minded in how we address these, you know, challenges that belong to everyone who lives here, not just people who are experiencing such things. And, you know, you mentioned, like, you know, the safety net. I mean, there's a different philosophy, I think, for a lot of folks, you know, I know a lot of folks I've met around here, they haven't necessarily spent a lot of time in Canada. They may have driven across and, you know, spent a day or sometimes a little bit more. But I feel like, you know, there's a sense that, you know, it's not that different. It's like there's fewer people. It's smaller territorially, it's bigger, but it's a small population. And the nuance of what's different, what's similar isn't necessarily picked up on by everybody. And so it's interesting through this festival, looking at that, especially in a place that is so close to the border, I think you might find folks getting excited about doing such a thing further away. And maybe because people here can drive and even go on a day trip, maybe don't think about doing something like what you are doing right now. And maybe nobody's thought about doing it from the place that you are coming from in putting on this festival. So it's super interesting and almost like a challenge to all of us to live up to the hype of what you're bringing to our community table here.

[18:01] CHANNON MONDU: Canucks represent sounds so corny because we are nothing. So. And what you talked about just really hits a lot of the things that I've had to face, you know, and I'll touch on a couple of them. One of them is homelessness. So homelessness in Kalamazoo is pretty big because we have a very generous community. I think. I think that contributes to it. And so we're willing to try to help people. So people gravitate here to Kalamazoo, and I can really feel for people who are homeless. As a young teen, I was homeless. I lived in various places, not good ones. Lived on the street for a little while. As a child, I was homeless. I often didn't have a bed of my own. I slept on a lawn chair for a better part of a year because we didn't have an actual bed and bounced from one house to another to another. I remember that feeling of not belonging anywhere and not being safe. And, you know, as I'm preparing for this festival, the center, the Arcadia Creek festival site, has become a homeless shelter, and people have taken up residence there. And I am so torn and heartbroken over having to kick them out. Not to say that they should live there, they should have homes, they should have a place to go, they should have a safe haven for them to be able to deal with whatever it is they deal with in life. But that being said, I have to do a festival, so I have to rent the site the night before in order to remove people so that we can have the festival on Saturday and set everything up. And, like, I even reached out to the police, and I said, hey, you know, this is what we're doing, and it's a good thing to have community dialogue with them about what I'm doing and, you know, what plans we have in place for security, etcetera. And I said to the police officer, hey, what if I offered to people who are homeless the ability to take the recyclables? And he said, you know, that's a very, very good idea from your standpoint. But he said, what's going to happen is it's going to result in fights, and you're going to have people literally killing each other over getting to those recyclable bottles and cans. And I was like, no, I hadn't even thought of that. Like, how sad that this thing that I wanted to do, which I thought, well, you know, it would give them money, they could have a purpose. Maybe that would be their job. They could be volunteers at the thing. I can give them food tickets. They can get a t shirt. They can be a part of it. Instead of excluding them. I wanted to include them, but unfortunately, I don't know how to make that happen. You know, there's nobody who is the leader of the homeless who can speak for them or that I can speak to. And so I'm at this, like, through this process of doing this event, so many things have come up like that. So I've reached out to the YWCA. I've reached out to the, a few community centers around the event to say, hey, I want to engage in people who live here. I want them to know about Canada. I want them to know that even though they're living in an area around the event site is a very impoverished neighborhood besides the business center, right? We're talking Edward street. We're talking north side. And those communities have some challenges, major, you know, generational poverty. I want them to know that there is a. That there's something else out there. See Canada. See the people. There are people who care deeply. And how do I bring all that together in a music festival? I mean, the goal is outrageous, right? The goal is crazy. And maybe it all doesn't come to fruition this year, but.

[22:33] JODY MICHAELS: It'S worthwhile. And the questions that you're asking, you know, one would hope that folks putting on all the festivals that happen in our festival site, you know, grapple with and think about and, you know, find participatory solutions to with the people who, you know, are unhoused and making a home in our downtown area. And, you know, you never know. There may even be Canadians and canadian adjacents and canadian aficionados and fans of some of the particular musicians that, you know, are being showcased, whose music is being showcased at the festival. So there could be a lot of really, you know, positive surprises that come out of it. But it's, you know, it's the, I don't know, naming, acknowledging, and, like, you know, trying to grapple with the challenges that will come up and are coming up in, like, doing this whole endeavor that will make it a cool event.

[23:53] CHANNON MONDU: I hope so. You know, there are nights where I don't sleep because of stress over whether or not tickets are going to sell. And I know that that's. I just have to put that aside because I'm going to do this regardless. I'm going to do this. This is going to happen. I have to believe that they will come. You know, I'm not Kevin Costner, but I believe that they will come. And for, whether it's because of the nobility of the reason or whether it's because they just want to have a good time, frankly, I don't care because I think that if they come just to have a good time, the nobility of the reason is still going to rub off. I do believe that, and I believe that every person that I engage with that is a food vendor or an art vendor or a cultural component, that every single one of those people are coming together to build this network community of people who see the goal, which is to share one of the major things about Canada, which is they're known for their kindness. And from day one, that was a fundamental part of my mission was to not only to share a good time, but to share the kindness of Canada and to keep that at the forefront of everything we did. And if it means that I have to say to a vendor, you know what I'm, if you make money, you pay me a vendor fee. If you don't make money, hopefully we'll see you next year or if you don't make enough money. So I'm not. And maybe that's one of my people might call me a sucker or, you know, whatever. That's my downfall, my weakness. But I believe that if I extend that kindness to people, that that has a ripple, because look what it's done for me. When I was in high school, I was in a lot of trouble. Lot of trouble. And the principal, Roy Badigello, he knew what I was up to. As a matter of fact, I saw him one day on my lunch hour while we were in the alley. And the alley was a place where we all went to imbibe, shall we say. And I looked up from the alley, and I saw him standing on the third floor landing. And I was such a smart aleck. I waved. I waved at him. Hey, Uncle Roy, it's me. And he looked at me and he waved back. And shortly after that, I pulled a stunt where I now, mind you, I was always on the verge of being expelled, but I pulled a stunt where I slid down the banister of this, you know, early 19 hundreds stairwell at WD low secondary school. And he caught me, but I didn't know it was him. So I started kicking, and I kicked his glasses off his face and swore. Long story short, he kicked me out for three days. And while he was doing that, he said to me, it'll be the day I see you graduate. This was 11th grade. I had failed math that year. I was bombing out. I think my average was like, 52. And I was previously to that, a straight a student. So he tells me, it'll be the day I see you graduate. Something clicked. Something clicked. And I said, oh, no, I may be a loser, but I'll never be a high school dropout. And I came back that following fall, and I kicked ass. I graduated with honors. I even joined student council because I wanted to be different. I wanted not to be that person anymore. And then I eventually went on and I applied for grants and bursaries, and I got every single one. I got every single one. People used to say, wow, you're so lucky. Mind you, I had straight a's in university, but, you know, and when I went back for my second degree in education, I sat with the OSAP officer. Her name was Marie. I can't remember her last name. And she said, you know, there's something I want to share with you. And she reached over, she pulled a file folder out, and she put it on the desk, and she said, why don't you open that? So I opened it, and there was a stack of letters in it, and they dated back to the early seventies, and they were all about me. And the top ones were from Roy Badigello. And he had written a letter every single time I applied for a grant. And he said, if anybody deserves a grant, it's this young lady. Well, what I haven't told you is that when I graduated, the first time with my bachelor's degree. I walked across the stage and I walked out of the clery auditorium into the lobby. And there, standing there was Roy Battigello and his wife. We're talking six years after high school. Took me six years to get my degree. He's standing there, and of course, I haven't spoken to him since high school. And I look at him, he looks at me, straightens his jacket and tightens up his tie, and I kind of look sideways at him because I don't know why he's there. I looked behind me. I thought, well, there must be somebody coming up behind me, right? Like he knows he's waiting for them. And he just kept looking at me, and I didn't know why he was there. I walked through, went back to my seat, went on with the rest of my life. And it was three years later that I found out he had been following me all those years to see how I had done. And he lent his name to support me and to make sure I was able to get what I needed to make it through university. That's the kind of people in Canada that I know and love and want to say thanks to.

[30:51] JODY MICHAELS: I mean, I don't even know where to go from there. No, that's. It's beautiful. And, like, you know, like canadian, not canadian, like, just what you just described of, like, that, you know, that caring adult who, you know, believes in your potential and even if, you know, they didn't tell it to your face year on year and, you know, be there with you, holding your hand, you know, that power that a caring adult has to help you find your way, you know, and I think about, you know, all these amazing young people in our community where there's a kalamazoo promise, and, you know, you can, you know, if you graduate from high school, you have funding, like, on par with what would be available through OSAP. Oh, beyond par or beyond. Way beyond.

[32:06] CHANNON MONDU: Way beyond now. Yeah.

[32:07] JODY MICHAELS: You know, and universal for everybody. And so you think about, you know, that, that incredible opportunity here where if you have. If you make it across that stage in high school or your GED or any other way that you're a high school grad and can go to an apprenticeship or university or college or anything in that post secondary spot, there's a path. And so you think about, you just made me think about here in town the power that all the caring adults, like your principal, have to, you know, so many kids are not graduating, and so they're not able to take opportunity, this opportunity, and a lot of it has to do with intergenerational poverty and so many. It's a complicated, deeply rooted social, like, economic, and like, other issues in our society. And you just think, you know, wow.

[33:18] CHANNON MONDU: Like, it's a difference that one can make.

[33:22] JODY MICHAELS: Yep.

[33:22] CHANNON MONDU: And so I think just in some way, I'm waving the flag. I'm not waving canadian flag or american. I'm waving the flag of being that person and saying, you can make a difference. And that when I leave this world, at some point I'll be able to look back on my life and say I did something that I believed in, that I felt would make a difference. And if one person's life is bettered by it, that ripple has now passed through me and gone on to them, and I. That's the goal, that's the dream. And I'll keep working 60 hours a week to see it happen because it needs to be manifested.

[34:20] JODY MICHAELS: I couldn't agree more, and I am excited to get to, you know, be here and be part of canadianifest fun, which I think is the wild website you've got going on, and to experience, you know, little tidbits of what you've just, you know, laid out in the vision and the backstory, and just sort of like the you element that you've invested in this fabulous undertaking.

[35:03] CHANNON MONDU: And we're gonna have a really dang good time. There's a lot of beer and poutine to be had.

[35:12] JODY MICHAELS: Mm hmm.

[35:13] CHANNON MONDU: Yeah. Let's change the world with beer and poutine.

[35:21] JODY MICHAELS: Beer and poutine. That seems like, you know, a very bizarre and appropriate way to roll us out of this conversation.

[35:36] CHANNON MONDU: How else do you do it? I mean, to do it on a serious note would be, you know, we've talked about some pretty serious issues spanning everything from healthcare to homelessness and generational poverty, intergenerational poverty, and all wrapped around a festival that's about having a good time, you know, how did the two come together? Well, they will in October.

[36:01] JODY MICHAELS: That is life. Salavi.