Julie owns Ingebretsen's, and is president of the Bloomington Cedar Lake Commercial Association.
Many have visited her store. I have been in the basement, and I can tell you that it is so full of nick-nacks floor to ceiling and so abuzz with the ceaseless scamperings of the Ingebretsen's Ladies that if feels much more like Santa's workshop than a traditional stockroom.
Fewer people know about her hard work at reviving Lake street. And very few know of all the time she has invested in reaching out to and building relationships with and involving the surrounding Latino businesses.
Julie has spent hours and hours in early-morning meetings with students, visiting Latino businesses, cranking surveys and documents off her office xerox machine, and calling everybody from the police inspector to university professors.
When the students have looked tired and droopy, I have seen her reach over to a store shelf and revive them with special Norwegian chocolates
Julie also worked with Manny Gonzalez in organizing an extremely successful field trip for Latino businesspeople to visit different streetscape designs in different parts of the city, in order to get firsthand feedback on what kind of streetscaping Latino businesses would like on Lake street.
Julie is always upbeat, and is an energetic go-getter even when I know she is dead tired. She is a pillar on Lake street, and key to the revival we are seeing.
Jay Clark Cooper
P.S. In the spirit of multiculturalism, Julie Ingebretsen is also the inventor of the lutefisk quesadilla
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