About TPT NOW

When crises hit, communities that consistently experience inequity are more vulnerable and less likely to have access to critical information, resources and support.

Launched in 2017 by Twin Cities PBS (TPT), TPT NOW is a multi-lingual, 24/7, emergency preparedness and response communication system designed to help fill critical communications gaps between public health/safety leaders and cultural communities.

These gaps, and the barriers that exacerbate them, include:

• Persistence of English-only and majority-dominant messaging
• Misinformation/disinformation, especially in social media
• Lack of trust between some cultural communities and government
• Lack of understanding about different cultural communities’ norms, values and concerns
• The lasting impact of historical trauma

TPT NOW was founded in the belief that community resiliency is built on equity. Accordingly, its work is grounded in deep relationships with cultural communities.

Lillian McDonald, Managing Director of TPT NOW at Twin Cities PBS (TPT), has received the 2021 FBI Director’s Community Leadership Award. This award recognizes McDonald’s long-term and exceptional contributions to ensure critical health, safety, and security messaging reach all people, including those whose first language is not English. This award specifically highlights the partnership she led between the FBI and TPT NOW to provide audiences with information on hate crimes and hate crime reporting.

The TPT NOW and the FBI partnership raised public awareness of hate crimes and encouraged African American, Hmong, Latinx, and Somali communities to report witnessed hate crimes to law enforcement. Culturally resonant, multilingual content was distributed in collaboration with cultural media partners. The campaign produced radio and television PSAs and information graphics distributed on social media and television to help audiences better understand what a hate crime is and how to report one.

Lillian McDonald is the Managing Director for Twin Cities PBS’s Emergency Response Services (ERS). ERS evolved out of collaborative work between TPT and Public Safety Partners to prepare warning and alerts in multiple languages including Spanish, Hmong, Somali and English.

Prior to TPT, Lillian was the founding executive director of ECHO Minnesota (Emergency, Community, Health and Outreach), a non-profit specializing in multi-lingual and multi-platform programming and distribution. Before her community service work, McDonald was a broadcast journalist for radio and television stations in the Midwest including KARE-11 and FOX-9 news locally. As a public information officer for FEMA, she’s served as Public Information Officer (PIO) during Hurricane Katrina emergency response.

Kate Westlund Tovsen is a writer, project manager, and producer who is passionate about work revolving around the arts, health care, and the environment. She lives just north of the Twin Cities with her husband, daughter, dog, two cats and two chickens. You can frequently find her exploring the woods and wetlands around her home.

Pa Lee has been interpreting for families and friends for free before doing it professionally. Since 2012, she has been on the MN Court Roster. She has experience in simultaneous and consecutive court interpreting, as well as other legal, social services, medical, and public awareness interpreting. Pa has been interpreting live for Governor Walz since the onset of the pandemic and for the Minneapolis School Board meetings. More recently, she translated and recorded PSAs for the FBI.

Pa is passionate about helping non-English-speaking Hmong people to be on the same playing field as those who understand English. Prior to being an interpreter, Pa was an auditor for the MN Department of Revenue in withholding taxes. Pa has a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Administration with a Minor in Economics from St. Kates. She received her MBA with a concentration in Conflict Management from Hamline in 2011.