Rose McGee is a Humanities Officer for the Minnesota Humanities Center where she has led Story Circles and Community Immersions About Place for Omaha Public School educators, parents, and students for over 10 years. She is Founder of the internationally recognized Sweet Potato Comfort Pie® approach – a catalyst for caring and building community. Ms. McGee has a interesting biography, click READ MORE below for details.Rose McGee is a Humanities Officer for the Minnesota Humanities Center where she has led Story Circles and Community Immersions About Place for Omaha Public School educators, parents, and students for over 10 years. She is Founder of the internationally recognized Sweet Potato Comfort Pie® approach – a catalyst for caring and building community. Rose is a well-known story circle practitioner, events host, recognized as one of Minnesota’s 50 Over 50, a member of Women Who Really Cook, the Women’s Business Development Center, Golden Valley League of Women Voters, and Delta Sigma Theta Sorority. She resides in Golden Valley, Minnesota where she was named “Citizen of The Year,” presented the “Bill Hobbs Human Rights Award,” and is a 2019 recipient of the prestigious Bush Fellowship. She is featured in the national PBS documentary, A Few Good Pie Places, author of the books, Story Circle Stories, Kumbayah The Juneteenth Story, and has a TEDx Talk on The Power of Pie. Rose was born and raised in Jackson, Tennessee where she attended HBCU Lane College and has a master’s degree in Creative Arts and Learning from Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
After the murder of Mr. George Floyd during a COVID pandemic and a citywide curfew, Rose called to action for people to bake sweet potato pies with her virtually while in their own homes. Dozens of people locally and nationally responded to this comforting and healing activity by baking and then taking their pies to the George Floyd Memorial site and to first responders throughout their communities. This “gift” of pies captured attention on National NBC Nightly News, People Magazine, Access Hollywood and more. The Washington Post’s Lily Edition cited Rose McGee and her Sweet Potato Comfort Pies as one of their top positive stories in 2020, Reader’s Digest and Guidepost Magazines featured her as their top inspirational stories, just as King Arthur Baking Company of Vermont recognized her creativity of making a food item such a compassionate social justice action. Recently, The Japanese Press recognized Rose’s story as one of the top 50 positive stories in the world during COVID 19. Television host, Rachael Ray honored Rose on her show as “taking pie to a whole ‘nuther level” with a financial gift from Reddi-Wip and matched by Rachael herself. In the November of 2022, Rose’s children’s book, Can’t Nobody Make a Sweet Potato Pie like Our Mama, will be released by the Minnesota Historical Society Press.