Every single training was engaging and eye-opening, so it’s almost impossible to share only a few thoughts, but here are some ideas that really stuck with me.

• EVERYONE cares deeply about at least one of the four values that Grand Aspirations embodies: sustainability, prosperity, justice, and community.  By integrating all of these, Summer of Solutions programs like ours can involve people traditionally left out of the “environmental movement”.

• Our current social, political, and economic system is not working for a vast number of American (and global) citizens, and their failures hit already marginalized groups the hardest.  We can choose to create new systems that strengthen communities, sustain individuals, and value our environment.

• The transition is already happening. Cities like Detroit led the way for the expansion of American manufacturing, and they were also the first to be abandoned by our economic system.  Now, out of necessity, they are leading the way again, this time in revolutionary green economy ventures.

• Creating the future that we want to see means making it sustainable, both environmentally and financially.  By thinking about ways to grow businesses out of
  

  Raised bed vegetable garden installation...this could be your yard!

  our projects, we can provide needed products, services, jobs, and job training to our communities.  In Middleton, we plan to start a raised bed vegetable garden installation business and a bike-powered composting business.  Both will train high school students and post-high school youth in green entrepreneurship, nonprofit administration, and hands-on job skills.

• Personal (and community) transformation is dependent upon personal sustainability.  We should strive to create jobs and experiences that people will be happy and satisfied dedicating their lives to.  In other words, we have to take care of each other and ourselves.

Whew!  I know that was kind of heavy, but I do believe in taking a step back every now and then to realize that our little project here in Middleton, WI is part of something much bigger.

We arrived home with a great sense of empowerment, inspiration, and responsibility.  We have so much to do to get our program ready but there is so much possibility!

We are starting our collaboration with the Middleton High School Ecology Club and AP Environmental Science class next week.  We are also starting to bring together a team of students and community members who plan to help launch Growing Food and Sustainability in a number of ways.  If you are interested in taking a more active role in the creation and running of this program, please contact us!  We are dedicating a lot to this project and we would love to expand our team!  In addition to “adult” community members, our goal is to have 5 full-time youth (under 30) participants and 5 high school interns signed-on by June.  Please see the “Get Involved > Participate” page of our website for more details.

** If you are interested in becoming a full or part-time participant in our program this summer, please fill out this online application.  If you are interested in becoming a high school intern, we will be posting an application soon! **

Let’s rock it, Middleton!
Gabrielle

We, at The Art Affect, know that many of the solutions to the environmental and social challenges we face are already out there. Our 2012 Summer of Solutions program participants will train in journalism & communications, community organizing, and radical leadership, then set out across Seattle to engage in and document the top local solutions that are currently being implemented. At the end of the program we will harvest each of the projects and together create a step-by-step DIY guide to share with the world.

Potential Projects Include:

1. Urban Gardening and Food Sovereignty
2. Storytelling, Art and Alternative Media
3. Community Organizing and Leadership Development
4. Our DIY Guide to Grass-roots Community Action
5. Energy Efficiency and Retrofitting
6. Water and Habitat Restoration

Our Purpose:

Like so many others, we dream of a world that is equitable, thriving, and sustainable; where people shine with true happiness from the inside out. We are committed to ‘walking our talk’ by manifesting this dream in our own lives and engaging our peers, community and world in local solutions to our global problems. We are committed to providing tools, space and inspiration for people to come into alignment with their own gifts and purpose in the world and transform that inspiration into measurable actions in their communities.

About the Program Leaders:

Barbara and Dan are community leaders, activists and facilitators who are currently co-coordinating The Art Affect, a non-profit that creates powerful artistic spaces for young people to explore their purpose, develop their identity, and take part in building a socially just, environmentally sustainable, and personally fulfilling world. We enjoy making music, laughing at ourselves, creating new words that should never have existed, and sipping tea in perpetuiTEA. We put the “silly” back into Authentisilly. Just sayin.

Contact Us:

Barbara Jefferson barbara@theartaffect.org
Dan Mahle dan@theartaffect.org

For those of you watching the development of this blog as a space for solutionaries growing the green economy, check out this report on the growth of our blog in 2011:

Click here to see the complete report.

Last week was the second of three regional Summer of Solutions gatherings hosted by Grand Aspirations.

For those who aren’t clear, Summer of Solutions (SOS) is a program of Grand Aspirations (GA), a registered 501(c)(3) non-profit.

As with the Eastern Gathering in West Virginia and the Central Gathering in Chicago, the West Coast Gathering brought together a circle of incredibly talented organizers and bore the fruit of their collective brainpower and energy.

The idea that such groups of people are working together to create local solutions on the national scale leaves me very inspired. The potential of such a powerful cast of Solutionaries collaborating together is truly explosive (in the reciprocal sense, of course).

With such invigorating conferences taking place across the country this month, I can only imagine what the energy level will be come August, when Solutionaries from every program gather in one city for our national gathering.

As we continue to share our stories, lessons and successful practices, we will continue to grow and spread change to local communities. We hope you will join us.

http://www.ustream.tv/channel/sos-sessions

Tonight at 7:30-9:30 p.m. CST we will be live streaming from our session at this site:

http://www.ustream.tv/user/SOSMidwestGathering/shows

Click on the channel that SOS Sessions.  There will be advertising, but after a brief commercial you will be able to view and hear the session.  If you are unable to view it live, there will be an opportunity later to view the archived footage from the live session.  

http://fullcirclesfoundation.org/

Our Program Leaders
Austyn Gaffney aegaffney12@gmail.com
Lauralee Crain lrcrain10@gmail.com
Lindsey Jagoe lindseyjagoe@gmail.com

Looking around the Rock Lake Community Center, I feel that this is a perfect space for us. It’s spacious — enough room for the Full Circles Foundation programs from Raleigh and Lexington to brainstorm together, for Duncan and Evan from Pioneer Valley to play music downstairs, for Jen and Joe from Hartford to make tea in the kitchen, and for four different teams and individuals to prepare trainings and logistics tomorrow. The space is in construction to make room for more, better, and more locally relevant programing — sound familiar? Moreover, it’s being shared with generosity, love, and a dedication towards a better world. Jenny, Dana, and Steve shared their stories and enthusiasm with us to welcome us here.

I am so excited to learn and grow with my fellow solutionaries over the next week!

We here at the Portland Enrichment Program are incredibly excited to be firing up for our next Summer of Solutions!

In Portland, we work primarily with an organization called the Foster Green Eco-District. They are main stakeholders in a fairly large area of Portland with the same name. The neighborhoods that the Eco-District encompass are all incredibly diverse and working class. Many of the residents are new immigrants or work irregular and abnormal hours. This, if course, is not the image that most people have of Portland, and we intend to fulfill several goals of social justice through our projects, among others.

Last year, we conducted a listening project with over one thousand people in the Eco-District designed to gauge the interests that residents had in regards to sustainability and neighborhood livability. We have streamlined the process from last year, and this summer we will work towards our goal of visiting every resident of the Eco-District over the next three years. This is no small feat, as the Eco-District contains over twenty-five thousand unique addresses. We are aided in this goal by our many community, city, state, and regional level partners.

When we visit residents of the Eco-District, we conduct a survey of their interests, but we also engage them in producing a sustainable future for themselves. The Foster Green Community Challenge is a way for residents to sign up and take personal steps to live sustainably. Many of the actions are low or no cost.

Another initiative that we are undertaking (and this writer is spearheading) is what we call the Challenge in a Box. The model that we have created and are testing in the Foster Green Eco-District is one that we would love to see  expanded not only to other regions of Portland, but also to other cities all across the United States. The Challenge in a Box contains the materials, directions, and models that we have used to greatly expedite the startup process in other places. The faster the Challenge is set up and ready to go, the faster that strong Community Engagement data and effects may be generated.

We hope you’re excited at the prospects of our newly rejuvenated program! We can’t wait to get started!

Leo Qin, Program Leader

www.neighborhoodenrichment.org