I have been spending this summer in the Summer of Solutions in St. Paul – working to build a green economy – and my own future job – with about 35 other amazing youth leaders. It’s been an exciting mix of sky-high visions, community organizing, building an energy cooperative, and doing lots of leadership development. If you’re not here – we miss you!
Over the past two weeks, I’ve gotten particularly excited about looking ahead to where we’re going with the Summer of Solutions, a project that has now gone nationwide since we started it by forming the non-profit Grand Aspirations as a bunch of Macalester students in 2008. My eyes are always both here in the now and endlessly on the horizons of what all of our amazing allies are doing nationwide this summer – and what could happen next. The past few weeks for me have been about thinking bigger about where we’re going, and about exploring how to share this moment of possibility with everyone …
Fellow national coordinator Matt Kazinka (Macalester ‘11) and I pulled together this fireside chat on Thursday night with the help of camera-woman Abbie Plouff and editor Ruby Levine. Its basically an explanation of some of the things going on in the bigger national picture and an invitation to our planners all across the nation to start the process of dreaming with us as we go forward. Hey, if you have ideas of how we can be bigger and better and more creative – we’d love to hear!
Part 1: Welcome, what’s up, and why we’re talking:
Part 2: The big things happening, and next steps on collaboration:
We’ll be checking in, first with Summer of Solutions program planners, and then with partners, participants, and other supporters over the coming weeks.
Keep up the solutions!
It’s great to see all the work you all are doing! Keep it up!