Category Archives: Intentional Communities

This article is sponsored by Bloom Energy.

The need to ensure local communities are resilient and ready to meet the environmental challenges of the future has never been greater. It will take a collaborative effort between all levels of government, utilities and the private sector to produce long-term solutions that make our grid and energy sector stronger.

That is why Bloom Energy recently convened leaders from the business sector, national and local governments for another installment of the Bloom Energys ASPIRE Summit Series in early June. Bloom started the ASPIRE Summit Seriessix years ago to bring esteemed professionals together for dynamic conversations exploring the global energy landscape in todays fast-growing digital economy. ASPIRE also generates discussion on how organizations are addressing social and environmental challenges the world faces today.

Junes ASPIRE Series, moderated by CNNs Fareed Zakaria, established critical thought leadership on the topic of Building Resilient Communities. It was an honor to participate in this critical conversation alongside a diverse group of outstanding leaders that included:

As the program proceeded through a keynote address, two panelsand a fireside chat, I learned many valuable insights. First, progress, including the passage of essential legislation, willbe made only through cooperative efforts with a shared goal. Elected officials across the U.S. should consider a vested interest in exploring solutions that promote carbon efficiency, including pathways to improve carbon capture utilization and storage, and the continued implementation of microgrids as sustainable energy sources. Initiatives agreed upon in the negotiations for the federal infrastructure bill will have a transformational impact on the U.S. energy landscape.

Granholm highlighted the need to exercise the muscles of solar- and wind-powered energy, installing clean technologies that will reduce carbon emissions and addressing the need to clean up natural gas production in the United States.

She also spoke about the need for grid resilience to prevent future blackouts on the scale of the Texas crisis and to secure the grid against cyberattacks. The Department of Energy is making key strides to protect American communities and families from future power deficiencies and promoting initiatives that create a clean, green-powered future.

Looking at resiliency through a broader lens, Coonsrecognized Americas energy and infrastructure needs as vital to our national security and global competitiveness, which is why he believes the administration has been so bullish on strategic investments. The intersection of grid modernization and stabilization will play a key role in getting the country to net zero by 2050.

Panetta calls this moment an inflection point that now is the time we must do all we can to invest in the technology and the resources that will affect peoples lives. He discussed his view of microgrids, as well as his proposal for a 30 percent tax credit for microgrids. The congressman sees them as a solution not just for towns and communities, but as a resource that will protect hospitals and individual homes during extreme power outages. He truly believes that we can find a way to be both sufficient and resilient.

There is a rising, global demand for clean energy, and industry is reacting. Good outlined Duke Energy'sbold carbon emissions goals and importance of reliable energy sources, furthering the companys position as a model leader in the clean energy transition.

Duke Energy already has reduced emissions by 40 percent and aims to be net zero by 2050. This coincides with a $60 billion investment over the next five years to double its renewable energy capacity and oversee the largest retirement of coal in the industry. This achievement will be possible through intentional and project-specific innovation, research and development.

Good shared that as Duke approaches 70-80 percent carbon reduction, it will look to new technologies such as hydrogen, carbon capture, advanced nuclear, long-duration storage and geothermal. Additionally, reliable energy sources including back-up power are imperative. The practicality of hospitals, schools, community facilities, retail and residential areas to continue to run undisrupted will strongly hinge on the dependability of the power sources.

Across the nation, community leaders are looking at the ways they can use their offices to drive local resiliency and increase the health of their citizens. I was struck by a comment made by Chavez. She reminded the audience that local governments have large purchasing power, and they can use the power of the purse to turn to clean energy alternatives. It doesnt replace working with the state and federal government, but it is yet another mechanism available to local leaders.

Broninhighlighted the need to act in small ways to yield major results. Hartford installed a microgrid to directly serve a library, a senior center, a neighborhood school and a community center. That microgrid, however, also has the capacity to support a nearby gas station and a grocery store in the event that the grid goes down. The microgrid provides environmental improvement, greater reliability and, in a time of crisis, it provides a significant amount of resiliency to the greater community.

"If we focus on the economy, I think we can create bipartisanship to focus on the things that are necessary to protect us and keep us resilient,"remarked Garcia.

The dialogue created throughout the event amplified the growing need to address the climate crisis and its effect on local and global communities. Bloom Energy is honored and humbled to be able to bring such esteemed participants together to drive national focus in the U.S. on one of the most pressing issues of this generation and generate a vision for ensuring that local communities are resilient and ready to meet any future challenge.

But talk is not enough. We must turn discussion into action and there is not a minute to spare.

In 2020, an estimated 8,200 wildfires equaling over 4 million acres of land scorched across California, doubling the previous record. It is no secret that our planet is experiencing dramatic and rapid changes in weather patterns. In the past decade, record heat, hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires and cyberattacks on the global grid infrastructure have been recorded, in both scale and frequency.

Communities around the globe have suffered through the consequences of these crises, including the loss of power and clean water. The climate is changing, and its impact on our way of life is one of the most complex and important issues of our time.

Our actions nowwill affect generations to come.

Continue reading here:

Clean, resilient communities must be our starting point not the end | Greenbiz - GreenBiz

Faculty, administrators, and staff from La Salle University participated in a virtual institute hosted by the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) aimed at dismantling institutional racial hierarchies and breaking down beliefs in the hierarchy of human value.

La Salle was among 77 colleges and universities nationwideand the only higher education institution from Philadelphiaselected to participate in AAC&Us Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation (TRHT) institute, a four-day virtual event held June 2225.

The aim of AAC&Us TRHT institute, said AAC&U President Lynn Pasquerella, is to equip campus leaders nationally with new strategies and tools to promote racial equity and healing on their campuses and in their communities, and, eventually, bring TRHT centers to the campuses of its participating colleges and universities.

The TRHT Institute offered us an opportunity to envision what our campus community should look, feel, and be like when attitudinal and structural inequities are eradicated, said Br. Ernest J. Miller, FSC, D.Min., M.A. 95, La Salles Vice President of Mission, Diversity, and Inclusion, who served as the lead for La Salles participating team. Working together with other colleagues and students, we want to envision building a community of practice around the work of justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion (JEDI). Becoming a community of practice implies becoming JEDI practitioners.

AAC&Us institute centered on the pillars of TRHT framework: narrative change, compassion, racial healing and relationship building, separation, law, and economy. It also offered opportunities to learn and collaborate as higher ed leaders work toward making change on their respective campuses.

The institute required teams from each participating university to develop a TRHT Campus Center action plan, detailing the necessary steps that will facilitate their institutions move toward creating a Campus Center. This included a vision summary, communication and engagement plans, barriers to sustainability and accomplishment, and other key strategies. Each institution created its work under the guidance of a TRHT mentor and presented its draft action plan to other colleges and universities in their respective cohorts.

The annual Institute reflects the intentional efforts and deep commitment of TRHT leaders from across the United States in addressing racism and eliminating racialized practices, systems, and structures, said Tia McNair, AAC&Us vice president for diversity, equity, and student success and executive director of AAC&Us TRHT Campus Centers Institute. Without their partnership and collaboration, the progress we have made and need to make in building just and equitable communities wouldnt be possible.

The racial healing circle method we learned during the Institute has multiple applications for us right now at La Salle, said associate professor of religion and theology Maureen OConnell, Ph.D. The premise is simple and yet profound: bring small groups of people together in a compassionate space, which is not the same thing as a brave space or a safe space, and then build up trust by sharing and hearing each others stories.

In addition to Br. Ernest and OConnell, the following faculty and staff comprised La Salles team:

La Salles participation in AAC&Us truth, racial healing, and transformation institute is the latest demonstration of the Universitys commitment to justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion.

In May, La Salles Joint Commission on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion completed its work and offered a briefing to the Universitys Faculty Senate Executive Committee, Executive Cabinet, and Board of Trustees. Additionally, the Joint Commission delivered a detailed report with recommendations for consideration intended to enrich the campus environment at La Salle and facilitate institutional discernment and strategic planning in the Universitys pursuit of inclusive excellence and equity.

Participation in the TRHT Institute aligns wholly with the essence of the Joint Commissions report. said Br. Ernest. Drawing on the depth of our Lasallian heritage, with the spirit of faith and zeal, we can move forward together as a University community.

Read more:

La Salle selected to national institute on racial healing - La Salle University

Editor's note: This story is part of Southwest Michigan Second Wave's On the Ground Battle Creek series.

Piano lessons, bus rides, and exposure to skilled trades are included alongside reading and STEM activities science, technology, engineering, and mathematics in summer learning programs that are underway in Battle Creek.

The Burma Center, R.I.S.E. (Reintegration to Support and Empower), and VOCES are each offering learning opportunities geared towards addressing the specific needs of students within the communities they serve. Input from parents and caregivers of these students weighed heavily into what each of these organizations is in the process of teaching, say those who are overseeing each of these summer learning programs.

We actually held parent listening sessions before we started planning for summer programs so we could find out what parents want their kids to have and what they want us to do, says Jenifer Pui, Education Engagement Program Administrator for the Burma Center. Some of the input came from last years summer program and what additional things students want to do more of or learn.

This included piano lessons that are being taught by teachers involved in piano lab programming offered through the Irving S. Gilmore International Piano Festival. The piano lessons have been going on since the summer of 2019 with virtual classes offered during this past school year.

Makyla Gibson, 12, listens to the instructor during a RISE summer program session.Lots of parents and students wanted to learn piano. I can see this piano portion of our program being expanded, Pui says. We would like to have a permanent piano lab in our building that could be used by other organizations.

On the more traditional academics side, there will be an emphasis on reading books that focus on the Asian and Burmese cultures and classes led by a Burmese language instructor who will teach students how to read and write in Burmese.

Most of our Burmese residents are Chin people and Burmese is not our first language however the Burmese language is the formal language. There are hundreds of different dialects and so many different languages that we speak, Pui says. Burmese is the common language used in meetings and another reason why parents want their kids to learn it. If they were to go back to Burma to visit they want their kids to be able to read and understand.

Students in grades 6-12 have exposure to this same curriculum and English writing classes taught by former Battle Creek City Commissioner Andy Helmboldt. They also make college visits.

They will focus more on college and career readiness, which will include doing research about colleges and listening to guest speakers who will come in to talk about what they do, Pui says.

A team of five, including two teachers, staff the program funded primarily through the Lakeview School District, Battle Creek Public Schools, and Catalyzing Community Giving. Additional funding also was provided by Duncan Aviation, the United Way of the Battle Creek Kalamazoo Region, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.

The Burma Center has been offering summer learning programs in different iterations well before Pui began working there in 2017. She says over the years it has expanded and this year has met its maximum capacity of 80 students in grades K-12. A fee per student is charged because Pui says she wants parents and families to feel like they have buy-in and to make sure those who sign-up will be here.

Fees for the six-week program, which concludes on Aug. 13, are $100 for students in grades K-5 and $75 for students in grades 6-12. The price differential reflects the number of days the two groups attend the program. The group of younger students meets for half-day sessions on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday with half-day sessions on Tuesday and Thursday reserved for the older students. This fee covers snacks and all of the learning materials.

Joshua Bawi, 9, concentrates on a summer school session at the Burma Center.Scholarships also were made available to ease the financial burden that some families have. Pui adds that she is not surprised that the program is full to capacity given the virtual and in-person learning experience students had because of the pandemic.

In the past, summer schools are for those who needed it and this year they have opened up to more students, Pui says. Lakeview and BCPS (Battle Creek Public Schools) have expanded their summer school programs because of having to go through the hybrid learning.

Concerns about ensuring that students are up to speed when they return to school this fall have prompted a more intentional focus on summer learning. It has become more important than ever this year as reflected in the number of students enrolled at the Burma Center, Pui says.

In general, our Burmese community really values education. Its summer but they want their kids to be doing something. They dont want them to just not do anything, she says. I see the community placing a high value on education.

R.I.S.E.ing to a Challenge

So many parents and schools were struggling with keeping kids on track and then there were kids who werent getting on virtually, this is what led to R.I.S.E. starting the Student Empowerment Program in November that has transcended into the summer program available to between 30 and 50 students, says Damon Brown, Founder and President of R.I.S.E.

The earlier program included a partnership with BCPS for students who were experiencing challenges with virtual learning or were suspended from school. Jacqueline Patrick-James, Director of the Student Empowerment Program and R.I.S.E. Board Treasurer, says this was an alternative learning option taking place in a safe and structured environment with the Social Emotional Learning component which serves as the foundation for everything R.I.S.E. offers.

Parris Bolden, a student at Davenport University and a Battle Creek Central graduate, works with Riyana Palmer, 12, during RISEs summer school program at Washington Heights United Methodist Church.In addition to students from BCPS, the school year program was working with students enrolled in Endeavor Charter Academy, Harper Creek, Lakeview, Marshall, and Pennfield schools. They each had different schedules and curriculum. Tutors working alongside Brown and Patrick-James worked with them and monitored their progress.

Once we got them logged in, we were making sure they were engaging in their classes and the big thing was missing assignments, Brown says. We were able to figure out what the missing assignments were and what they needed to do. A lot of kids grades were suffering. We had one young man from Marshall who was recommended to us through his probation officer. When he started with us, he had a 1.4 GPA and by the time he was out, he had a 3.3 or higher.

The summer program, which began on June 29, will continue to focus on individual needs under the direction of Patrick-James and Brown and instructors, including Reverend Dr. William Bell, pastor for St. Marks CME Church and science teacher, who will be teaching science classes incorporating STEM.

We did student assessments that whole first week, getting to know the students where they are academically, socially, and emotionally, Patrick-James says. The morning will be on academic and the afternoons will be more on social and emotional learning.

The Student Empowerment Program also has teamed up with Kellogg Community College to expose students to careers in the skilled trades.

We will take groups of kids and show them how to put up drywall. They will get in and learn how to do those types of skills, Brown says. Instructors from KCC will be coming here to teach them. This will give them exposure to other career pathways.

The Student Empowerment Program is divided up into a learning component with a maximum capacity of 30 students and an after-school extracurricular and recreational piece available to 50. From 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday students receive instruction in literacy, mathematics, and STEM. The Battle Creek Community Foundation provided $8,000 to fund the program offered at no cost with some additional financial support from the United Way of the Battle Creek Kalamazoo Region. Brown says they are always in need of more monetary contributions.

Breakfast and lunch are provided during the academic part of the day and a snack is provided for the recreational component. Many of the families of these students are experiencing food insecurity and they receive boxes when they need them filled with healthy foods as well as personal hygiene items and cleaning supplies.

Theyre not only coming to get educational support, but also mental and emotional support, Brown says. Some of the parents may need clothes or counseling and we provide resources for that.

Built into the teaching is the Social Emotional Learning component which she describes as a wraparound service that addresses non-academic issues students are dealing with.

We did a lot of goal-setting, rooted in SEL (Social Emotional Learning). This summer learning program is about more than just adding, subtracting, and multiplying. These kids need to develop intrinsic motivation, Patrick-James says. Our goal to keep them engaged and nurture that love for learning. We had one parent who was concerned because her childs whole school year had been virtual. Our summer program will give him that in-person classroom feel again. He will be re-conditioned for in-person learning in a structured setting, something that was lost with virtual learning.

The learning loss during the school year had the potential to be compounded by additional learning loss during the summer break, Brown says.

The focus for R.I.S.E. is on five program areas: Social Emotional Learning, family engagement, inclusion and equity, and youth leadership. These are incorporated into the SEP framework.

Teacher Niang Siam shows a picture book to students during a summer school session at the Burma Center.We do that through SEL (Social Emotional Learning) skills which focus on eight areas that include personal responsibility, goal-directed behavior, social awareness, decision-making, relationship skills, self-awareness, and self-management, Brown says. We are focused more on the social and emotional learning piece. Our kids struggle with literacy and math and this is a way to address that.

Patrick-James says this is a way to level the playing field and empower her students. She says the reading list will include a lot of material illustrating the history and self-pride from the perspective of people of color, something they dont get through the schools.

It is targeted and culture-based, she says.

The ultimate goal is to support and empower the kids in the Student Empowerment Program, Brown says.

We want to prepare them for the upcoming school year in a way that they are at least supposed to be where theyre at. They have fallen behind at least a year, he says. We want to offer kids a safe, structured, and supportive environment so they have somewhere where they can grow and flourish.

Ready to Ride, Prepared to Engage

The focus at VOCES is on learning and the organization has come up with some unique ways to do that while ensuring that the youth they represent feel comfortable in their community.

Jose Orozco, Executive Director for VOCES, says the children need to do a minimum of one activity each week for a civic engagement component of his organizations summer program. They are doing this by riding the bus.

We want to demonstrate to our community that Battle Creek Transit is safe, he says. We want this to be as impactful as it can be. We want to take kids to whoever may be willing to host us, fire stations or city hall, or Full Blast. The idea is to get them there on the bus. We want to see our community partners calling us to say, How come youre not visiting our place? We want our kids to get plugged into the community as soon as possible.

Evilia Bautista, VOCES program manager, explains to a group of children how to board and ride a Battle Creek city bus.Orozco says he doesnt think the citys Latinx community has been exposed to or has awareness of bus transportation as a means to get around. He says this summer program could lead to future opportunities to translate signage and information on the BC Transit website.

If our kids are able to help with this, it will be a lot more powerful. This exposure is setting up opportunities like this for them down the road, he says. We want our programming to be more student-led. Often, its not very client-centered and it comes down to how we as an organization can model what were doing for our future leaders. Our mission is to provide resources for community transformation. If we start engaging our kiddos while theyre young and promoting these opportunities as a way to get from place to place, they wont be able to say, theres nothing to do. A lot of these places can be accessed right off of the bus. Weve eliminated this barrier by figuring out to make it welcoming on the bus.

In addition to mastering public transit, youth in grades K-5 are receiving boxes each week that are delivered to their homes containing STEM activities.

The kids are receiving boxes and that right there was a big win for us because the kids are realizing that these boxes of supplies are especially for them, Orozco says. At the end of the summer if our kids are making comments like, I cant wait to go back to school, weve done our job. If it gets them fired up, then as leaders we need to continue that conversation with school superintendents. We are recognizing that our main focus is to keep kids engaged.

My background is in education and thats my passion. If we can keep our kiddos reading and loving learning, the sky is the limit for that. Theyre always going to be hungry to learn more.

The younger children, like their counterparts in grades 6-12, are also participating in a reading program offered through Willard Public Library.

However, the reading program for the older youth is a bit more demanding with a reading log that they are being asked to keep. The group for older youth also is more focused on learning and refining leadership skills through Creative Leaders United and a Youth Council Group.

For the high school group, the main thing is to identify what this group is going to be. Weve got seven or eight kiddos around the table and were recognizing that once school starts we want them to be able to fully participate, Orozco says. The questions we are asking right now is will it be an open or set group and is there any other youth council that they can support. We want to see what they can present to the community from a youth perspective which includes the politics around re-districting.

This involvement is part of an overall emphasis on preparing these older students and their families for college.

We are trying to cover the spectrum to support families for the next step, college, and career readiness. We have six two-hour-long training modules called Exit to Education that is intentionally to support families around going to college, Orozco says. The idea is to empower families with knowledge. We want to support the whole family unit with kids going to college.

Abigail Hernandez-Aparicio, 7, introduces herself to a group of her peers at VOCES.Oftentimes it becomes apparent when these families come in to VOCES that they are in need of additional support or resources. As an example, they may come in to seek assistance with translation or housing and through this conversation, the staff at VOCES learns that they have a child in need of out-of-school support services.

That gives us a way to start a conversation, Orozco says.

The full-time staff of five and summer interns from Kellogg Community College, Western Michigan University, and Michigan State University wear many different hats and Orozco says one of his goals is to promote cross-training as a way to meet the needs of the Latinx community they serve.

You may want to be an office assistant, but we want you training to be an interpreter or know something about housing resources so that we all share that capacity, he says.

One year and four months into his job with VOCES, Orozco says one of the ideas he wants to get away from is that VOCES exists solely for Spanish-speaking members of the community or recent immigrants. He says he wants to see the Latinx community become more fully integrated and have representation on a broader scale.

The goal of VOCES is serving as a bridge to that next step in the future and whatever success may look like for members of our community, he says. We are a connector for our community. We have to be ready to be advocates.

The rest is here:

Burma Center, RISE, and VOCES offer summer learning opportunities for the communities they serve - Concentrate

Marti Crow| The Leavenworth Times

One of the downsides of getting information from the mass media is that we are likely to get a skewed story.These days we are hearing a lot about critical race theory (CRT) and some state legislators are pushing laws to ban any teaching on this subject in schools.CRT is not some new curriculum or movement.It originated in the mid-1970s in the writings of several American legal scholars.They questioned whether laws were being used to maintain societys unconscious biases against marginalized groups.Their goal was to enhance awareness of cultural stereotypes and unintentional prejudice.

I taught middle schoolers in the late 1960s against a background of civil rights and anti-war demonstrations.That was well before CRT but my students were eager to discuss the history of racism, the speeches of Martin Luther King and the riots in Kansas City in response to the assassination.My teaching method with those students, who were 14 to 16 years old, aimed at encouraging critical thinking about current events and American history.

My students were in Shawnee Mission, Kansas; there was little diversity in the building.We talked about how the history of the United States is a story of growing and maturing democracy.We also discussed how progress is uneven and cycles of intolerance and violence continue. In the beginning, despite the broad language in the preamble to the Constitution, our country provided full citizenship rights to only white male landowners.Over time, franchise and other civil rights has marched through our history like the pioneers marched across the continent.The expansion has never been easy and quiet.Our history includes massacres and marches, suppression and expansion.Abigale Adams urged her husband, our second president, to remember the women.The struggle over the original sin of slavery was debated long before the 13 states formed a union.America was founded by idealists who compromised in order to form an imperfect union, who described ideals that they failed to achieve.We are still struggling to make a more perfect union.

One evening last year, I learned about the 1921Tulsa massacre while watching PBS.I was astounded that I had never known about that event.Obviously, my education (in three high schools, majoring in history and social studies in college and studying constitutional law in law school) was lacking.Is the recent suppression of CRT aimed at keeping present students from learning about the less proud actions of our country?The goal, it appears, of some legislators who would limit the curriculum in todays schools is to deprive todays and tomorrows students of the ability to learn from our nations mistakes.

CRT theorists did not all share identical beliefs but their basic claim was not that explicit and intentional prejudices are what causes racial discrimination and marginalized communities.Because the culture and mores of racism are often unconscious and ingrained, CRT strives to open discussions of racism, equality, social justice and the history of race relations.If young people can learn to be bigoted, they can also learn to be broad minded about the attributes that make the human race so richly diverse.

Why has CRT become part of the culture wars?Do some Americans want to silence broader discussion of ongoing problems while our country repeats cycle after cycle of prejudice, demonstrations and division.Are we harmed by knowing that American history is rife with mistreatment of minorities and immigrants?Do you believe that Germany and Uganda and other countries with dark histories shouldnt encourage their youth to learn from the mistakes of the past?How else do we mature as human beings and live together in harmony and peace?

Its the word critical that rings out here.It is time for all Americans to find a way back to truth telling and openness.Perhaps we need more self-criticism and less condemnation of each other. Curriculum is not properly designed by legislators; there are education experts and authorities who are equipped in the field of instruction. Demagoguery has no place in deciding what is taught in our schools.

Todays students have the opportunity to find an immediate answer to almost any question.Our schools must, more than ever, teach students to question and investigate, to discuss and debate with each other, to form opinions and to question assumptions.Their instruction time must concentrate on the skills and tools they need to find the truth and form reasonable opinions.

Our public forum today is limited by tribalism and narrow-mindedness.As we resume, slowly, our national and community social interaction, I celebrate the rich diversity of our community.Not only is our part of Kansas beautiful and scenic, we live in a place that is rich in history.Best of all, we areprivilegedto live side by side with people who differ in race, color, religion and ethnic identity.We host military families from all over the globe and American families who travel worldwide but chose this place as their retirement home.

When I hear God Bless America I think about an experiment that over the last 245 years has struggled toward a dream. May it be so.

Marti Crow is a Leavenworth Times columnist.

Read more from the original source:

Struggling toward a dream of the American experiment - Leavenworth Times

Originally based in Seattle, WA, queer environmental organization Out for Sustainability aims to shed a light on how environmental issues affect the LGBTQIA+ community.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the organization is in a bit of a transformation. When it was founded in 2008, there were ten board members who came from a variety of professional backgrounds, from sustainability to tech industries. It's now a board of four who are working to reimagine Out for Sustainability's role in the queer and environmental movements.

"The pandemic allowed us to think about what we really wanted to do and how we really wanted to reset," said Lindi von Mutius, a board member of Out for Sustainability, director of Board Operations and Strategies at the Trust for Public Land, and adjunct Harvard professor. "We really like took a step back and reflected on what was happening at the moment, in the pandemic, and we recognize that where all of us really wanted to work was in supporting organizations that were helping the queer community with COVID relief."

The organization sent out a blast email to their 8,000 newsletter recipients and made their social media followers aware of the initiative. They raised $5,000 that went equally to 12 different organizations that provided financial relief for queer people affected by COVID-19.

Before the pandemic, Out for Sustainability was active in bringing together queer people to talk about environmental issues with LGBTQIA+ issues.

"It's not an either or, you know, ecology or social justice," said Vanessa Raditz, a board member of Out for Sustainability and Ph.D. student in geography at the University of Georgia. "They are intimately tied together."

Vicki Carberry, board member and emergency manager, said where the two movements intersect follows along with Dr. Martin Luther King's quote, "No one is free until we are all free."

"The LGBTQ community is a vulnerable community," Von Mutius said. "And like all vulnerable communities in this country, it's a community that suffers environmental injustice and harm as a result of its inherent vulnerability."

Carberry pointed to the impending destruction from natural disasters due to climate change.

"I obviously believe in climate change and things are just going to continue to worsen," Carberry said. "People are going to be disproportionately impacted."

Her opinion is that the most pressing environmental issue is climate change, and she worries about the impact it will have on marginalized communities.

"I was in the Peace Corps for three years out of undergrad and I was there during the largest ever recorded typhoon in history to make landfall," Carberry said. "I'll just never forget that it was such a marker of my time there."

She was referring to the 2013 Typhoon Haiyan, also known as Super Typhoon Yolanda that affected the Philippines, Palau, Vietnam and China in the fall of 2013. The worst-hit region was the Philippines where thousands were killed. Many consider it to be the country's worst natural disaster.

Carberry isn't the only board member who has experienced a natural disaster. Raditz is in the midst of creating a film Fire and Flood based on their experience with the Tubbs Fire in Sonoma County in the fall of 2017.

Raditz said they are no strangers to fire, living in California. But when they were attending a permaculture convergence in 2017, they experienced the destructiveness of wildfires firsthand.

"I woke up in the middle of Hopland to the news of 13 fires surrounding us and three of the four evacuation routes were shut down," Raditz said. "They [the firefighters] had only cleared enough of the fire to hold open this highway for evacuees, as we were driving through we could see the fire on either side of the road."

The film will also touch on Hurricane Maria which took place in Puerto Rico the same year as the Tubbs fire. It explores the devastation of both natural disasters, but also the relationship between resource extraction and the creation of the gender binary.

"[The film] shows how in these moments of disaster, queer and trans communities are enacting resilience practices that are not just trying to get through the fire and flood at the moment," Raditz said. "It's a resilience that imagines a 500-year bounce back to a time when queer and trans people were celebrated and held in sacred roles and community, and in which the Earth itself, that we are as humans a part of, was held in that similar reverence and sacredness."

The film's sponsor is Out for Sustainability and it's raising funds for the completion of the project. Von Mutius said that half of the donated money goes toward completing the film, and the second half goes to organizations that are doing disaster relief work for queer communities.

"We've been very intentional about trying to use our organization as a mouthpiece, a loudspeaker and an amplifier in helping to relocate capital to places where it's needed," she said.

Out for Sustainability sponsors a conference called "Fab Planet." It's a "conference to intersect and discuss the unique role of the LGBTQ+ community in social and environmental justice and sustainability," according to its website.

Von Mutius was first introduced to the organization in 2016 when she was invited to speak. For her, speaking at a conference for queer environmental professionals was her coming out to her colleagues.

"It really was Fab Planet, that made me sort of like come out to my colleagues, and start to come out to the world a little more," Von Mutius said. "I would say I'm very fully out I talk and write about it, and I'm not shy about it it's something that feels really good for me."

She said that she's "privileged" to be accepted by her friends and her boss and she wanted to "pay that forward."

"It always felt like I have a responsibility to be visible because there aren't enough of us and those of us who are, are hiding or hidden or invisible in these organizations and in the environmental movement," Von Mutius said.

Another initiative of Out for Sustainability is Greener Pride. The project aims to address sustainable practices within LGBTQIA+ businesses and events. Greener Pride aims to encourage the queer community to move toward zero waste and carbon neutral pride events across the globe.

"Not to rain on anyone's Pride Parade we kind of say, we'd love it if you could celebrate responsibly and sustainably," Von Mutius said.

Some businesses capitalize on pride month, creating rainbow products and relaying claims of support to the gay community mostly during June. Interestingly, a slew of businesses promoting gay rights during the month of June has contrarily donated to anti-trans lawmakers, according to VICE.

"Another piece of Pride Month is like all the rainbow capitalism, which is so problematic for so many reasons," Carberry said. "It feels like every big corporation is capitalizing off of the month of June and beyond; I think if we're not having conversations about sustainability and capitalism, I don't really know what it is we're doing."

Carberry's fellow board member expressed similar sentiments on the corporatization of Pride.

"I think that Marsha and Sylvia would be appalled that we have police and banks, and major pharmaceutical companies, marching in the name of pride when Stonewall Riots were an uprising against state-sanctioned violence, and the violence of capitalism," Raditz said. "I think that for me, that's the heart of greener pride there are some easier messages for some folks which is just, there's no pride on a dead planet, people."

Carberry said that at any large event it's easiest to use convenient and disposable products. She said that a part of the greener pride initiative is "helping folks to understand that there are things out there little things that can be done in terms of lessening waste, especially during big events that can be cost-effective."

Carberry said if she could change pride, she would want to see "BIPOC Black Indigenous people of color to the front." She said that as a white woman, she is "incredibly privileged" and that creating a space for people with intersecting identities is important not only in the month of June but all the time.

"I think celebrating history is definitely important, but also remembering who led those movements and lifting up particularly Black trans women," Carberry said. "I think often things get so whitewashed, and I would like to see the community doing more of that work, dismantling, or looking at systemic racism."

Sophia Paul, board secretary for Out for Sustainability, said that during Pride month, the organization has focused on getting queer people outside to enjoy nature.

"The outdoors can be a really empowering place for a lot of queer and trans folks but it can also sometimes feel uniquely intimidating or stressful," Paul said. "You can be out there alone and you don't necessarily know who else is out there or depending on your background, you might not feel a lot of fluency."

She said that Out for Sustainability has been able to see the community claim a space in the outdoors for queer and trans folks through social media.

"With the pandemic, I have been getting outdoors more and really just feeling very grateful for the green spaces that I have access to," Paul said.

Another national initiative supported by Out for Sustainability is Earth Gay, a play on Earth Day, for the LGBTQIA+ community. It started in the Seattle area where queer people and allies would clean parks or help with Seattle Parks and Rec work, Von Mutius said.

Now, Earth Gay is a national program that supports volunteerism throughout the year.

As vaccines roll out, and people are able to gather again, Out for Sustainability is revving up to reimagine its mission and role in the environmental and LGBTQIA+ communities as an organization. What remains true for the organization is that it continues to highlight where and how environmental and queer issues intersect.

"I always say environmental issues are queer issues, and vice versa," Von Mutius said. "We can't really fix the environmental injustices in this country without fixing the systems that cause disparities in health, in wealth, in education, in the first place."

Audrey Nakagawa is the content creator intern at EcoWatch. She is a senior at James Madison University studying Media, Art, and Design, with a concentration in journalism. She's a reporter for The Breeze in the culture section and writes features on Harrisonburg artists, album reviews, and topics related to mental health and the environment. She was also a contributor for Virginia Reports where she reported on the impact that COVID-19 had on college students.

From Your Site Articles

Related Articles Around the Web

Read the original:

Out for Sustainability: The Intersection of the LGBTQIA+ and Environmental Movements - EcoWatch

Marcus Austin used to run some of the same streets as a gang member he now walks going door-to-door to talk to residents in the 53206 ZIP code about the COVID-19 shot.

Sometimes it aint what you say to people. It is how you say it, but whats also important is who you use to say it, Austin said of a neighborhood whose demographics include people whove had contact with the criminal justice system.

I know the neighborhoods that I go in. I know what colors to wear. I know what colors not to wear. …You just have to relate to people.

Austin, who was released from prison last year, hopes residents in his old stomping ground who see him advocating for the vaccine will roll up their sleeves to get the shot. The 53206 ZIP code is among 15 that have high vulnerability to the coronavirus and low vaccination rates.

I bring credential to the vaccine because Ive been vaccinated, said Austin, who lost his best friend to COVID-19. Most people dont believe in the vaccine [and] the things that they believe is garbage, is hearsay. When you go in the hood you need people thats from the hood to communicate [that].

More: No, Dr. Evil did not put microchips in the COVID-19 vaccine. Here are the facts behind 5 other fears.

Austin is part of a team of residents or community mobilizers who workwith nurses from Alverno College to go door to door offering on-the-spot vaccine shots. They also use the time to have personal conversations with residents about any concerns or misconceptions they have about the vaccine.

The door-to-door COVID-19 community mobilization vaccine program is a partnership betweenJump at the Sun Consultants, the MilwaukeeHealth Department, Milwaukee Fire Department andother community stakeholders.

The goal is to build vaccine confidence in Milwaukees most underserved communities.

Mayor Tom Barrett and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, along withhealth and community officials, unveiled the door-to-door initiative during a press conference Wednesday on the corner of 15th and Atkinson, not far from where Austins grandmother lives.

Thecampaign marks the next phase in community-focused efforts to increase vaccination rates in vulnerable populations that may face barriers to getting the vaccine.

The initiative began June 21 and has already reached more than 1,400 households. So far, 137 people have been vaccinated in their homesin eight days with the help of the citys fire and public health departments.

Barrett applauded the in trenches work that the community mobilizers and healthcare workers are doing to get residents vaccinated. Efforts like these and others have paid off, he said.

Deaths and hospitalizations due to COVID-19 are down in the city, and the infection rate is down to 1.2%. But Barrett said vigilance is still needed against the Delta variant a strain of the coronavirus that seems to be more transmissible and result in more severe disease.

We do not want this community … to be devastated by that, he said.

Track COVID and the vaccine in Wisconsin: Track the latest data on cases, deaths and our pace on vaccines

Wisconsin vaccine FAQ: Who's eligible, where to get it and what's next

Community mobilizersgoing door to door meeting people where theyre at like in the yard cutting grass is key to getting the message out about the vaccines safety and efficacy, Barrett said.

We have to have individuals from our community who understand our community, who are trusted in our community to deliver the message as to why it is important to get a vaccine, he said.

Lorraine Lathen, of Jump at the Sun Consultants, a partnering organization on the campaign, agrees.Her organization has been intentional about hiring residents from the 15 targeted ZIP codes to be community mobilizers. Peopleare more open to conversations with people they know and see in the community, she said its about building trust.

"It is not a knock-and-drop literature," Lathen said. "It's really taking the time to have a conversation. You cant strong-arm people into getting vaccinated. You have to share the information in a way that they can relate to it and in a way that they can see a benefit beyond them as an individual, their family and the community.

While President Joe Biden during a Tuesday briefing on the coronavirus announced a more hyperlocal approach that includes door-to-door campaigns to get shots into citizens' arms, Lathen noted the work for the citys effort began back in February.

The president's shift in approach came after the country failed to meet his goal of having 70% of Americans vaccinated with at least one dose by July 4.

In Wisconsin, 50.5% of its residents have at least one dose while 47.7 are fully vaccinated.

We already had this in mind, she said. When we were looking at the undecideds, they werent going to the pop-up clinics. We werent able to get them out even to that. So even before the Biden administration, we had been planning this.

But "it took time" to bring all the different partners the city, the county, the health and fire departments together.

The next phase of this effort is to reach 12- to 17-year-olds as a new school year approaches, Lathen said. Some parents who are vaccinated may be hesitant to let their children get the shot. Lathen wants to start a teen squad to canvass neighborhoods to educate both parents and their children about the vaccine.

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley credited the district's early use ofdata to track COVID-19 by races and ethnicity in the early days of the pandemic with having a more targetedvaccine distribution strategy. With this data, he said, the county can be more responsive to the highest-need ZIP codes.

More: Milwaukee put race front and center as it tracks COVID-19's toll, helping shape a national conversation on racism as a public health crisis

We have to get people vaccinated, Crowley said. The more people we get vaccinated, the less cases of COVID-19 we will see throughout our community.

Doing door-to-door outreach is among many pivots the citys health department has made in its vaccination strategies, Health Commissioner Kirsten Johnson said. Initially, residents rolled up their sleeves at mass vaccination sites like the Wisconsin Center and then at mobile sites like churches. Now residents can receive the shot in the comfort of their own homes.

This initiative is in line with our strategy to really meet people where they are and to eliminate any and all barriers to access the vaccine, Johnson said.

Porsha Brown is among the health practitioners accompanying the community mobilizers onneighborhood canvasses. The campaign helps reach people in what the graduate nursing student at Alverno College calls the moveable middle: People who are on the fence about the vaccine, but with the right information to address their concerns can be moved towards getting the shot.

Some concerns are just misconceptions, Brown said. There are people who believe you are going to inject them with a live virus. There are people who just plain and simple dont trust the government. We talk through some of that stuff just by letting them know how important it is for them to be vaccinated and how it would reduce hospitalization.

The effort also makes the vaccine more accessible for people with hectic work schedules. Brown recalled a person saying he wouldnt have gotten the vaccine if she hadnt rung his doorbell.

Us coming out to his home was that opportunity that he was really appreciative of, Brown said.

Our subscribers make this reporting possible. Please consider supporting local journalism by subscribing to the Journal Sentinel at jsonline.com/deal.

The rest is here:

Milwaukee residents are going door-to-door in their neighborhoods to talk about the COVID-19 vaccine, give shots on the spot - Milwaukee Journal...

Over the last few weeks, at least three new major burial sites have been uncovered in Canada, a chilling reminder of the nations ugly history of torture and genocide of the indigenous population. Over a thousand unmarked graves, most of them belonging to children, were uncovered near old residential schools institutions which were run by the Catholic Church and funded by the Canadian government for the purpose of removing indigenous children from their communities and re-educating them to assimilate into white, Christian society. God alone knows how many children did not survive this endeavor, but the number is clearly higher than we knew.

The discoveries have prompted a fresh reckoning from both the Canadian government and the Church itself, with several Christian denominations taking the long overdue step of condemning the Doctrine of Discovery an old legal term that gave theological cover to colonialists who plundered indigenous communities under the guise of evangelism.

But not everyone is ready for such a reckoning. At the American Conservative, associate editor Declan Leary has written a frankly shocking piece defending the unmarked indigenous graves as good, actually. And thats just the subtitle.

The article argues that the systematic removal of indigenous children from their families so they could spend their brief lives suffering in residential schools was justified because, presumably, some of them also became Christians. In Learys mind, whatever human atrocities may have been committed along the way arent all that bad compared to the good missionary work being done.

Leary argues that the graves are not all that bad, calling it all a made-up story by arguing that lots of kids died in that time. We have always known that many children died in the residential schools, which were active through the 19th and 20th centuries, he writes. The idea appears to be that since its possible these children would have died anyway, the fact that they died in the manner they did, surrounded by strangers, far from their families, is not particularly notable. The question of why this absolves taking children from their homes is not one Leary makes any serious attempt to answer.

He then writes that theres nothing scandalous about mass graves either, writing that: The mass graves of public hysteria are, in fact, the ordered and intentional burial sites of people we always knew were dead, and who died of more or less natural causes.

Read that last sentence again slowly. More or less is the callously operative phrase, and its buried near the end.

But it gets worse, as Leary writes that this is not to discount the deaths of children altogether. Of course, it would have been better if each and every one of the First Nations tykes Christianized by the union of Church and state had lived a long and happy life. But he says the death of these tykes is not the Churchs fault, and the blame really belongs to the Canadian government for not adequately funding the residential schools.

The long and short of Learys argument up to this point is a fairly typical case of It didnt happen. And if it did happen, it wasnt that bad. And if it was bad, it wasnt the Churchs fault.

Its understandable for Christians to feel the urge to cast themselves as the heroes in any historical narrative, even when the facts dont lend themselves to such an enterprise. Nobody likes the idea that their community might be responsible for historic evils. This desire has led to a lot of ill-fated attempts to excuse historic injustices from sexual sin to slavery. In the United States, you see this sort of bargaining taking place all the time with regard to our Founding Fathers, who often get an absurdly generous benefit of the doubt about their own beliefs on slavery.

But covering for the mass deaths of indigenous children takes a special amount of willful moral blindness, and its a blindness Leary goes great lengths to maintain, up to and including this jaw-dropping paragraph near the end of his article.

Whatever natural good was present in the piety and community of the pagan past is an infinitesimal fraction of the grace rendered unto those pagans descendants who have been received into the Church of Christ. Whatever sacrifices were exacted in pursuit of that gracethe suffocation of a noble pagan culture; an increase in disease and bodily death due to government negligence; even the sundering of natural familiesis worth it.

This sort of calculation is so inhumane it calls into question the authors understanding of Christianity. The sacrifice of Jesus Christ should motivate us to recognize the infinite dignity of each person as specially and uniquely loved by God. To suggest that this remarkable truth in any way excuses or even diminishes kidnapping, plunder and genocide is to fail to understand why the message of Jesus is so important in the first place. The infinite love of God is not reflected in atrocity apologia. That sort of thing shouldnt need to be said. And yet.

Even if we accept Learys argument that its all worth it. That sacrifices had to be made to spread the Gospel and sometimes the Good News must involve a little family sundering, youd think he could admit that at least these children deserved the dignity of a marked grave.

But he cant do that, because that would allow for the possibility that Christians were not the heroes of the story. And once you start pulling at that thread, who knows what else will fall apart?

Tyler Huckabee is RELEVANT's senior editor. He lives in Nashville with his wife, dog and Twitter account.

Original post:

The American Conservative Does the Unthinkable and Defends the Unmarked Indigenous Graves as 'Good, Actually' | RELEVANT - RELEVANT Magazine

Reyes Medrano became one of the youngest city managers in the Phoenix area when he took the reins inTolleson in 2005, atage36.

He was and still is one of the few Latinocity managers in a Valley that is 31% Latino.

In Tolleson, just west of Phoenix, 86% of the city's roughly 7,200 residents are Latino.

His experienceand that of others led to the creation of the Tolleson Teen Council, which fostersthe community's young talent and introducesthem to city work.

"My goal is to cultivate future generations of leadership, including directors, so that if I were to get hit by a Mack truck tomorrow the council would have plenty of choices," Medrano said.

While promoting homegrown talent is a solid approach, that'splaying the long game. The Arizona Republicspoke with several human resources professionals and a diversity expert who suggestother solutions, includingrethinking recruitment andrevising job descriptions and requirements that could hold some back.

Whatever the strategies undertaken,Delia Saenz said it must be intentional.

It's not enough to say diversity is a priority;measurable goals must be set and detailed actions need to be outlined to meet those goals, said Saenz, a professor and chief diversity officer for Arizona State University's College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

The Republic's examination of data on gender, racial and ethnic diversity in the municipal workforce in metro Phoenix's 12 largest cities shows gaps in representation when compared with the overall community, and overall low diversity in top leadership positions and gaps in key departments, including police and fire.

"The message that's being put out there is that employers are pushing for more diversity, but the data is in stark contrast to that," she said. "There's a difference between rhetoric and reality, and in reality, the actions that would lead to equity are not happening."

Saenz said cities should start by assessing their workforce and recognizing where there are problems. Cities should be transparentand publicly post demographic data of the community and the workforce so that people are aware of where disparities exist.

Tolleson, for example, noticed a gender gap in certain departments and in leadership, so city officials were intentional about recruiting and hiring women for those roles. Now, women make up about half the city's leadership team, there are more women in the Police Department and the city recently hired another female firefighter, Medrano said.

A similar process recently began in Phoenix. The city developed a program over the past year to review equity in its hiring and promotion,said Vielka Atherton, a city spokesperson.

Atherton said data shows the city generally attracts a diverse candidate pool and hires a representative number of employees in entry level and line supervisor positions.

There are greater disparities at the leadership level, she said.

In response, Phoenix is creating a strategy to increase diversity in leadership that will look at how the city recruits and hires for those positions, prioritizing leadership development and mentoring.

Andre Miller, a pastor and community activist in Mesa, said minority candidates can face an uphill climb when trying to enter the municipal workforce.

He knows this firsthand. He has applied for 36 jobs with Mesa over 10 years and only gotone interview despite having eight years of municipal work experience and serving in the U.S. Army, he said.

There's often a lack of understanding about opportunities in the public sector. Though government work is usually stable, pays well and comes with good benefits, it can seem out of reach for women and minority workers, especially because it was historically dominated by white male employees, Miller said.

Where cities recruit for jobs can limit reach.Casting a wide net means advertising jobsin a host of publications, including those geared toward minority audiences, Miller and human resources experts said.

Officials from Phoenix to Avondale also suggest recruitingfor candidates at diverse job fairs, such as those geared toward veterans, women or LGBTQ youth.

The job description itself can also turn away prospective candidates if it's not written inclusively, Saenz said. Some job ads may contain coded language,such as using words like "aggressive" or "dominant" in job ads for male-heavy fields or "empathetic" and "supportive" in women-dominated professions,or pronouns that may discourage people from applying.

Some jobs may require a degree, licenses or technical skills thatcan make them hard to fill. The candidates' education and employment history may disqualify them from a job, too, human resources professionals said.

When recruiting, cities should reevaluate job descriptions and requirements, which are often unnecessarily stringent at the government level and can edge out minority candidates, human resources experts said.

Phoenix's human resources staff, for example, reviews job postings for inclusivity and job criteria to ensure the ad doesn't disproportionately disqualify some candidates, such as a clerical job that may require a bachelor's degree when it's not needed for an entry-level position, Atherton said.

Criminal and background history may be a barrier for some. Avondale was one of the first cities to support the "ban the box"movement, and the city no longer asks candidates about their past criminal convictions during the initial screening process, which could disproportionatelyimpact minority candidates.

Once past those initial hurdles, candidates can run into other barriers, such as bias in the screening process.

A 2016 study of Asian and Black students seeking jobs and internships by professors at Harvard Business School, University of Toronto and Stanford University found that applicants who scrubbed their applications of information that would reveal their racial identity, such as changing their ethnic-sounding name to a more American-sounding name or removing references to certain professional organizations, were more than twice as likely to get an interview than those whodidn't, although they had the same qualifications.

Similarity bias gravitating to people who look similar may lead hiring managers or panels to hire candidates who look like them, Saenz and human resources experts said.

Even after women and minorities make it through the door, it can be hard to stay within an organization if the workplace culture does not support inclusion and equity, Saenz said.

Sometimes employees face disparate treatment, have no support system and find it hard to move up in the organization, she said.

Miller said while working for a Valley cityyears ago, a colleague made a discriminatory comment about his race in front of the staff and their supervisor. None of his peers spoke up and the employee was not reprimanded, which made him feel unsupported, he said. He quit later that week.

"The kind of work environment that cities foster can push minority employees out if they are not supported," he said.

Saenz suggested several ways to support diverse employees:

"There are many resources to understanding how racist practices affect the system and individuals. Bring in people from the community to help, or hire a consultant if you don't have the internal mechanisms to do so," Saenz said. "There is no excuse."

Monitor progress and hold employees tasked with diversifying the workforce accountable, Saenz said. Shesuggested tying performance reviews, promotions or even raises to efforts to diversify the workforce and highlighting leaders who are active on this front.

"We do it for so many actions if you get certain sales, complete a certain project. We could do the same thing with increasing employees from minority communities," she said.

But ultimately, city leaders have to be willing to make improvements, Saenz said.

For Tempe City Manager Andrew Ching that has meant talking to employees over the last year about the importance of diversity and what it adds to the workforce and community.

Cities shouldn't wait until a moment of social reckoning to have these conversations, government leaders should be proactive in addressing diversity and equity, he said.

"If you're not already thinking about those things, then you should probably be, because I think that that is exactly where the focus of our public is now and will continue to be for, I think, the foreseeable future," he said.

As a boy, Medranosaw his dad serve on the local school board and Tolleson City Council in the late 1970s.

Still, the man who today is Tolleson's top executive didn't immediately jump into government work.

Inspired by his dad's activism on issues like bilingual educationand his later work at the local community college, Medrano wanted to pursue a job in education.

He earned a degree in management and cycled through jobs with the county and an aerospace company while starting a family. Hit with the possibility ofa layoff, he got a part-time job at Estrella Mountain Community College, where he met then-Tolleson Mayor Adolfo Gamez. Gamez,who worked for the college,encouraged him to apply for a police dispatcher job with the city.

Medrano landed the job in 1992 and worked in the department five years while he finished his master's degree in education.

Thoughhe intended to return to the community college scene, he instead climbed up the city ranks. He moved to the City Manager's Office as a management assistantand two years later was promoted to assistant manager.

Medrano credits city leaders who mentored him and encouraged him to grow within the organization for his nearly 30-year career in Tolleson. But he knows the process can be made easier through programs like the Teen Council.

"I wanted to formalize the process that I went through, streamline the path toward public sector," he said.

Reachreporter Paulina Pineda at paulina.pineda@azcentral.com or 480-389-9637. Follow her on Twitter:@paulinapineda22.

Support local journalism.Subscribe to azcentral.com today.

Originally posted here:

Barriers and solutions: How to improve diversity in metro Phoenix's municipal workforce - The Arizona Republic

Austin-based Marathon Kids is teaming up with MommiNation, an online community led by Olympic gold medalist Sanya Richards-Ross and business woman Mykal Steen, to get more moms moving with their kids.

Marathon Kids celebrated its 25th year of motivating kids to start running last school year. It now encourages kids across the countryto run the equivalent of four marathons a year.

MommiNation, which also was founded in Austin and has national reach, is specifically a community for Black momsbut welcomes all mothers.

"Our community is really intentional about supporting Black moms while also being inclusive," says Richards-Ross. "If you want to learn about the Black experience Black moms are having a unique experience and need to be supportedin every way we love to expose our experiences with everyone."

MommiNation has been doing a twice-a-year, 30-day Fit Mommi Challenge. The next challenge launches July 5. This year will includea weekly "Walk and Talk" from Marathon Kids as part of the challenge.

Every Saturday morning, for four weeks, a different "Walk and Talk" will be offered. It will be live in the MommiNation app and on Instagram. Each week a different MommiNation mom will lead a conversation that parents can have with their children while they are walking or running. Some of the topics will include going back to school in the fall and being prepared for life after a pandemic.

Supporting young women: Girls Empowerment Network celebrates 25 years with new advocacy program for girls of color, lessons from pandemic

This is a great time to do a "Walk and Talk" with kids, says Cami Hawkins, the CEO of Marathon Kids. Kids can reclaim some of the social emotional learning they lost because of the pandemic, she says. "It's a natural way to do that in a fun environment," she says.

The pairing of Marathon Kids and MommiNationis a "perfect match for us to apply that message of getting kids active early and following the footsteps of the best role models,"Hawkins says.

"Anytime we can get the whole family involved, we love that," she says. She says shehopesthat MommiNation's moms will want to start Marathon Kids groups in their schools or clubs in their communities. "The more moms in our corner, the better we are," Hawkins says.

Like Marathon Kids, which inspires kids to run through a collective experience, MommiNation's 30-day fitness challenge is about creating acollective fitness experience online. Live activities happen three or four times a week. Women post their progress and encourage one another throughout the month. There will be awardsfor moms who lead the Fit Mommi Challenge.

Maternal health equity: What are we doing about Black maternal health outcome disparities? One Austin hospital shares its plan

Summertime is a great time for families to focus on fitness. People often talk about the summer slide in relation toacademic learning loss during the summer, but the same thing is true with fitness, Hawkins says. Kids are missing the physical activity they get at recess and through physical education classes.

Kids who become involved with Marathon Kids can be transformed, Hawkins says. "The most amazing thing about Marathon Kids is the sense of confidence it builds in them," Hawkins says. "They accomplished the goals they set out to accomplish."

For the moms who do the Fit Mommi Challenge, Richards-Ross says, it is "mind-blowing from where they startand where they finish."Yes, it's about the fitness, Richards-Ross says, but "they find their purpose again; they find themselves again. It is truly a beautiful experience."

To find out how to become a Marathon Kid, go tomarathonkids.org.

To join MommiNation and the Fit Mommi Challenge, go tomommination.com.

Excerpt from:

Marathon Kids, MommiNation challenge moms and kids to get moving in July - austin360

I hope this message finds you well, healthy, and smiling. Motlow States span of impact begins with so many different variables: eye-to-eye sightlines, smiles, handshakes, and connection. The last several weeks have provided reintegration to how we have continued to evolve as an institution. The most promising example, an internal one, was witnessed by approximately 90 participants with Dr. Kenny Yarbrough, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEI&B) trainer and facilitator, who led us through two excellent sessions on Difficult Conversations and When Silence Speaks. We all have lived experiences, but through the DEI&B training, we had an opportunity to have shared experiences promoted by dialogue that allowed all who wished to contribute the space necessary to foster our walk together. I have communicated over the last three years the importance of talking about our college, colleagues, and communities. I see us bonded by so many positives that go beyond the services we provide. We are bonded together by linkages that are familial through our public and private actions. We are bonded by the facts of our imperfections. We are bonded by the grit we display when challenged. We are bonded by the truth and awareness of the whispers that may cast unlit reflections.

Can a dream be met when you do not dream? We are not only dreaming, we are designing and doing. Stay tuned and keep not only an eye out, but an intentional ear too. You will hear and feel the energy that embraces selflessness, service before self, and excellence in all we do tip-toeing all around us. As much as we want talent and ability, the right culture presents us with the only path to greatness. More simply put, culture matters and I thank you all for your spoken and unspoken agreements to embrace where Motlow stands today. Sometimes, in spite of it all, our ability to prosper evades shaky grounds. Our ability to teach each other provides the culture and landscape for us to teach and train others. My reflections have led me in many different ways this year and I realize that most of all I am a teacher-leader. All teachers want the best for all those with whom they engage. There is no malice in their approach and its never about a scheme/design, but about the skill that transcends place, space, time, and personage.

All in all, choose to be a resource and happiness EVERYDAY because the alternative, well

I appreciate each of you. Lets GO! #WeAreBetterTogether.

More:

Motlow: Span of Impact | Letters to the Editor | tullahomanews.com - Tullahoma News and Guardian