This past week was focused on getting the Economic Recovery and Resiliency process configured to be able to work with the over 70 community members who applied. We now have two primary groups, one a steering committee and one a workgroup.
The steering committee was selected to provide a very broad and inclusive range of voices in the goal of surfacing new voices at this moment to better inform the process as a whole. These community members will be paired with working group participants and together they will be tasked with reaching out to the broader community to solicit ideas, develop priorities, and in the end set a series of action items that the community as a whole can address.
We were originally inspired to undertake this process when we realized about 5 weeks into the COVID crisis that we did not have a plan for our unsheltered neighbors to keep them housed and healthy in Phase One of the Governors’ response plan. It raised the question of what other needs might be unrecognized. At the same time, it became apparent that the crisis was deepening and our collective needs and responses were changing rapidly and constantly. It seemed like a good time to pause, take a deep look into the current situation, and start to work on a common vision for the future. We enlisted the Pomegranate Center (https://pomegranatecenter.org/) to facilitate the process.
And then George Floyd was murdered.
The work took another step deeper as we recognized that the struggles of the nation were experienced here in our own community and through this process, we needed to expand the circle to be sure that we took this as an opportunity for all community members to engage.
It has been an interesting lesson in flexibility and humility so far and I fully anticipate that will be proven more so in the coming days. I look forward to reporting back as we move forward. We will also be launching a website shortly, thanks to the efforts of Bella DeVaan, to make it easier to track throughout this effort.
There is a Juneteenth Celebration planned for 6 pm on June 19th at the Village Green. I will be missing it, as this is our wedding anniversary and the kayaks are calling.
Hilary