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Building a Healthy and Just Community

Mike Butler -
"Mike Butler integrates theory and his own practice like no one else," Peter said of the conversation he and John had with the Longmont, CO public safety chief, who has a lifetime of experience creating a restorative community and implementing...
Stories

The Neighbor Challenge # 2

Valisha Reber -
Last week I challenged you (and myself) to name our neighbors.  Knowing someone’s name is fundamental to relationship building.  It’s the start of our story, and when you take time to learn someone’s name you show you value them.  I...
Stories

A World That Welcomes People for Their Gifts

April Doner -
From July 7 – 12, I had the opportunity to attend the Toronto Summer Institute on Inclusion, Diversity and Community for the first time.  I can easily say that it was life-changing experience. The Institute is a gathering of people...
Stories

The Neighbor Challenge

Valisha Reber -
Mr. Rogers had it right when he sang, “Won’t you be my neighbor?”  While Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood was idyllic, many of the elements of the show highlight basic principles of Asset Based Community Development. He spent each half hour highlighting the...
Stories

Strawberry Pie and Community Gatherings

Zoe Alowan -
Our Ashland Gift Circle has a tradition of surprising people with amazing organic desserts. The evening before meeting there was a request for help washing windows, and the urge to make strawberry pie overtook me. Berries were gathered from...
Stories

The Peterson Garden Project

Abundant Community -
In 1942 Chicago led the nation in the Victory Garden Movement, which was a surprise to many because the city was the country’s second-largest urban area at the time and 90 percent of its citizens had never gardened before....
Stories

Growing Power ~ Will Allen

Abundant Community -
Former professional basketball player Will Allen is a leader in the food security and urban farming movement through his farm and not-for-profit, Growing Power. He and his organization have trained and inspired people in every corner of the US...
Stories

From Gangs to Gardens: How Community Agriculture Transformed Quesada Avenue

Katherine Gustafson -
Flowers bloom alongside Quesada Avenue. Photo by Katherine Gustafson.   In 2002, two neighbors armed with spades and seeds changed everything for crime-addled Quesada Avenue in San Francisco’s Bayview-Hunters Point area. The street had been ground zero for the area’s drug trade...
Stories

A Better Way

Communities First Association -
    The McLaughlin Neighborhood in Muskegon, MI is using Asset Based Community Development approaches to transform their community.   “It’s been about creating relationships, neighborhood to neighbor,” says Sarah Rinsema-Sybenga, Executive Director of Community enCompass, a Christian community development organization in...
Stories

Break Time Bakery

Abundant Community -
New City Neighbors of Grand Rapids, MI invented an engaging summer program for community youth: The Breaktime Bakery. Started in the summer of 2006, the bakery teaches 6th through 8th grade students basic job skills like showing up on time,...
Stories

Beyond Skate Parks: Transforming Communities with Teens

Laura Fulton -
There is no doubt that the teen years are ones of dramatic change for young people and those around them. It is perhaps for this reason that teens are often seen as awkward accessories to our communities – ones...
Stories

Abundant Community: Local Food Alliance in Placer County, California

Jeffrey Bordelon -
PlacerSustain is a 501(c)(3) non-profit located in Placer County, California, that stewards the creation of social capital at the grass roots level to create a sustainable future—helping people help themselves through sharing, connecting, collaborating and taking cooperative action.  PlacerSustain...
Stories

Designing to Belong (Not Just to Be)

Randy Ripley, AIA -
Isn’t it interesting how we sometimes pursue seemingly opposing values in the way we live?  You know, we find ourselves enjoying the biggest, the newest, the most clever and beautiful cutting edge designs, and then almost in the same...
Stories

Building Community with Portable Brick Ovens

Abundant Community -
“We knead to bake!” That’s the motto of the St. Paul Bread Club, “the largest bread club we know of,” they say, “at least in the sense of being a group of individuals with a common interest in bread.” The Club...
Stories

Stories from the Lathrup Village Time Bank

Abundant Community -
Guitar lessons. Computer help. Typing. Sewing on buttons. Cooking a spaghetti dinner. Walking a neighbor’s dog. Cleaning out a basement. These are just a few of the things members of the Lathrup Village Time Bank have done for one...
Stories

Civic Action in Sarasota County, Florida

Mike McGrath -
Mike McGrath describes an innovative model for civic engagement in this blog post for State of the Re:Union. Clearly, Tim Dutton of SCOPE (Sarasota County Plans for Civic Excellence) really gets what a citizen is and uses his offices to promote...
Stories

Adelita’s Gift: The Value of Asking the Right Questions

Mike Mather -
Watch Pastor Mike Mather of Broadway United Methodist Church in Indianapolis tell how one of his congregations started asking different questions, discovered Adele’s gift and got “a lotta great food” as a bonus. Then join the conversation and share your...
Stories

Discovering Others’ Gifts: Re-humanizing Our Communities

Rex Lai -
  The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in seeing with NEW EYES. — Marcel Proust Did over 500 people just open their eyes? Did Core Change Cincinnati just facilitate the collective BLINK of new possibilities? The weekend of...
Stories

From Backyard Lettuce to “Learning Garden” Sweet Potatoes

Abundant Community -
Joan Horwitt’s first idea was to have Ashlawn Elementary School students, teachers and neighbors grow lettuce and greens at their homes and at the school in Arlington, VA. The former Arlington County teacher, school volunteer and Washington Post dining columnist...
Stories

Libraries Leading Community

Laura Fulton -
I am very lucky to live in place that is home to a large number of excellent public libraries. Going to the library is a regular family outing in my household. It is a place to get out of...
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Friends & NeighborsTim Schlak -

The Biggest Question You Can Ask in Life

A Buddhist teacher once nudged me along the path by rephrasing a question my mind kept posing to itself....
Abundant Community
Awakening the Power of Families and Neighborhoods

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