Raising Children

An urban neighborhood strengthens its community by asking unexpected questions The Learning Tree initiative takes a different route to enhancing community by focusing on talents and gifts — not poverty.   When faced with an inability to pay their rent, mortgage or...

Where lies the passage out of an economic and social system rooted in the illusion scarcity and competition, and into a system of living grounded in the reality of abundance and cooperation? Economist Dr. Olivia Saunders invites us to...

  GREENSBURG, Ind. — A rural city in southeastern Indiana has piqued the interest of hundreds of families considering a move there after it offered stand-in ”grandparents” to babysit their children as part of an incentive program aimed at attracting...

"200,000 Indianapolis residents live in food deserts. Low income communities of color are the most impacted by lack of access to fresh food. But communities are responding to these challenges by creating and controlling their own food destinies." So begins...

In 2011, parents in the Richmond, VA community of Hillside Court locked their children inside to protect them from rampant gun violence. Today the neighborhood is bustling with activities for citizens of all ages because a group of concerned citizens...

Westwood Unidos was a successful example of organizing residents to achieve health equity in a historically disinvested, working-class, predominantly Latino neighborhood. Formed in 2012 in Denver, Colorado, Westwood Unidos (WU) utilized an Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) community organizing approach...

As we look to the abundance within neighborhoods waiting to come alive, one of the best starting places is to seek out those gifts, skills and talents are possessed by the people who live there. Our first instinct to...

About every six weeks for the last six years, John and Peter have hosted conversations with community-building social innovators as their guests. Their August 4, 2020 guest was DeAmon Harges, named by the Kettering Foundation as one of eight...

Neighbor to neighbor, block by block. That's the approach they're taking in connecting people to one another and other resources available to them in Central Louisiana. It's the asset-based work of the Strong Neighborhood Project, centered in Pineville, LA. They...

We hear that Americans are polarized. Nationally, there is not of enough trust to bridge the national chasm. Yet in our small towns and neighborhoods, it is often difficult to find strong community wide divisive polarity. Instead there is...