Category Archives: Community Conversation Blog

The People Priority

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TIF and other economic development methods can be useful tools in improving the quality of life, business opportunities, and aesthetics in a community provided that they are implemented with each of those goals holding appropriate weight. Economic development can either succeed by replacing residents with more economically advantaged inhabitants, or by providing resources so that neighbors can prosper because of the economic trend.

One solution to mitigate the negative effects of TIF is to create a clause that prohibits an increase in property tax for the current residents. Certain residents, who have lived in the community for a given amount of time (whether that is five years, ten years, or some other determined number), would be “grandfathered” into their current tax rate at the time that the TIF district is created. The tax cap would endure for a specified number of years; this would allow current residents to benefit from the economic advancement in the area and give them time to “catch up” with the trend.

Nonetheless, time itself will not provide a cushion that can protect households and individuals from being displaced when the period has transpired. Economic development agencies and CDCs need to actively provide resources for individual economic progression. In the Mid-North area specifically, there are countless people with valuable skills that may not be recognized due to lack of accreditation, the absence of a certification, or a blemished record. There are master mechanics, electricians, beauticians, carpenters, etc. who may not have attended a formal institution but have acquired excellent skill through experience and serving their communities. If economic development initiatives can focus on capitalizing and improving these skills, residents can be employed in the mainstream market and new businesses will have a wealth of qualified employees to choose from in that neighborhood.

Currently, the TIF Study Commission recommends that a maximum of 15% of TIF dollars be allocated to job training and education. If policy makers increase that maximum to at least 30%, making affordable job training one of the main concerns, individuals can expound on their abilities and interests while attaining certification that will make their skills more marketable in the mainstream job market. These training programs should give residents who were “grandfathered-in” first priority acceptance, ensuring that long standing residents will be able to increase their own quality of life alongside aesthetic and business development.

This community has a wide variety of resources, that when polished can be used to serve both community members and businesses. Local hiring must be a priority and creating space for more locals to be able to compete in the job market is the first step.
Allowing time for people to attain and utilize resources and making said resources readily available for all those who wish to take advantage of them are the most important factors in creating an economic development plan that serves neighbors, businesses owners, and the economy.

 

“TIF DISTRICTS AND HOW THEY IMPACT TAXES AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT IN MARION COUNTY”

If you are interested in participating in a discussion about TIF and the way it could affect your community, please attend the Marion County Alliance of Neighborhood Associations (MCANA) meeting this Saturday, July 21st, from 9am-11am. The meeting will be held at North United Methodist Church located at 38th and Meridian.

Food Highlights from Convergence

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Many of you may already know, two weeks ago the Convergence came into town. For those who do not know, the Convergence is a conference where past members of a social justice-focused study abroad program in Thailand come together somewhere in the U.S. to do work around a community issue. Previous years have included locations such as New Orleans and Kentucky and this year’s Convergence was hosted by KI and focused on food justice. Two parts reunion, one part conference, and one part service, the Convergence was not only a way to keep people engaged in social justice work after coming back from Thailand but also a way to connect issues happening in Thailand with those happening in the U.S., expanding a collective perspective on the reality that is the interconnectedness of the Global South.

As part of the plethora of workshops, conversations, and dialogue that took place during the Convergence, two other members of the KI team, Annie and Mat, and I planned a series of workshops around food justice. The key goal of the workshops were to paint a larger picture of what food justice looks like using personal narratives, stories, farm tours, and service work. According to Mat:

Annie and I had done some similar workshops about systematic issues and community work but we took a much more personal approach this time. Our intent was to not to have a broad philosophical or analytical discussion that was disconnected from emotion. Too often people put way too much emphasis on the jargon and not how they feel about it. Everyone has experience with these social constructs and we wanted to tap into that collective expertise.

The convergence was smaller than what we prepared for but the flow of the workshop was nice with an intimate group. Also everyone who participated knew each other so it was easy for the dialogue we started to carry beyond the workshop.

Personal experiences are often discredited as legitimate forms of knowledge, seen as biased or too subjective. Through these workshops, we hoped to reclaim the process of teaching through story. Narratives can also be seen as puzzle pieces and sharing narratives also allowed participants to fit their own narratives within the context of the struggles of other individuals and communities.

The first workshop of the series acted as an orientation and introduction to food justice. Annie and Mat focused on sharing food stories, particularly those about how we sourced the food we ate. With people coming from all over the nation and some just returning from Thailand, there was a wealth of experience, which shed light to the backgrounds and histories that led to our different understandings of the importance of food.

As a basic human need, food is also an important tool in exploring other social issues, such as discrimination and the intersection between how race, class, gender, sexuality, and nation with food security and accessibility. After this personal approach to food, I facilitated a discussion about the larger structures and systems underlying the continued oppression and marginalization of working class communities of color. We discussed the assumptions people might have when they enter a community they were new to and also the assumptions communities might have of them. Tying in the concept of cultural hegemony (for more information, take a look at my previous blog), we sought to find ways to carry out community-based work without perpetuating those same oppressive structures.

To give different perspectives on what the movement looks like outside of KI, the group also went on a farm tour of four urban farms around Indianapolis: Big City Farms, Fruit Loop Acres, the Paramount School of Excellence, and Felege Hiywot. As we visited each location, we spent time talking to farmers, learning about the history of each farm and their future directions. Each farmer had their own food story to tell, giving insight into how they became involved in urban agriculture and their place within the larger food justice movement.

The final workshop acted as a space for critical analysis and reflection of our experiences with food justice at KI and Indianapolis. Anthony Perry, a cook at the restaurant Duos, gave an account about his experience graduating from the Second Helpings Program (http://www.secondhelpings.org/), a food rescue program that also trains unemployed adults for careers in the culinary industry. While food justice is often seen as eating organic, building urban farms, or cooking slow food, his experience further reminded us of the role that employment and economics often play in impacting food accessibility and food security. In the discussion of the farm tour, we were able to deconstruct the purpose urban agriculture serves within the food justice movement and the impact it has on working class communities of color. Overall, the workshops were successful in demonstrating how the work at KI was grounded in the community we work with and painting a larger picture of the food justice movement and the role that KI plays within it.

Go With the Flow: Community Building and Developing Relationships

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Throughout the last month, I have had the opportunity to connect with  several different groups of people and organizations through my work at KI. These interactions have given me valuable insight into the different ways people engage community and how that engagement can or should be measured. The question that arises the most through these conversations is: “How do we engage communities as outsiders?”

There is no cookie-cutter answer to this question, and the search for a one-size-fits-all community engagement handbook hinders ones ability to build relationships. Such a pursuit ignores individuality in “impoverished”, “underdeveloped”, or “blighted”neighborhoods where social justice minded youth converge to make change.

The idea of “help” also stands as a roadblock in building community. The statement “I want to help but I don’t know how” is thrown around in conversation. Help and service is traditionally seen as one sided. Volunteers often go into a community thinking they are going to bring value and information to the neighborhood without realizing the wonderful resources and lessons they can gain themselves.

We need to focus on building community instead of “helping” and understand that our way is not the only way. I was at a presentation today where the facilitator said it is easier to go with the flow of nature rather than against it. When you come into an area with your own agenda without respecting the culture and values of that neighborhood, you will cause more disruption than unity. Seek first to understand, and then to be understood.

Community building is not a job, and it is not a project with an end goal, it is a life style. When we look at community development through the lens of a project or experiment, sustainability can not be reached.

During my short time working with KI, I have expounded upon tools that I use in my everyday life to build relationships. For example:

When trying to engage a community as an outsider, you first have to engage community members. Get to know the community at an individual level instead of just a statistical one; actually build relationships for the sake of relationships, not just as a means to an end goal. Listen and open yourself up to learning; professors and professionals are NOT the only people who have something important to say. Recognize and respect alternative views of reality; the United States is a culturally pluralistic society, the popular model isn’t always the appropriate one. Furthermore, it is best not to impose yourself or your ideas on a community, work on  their terms, and your opinions are much more likely to be considered, maybe even received. And don’t work to hard to be accepted or people will see right through you! Be yourself and know not everyone will like you, and that is OK! Build trust and gain respect by knowing your boundaries as well as the boundaries of others.

Lastly, improvement cannot always be measured. Numbers are not able to capture everything, and sustainable progress can’t necessarily be made in 3 months, 6 moths, or even 2 years. Make community building the goal, and the issues that uphold the status quo in all of our communities, underdeveloped and elite alike, can be tackled simultaneously. This allows neglected residents to be empowered, and creates a space in the dominant culture for that agency to be received.

 

 

Open Source Activism

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In today’s society, technology is often heralded as a solution to many of the world’s problems. Advances in medical technology allow diseases to be diagnosed much faster and more accurately. The internet is able to share information and connect people across the street, nation, or ocean faster than ever. Mobile phones can access and capture data, photos, and videos on the go everywhere. Recent progress has also made technology more accessible, driving down costs and making it more user-friendly. More and more people have access to cameras, laptops, and mobile phones; wireless internet has also become more ubiquitous. While these tools can provide hours of endless entertainment, they can also be used to bring people together, build community, and meet community needs.

One of the initiatives I have recently become involved with at KI is called “Open Source Activism” or OSA. The premise of OSA is to use technology to meet and serve community needs with a focus on developing mobile web applications to craft portable solutions to community issues. For example, a project I am working on as part of the OSA initiative is a mobile web application to collect data for community surveys. As the KI team surveys members of the community about different initiatives or events, we can collect location data, demographic data, photos, videos, and more, developing community while also creating a database of community data.

Everyone has ideas for new mobile applications and people often say, “wouldn’t it be cool if,” “what if there was,” “there should be.” However, the idea of developing an application can be intimidating, especially for those without previous programming experience. OSA proposes a solution through training local community members on mobile web application languages and tools, such as CoffeeScript, CouchDB, and Kanso. The classes are held at KI and are geared towards community members who may not have previous programming experience and focused on deconstructing this culture of fear around technology. More than just a series of classes, though, this project is also a way to bring people with similar interests together, continuing to building community at KI and strengthening the center as a hub for information.

As a concept, open source means access to the design and implementation of software is accessible, open, and transparent. Anyone who is interested in a project can help to develop it and even tweak it to meet specific needs. Since anyone can work on the software, community is built around creating, developing, and maintaining it. At KI, we are building a similar sense of community around mobile web applications by bringing a diverse group of people together to teach and learn from one another. Classes have been a space for sharing; people with different levels of programming experience, from completely inexperienced to seasoned and professional programmers have been learning together and working with and besides one another, making new ideas for mobile web applications slowly come to fruition.

Through this project we are not only building community locally, but also nationally and internationally as well. As we connect to other communities throughout the globe that have similar initiatives, we can use our collective knowledge and resources to build further. Similar initiatives are being developed in Kenya and hopefully we can create a bridge between what is going on here with what is happening there, making manifest the old adage of “think locally, act globally.” There is great potential for this concept of “Open Source Activism” and as this initiative grows here at KI, I hope to see it spread to other communities as well, connecting different organizations using technology as a tool for transformative social change.

For those interested in joining the class or learning more about “Open Source Activism” and ways to use technology to meet community needs, classes are held every Wednesday evening from 5:30-6:30PM at the KI EcoCenter. For more information, email us at osa@]kheprw.org or visit is us pm the web at osa.kiecocenter.org.

Redefining Resistance

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Just this past Wednesday, I taught the second class in a series I have been developing called “Challenging Power: Voices of Resistance from the Global South.” The focus of the series is to use a personal approach to examine social justice work and for the community to learn more about me as well. While the Global South is often used to describe the Third, “developing,” or “emerging” world, I argue that the definition should be expanded to include any community throughout the world that lacks access to basic human needs such as potable water, healthy food, clean air, and arable land, which would include many working class communities of color in the U.S. such as Mid-North. Through this lens of a community part of the Global South, the series uses personal histories, both from me and the participants, to find areas of common experience and understanding. As Black, queer, feminist, writer and activist Audre Lorde writes, “…Our personal visions help lay the groundwork for political action.” By using personal narratives to examine the larger structures and systems that perpetuate cycles of oppression and ways in which we, as marginalized peoples, can resist them, the series proposes a redefinition of what challenging power and resistance mean especially for communities from the Global South.

Challenging power is often made out to be a glamorous endeavor, one that must involve secret underground meetings, massive protests or rallies, and plenty of direct action. Because of a desire by many “activists” to perpetuate this idealized vision of challenging power, the 60’s are often romanticized for the era’s countercultural movements, social revolutions, and radical political events. At big actions, energy is high and so is anger; everyone is hyped up and the movement feels indivisible and invincible. But what happens when there are no large actions? What if communities lack basic needs for survival? Is there still room for resistance then? Focusing on this glorified ideal of what resistance should look like overlooks and discounts smaller but by no means less significant acts of resistance.

Dressing in non-normative fashions, speaking native tongues, cooking traditional foods, or creating music are then discounted, disregarded, and not seen as productive work. However, when we consider the systems and structures that underlie the production of mainstream culture, those “small” acts become important pillars for the sustainability of resistance. During our first class two Wednesdays ago, we opened with a discussion on the concept of cultural hegemony. For those unfamiliar, as one of my professors in college put it: hegemony = coercion + consent. The consent of the people to perpetuate their own subordination is coerced by force through the creation and maintenance of mainstream culture by a particular social class. That culture has a certain set of values and beliefs that then becomes part of the collective “common sense.”

If the subjugation of working class communities of color is contingent on our continued compliance to and consumption of mainstream culture, then everyday actions that counter what the dominant culture tells us we should be doing become significant challenges to power in and of themselves. In our examination of hegemony, we also discussed the idea of counter-hegemony, or the continued and sustained disruption of common sense. To upset hegemony, acts of resistance must be able to be repeated on a regular basis since common sense and the dominant culture pervade our daily existence. If these counter-hegemonic efforts are to be continued and sustained, though, they must also be sustainable. Since anger is an unsustainable long term emotion, it is necessary to develop constructive means to build individual and collective energies and potential. As Vietnamese Budhhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh writes, “…When the seed of anger manifests, we should know how to recognize it, how to embrace it, and how to bring [ourselves] relief.” Cooking traditional foods two or three times a day is such an act of relief; at the same time as it challenges what the mainstream culture tells us we should eat, it also serves the basic human need for food and can bring together and build community. He further goes on to talk about mindfulness and the need for mindful practices such as mindful breathing, smiling, or walking. By being self-aware, we can recognize our anger or fear or despair and transform it into constructive energy. Therefore, even these simple tasks of breathing, smiling, or walking can be counter-hegemonic; by being self-aware and critical of our surroundings and of ourselves, we are disrupting a culture that tells us to mindlessly consume, deplete, squander, and waste.

Even though individuals or corporations might have good intentions, if their actions are still steeped in the perpetuation of mainstream cultures and ideologies, they are still participating in the subjugation of marginalized communities and communities of the Global South. Only through true empathetic faculties can there be a real redefinition of the culture and society.

Resistance has then been redefined to include any act that upsets and does not reproduce dominant cultures, ideologies, structures, and systems. Through even the smallest actions, we can resist and shift the balance of power and attempt to create a culture that, rather than perpetuate a single ideology, is to open and accepting to different histories and perspectives.

To learn more about and further engage with a personal as political approach to social justice work, I urge you to come check out the series “Challenging Power: Voices of Resistance from the Global South.” Class is at KI every Wednesday at noon until July 11. There will also be video recaps of the class going online soon in case you miss it!

Trick or Treat?

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Tax Increment Financing (TIF) is a redevelopment strategy that allows development officials to collect property tax from the residents in the TIF district. First, the allocation area is termed a redevelopment district based on the amount of “blight” that is present in the area. According to the Economic Development Corporation of Wayne County, Indiana, TIF “enables local economic development officials to collect the property tax revenue attributable to increased assessed value resulting from new investments within a designated area (EDCWC). There are several ways to use TIF, one of which is a strategy where the increase in property tax (hence the term “tax increment”) that follows economic development, is used to retroactively pay off debt that the development projects themselves incurred. The increase in property taxes, which results from the higher assessed value of the neighborhood that the development catalyzed, is used to fund the projects already underway.  Additionally, TIF can be used to fund future projects, where property taxes are funneled through the redevelopment agency and they decide which projects to invest in. The revenue is collected by the development corporation and is used to fund development projects that will hopefully change the face of the community where TIF is instituted. Subsequently, in either case, the amount of money that the community contributes to the general tax base, which funds education and city services, is limited (Michale 468).

Although TIF is a creative model for funding infrastructure development and encouraging businesses to establish themselves in the redevelopment zone, several consequences follow that will quite possibly have a negative impact on the current residents of the allocation area. Certain aspects of the TIF model limit the community’s ability to both contribute to the process and hold the redevelopment agency accountable.

Catherine Michael, education attorney and graduate of Indiana University School of Law,discusses the negative impacts of TIF and the issues of community representation and agency in her article “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime: Tax Increment Financing in Indiana.”Michael argues that as new residents with “higher purchasing power” move into the neighborhood, they will be competing with existing low-income residents (Michael). According to Michael, “as the TIF area improves and costs rise, residents may be forced to move elsewhere, loosing housing, jobs, and contacts they had prior to the redevelopment project”(468). The state of Indiana may have a relatively low property tax, but when you consider that residents of the mid-north area fall well below the city’s median per-capita income of $23,049, any increase in taxes can severely burden existing residents along with limiting the number of tax dollars that fund city services. With gentrification under way, property taxes will rise as the “assessed value” of the neighborhood continues to rise.

As the area “improves”, and more new residents move to the neighborhood, the need for and cost of city services will rise but “the area will not submit any additional monies to the taxing unity until the entire cost of the development project has been recouped”(Michael 468). As long as funds are needed to finance the redevelopment projects in the area, city services will continue to suffer. Along with increased property taxes, the city may also need to implement higher taxes to “keep city services at a necessary level” as the population grows and new residents demand a higher level of services (Michael 468).

TIF as a redevelopment project sounds promising, but the majority of Indiana’s TIF districts incur debt (EDCWC). This debt can take up to 30 years to pay off! The TIF model creates an additional financial burden in areas already economically disadvantaged.

Michael states that “The ease of using TIF and the few restrictions it contains serves as further encouragement to city official to pursue…large projects rather than smaller ones which could improve the quality of life in low-income neighborhoods” (Michael 468). Development officials usually opt for the larger projects which may include shopping centers and office spaces which will improve the area’s image. Although this enables the neighborhood to compete with neighboring communities and opens up possibilities for future economic development, the sustainability of these projects encourages gentrification and depends on it to pay off the debt incurred by redevelopment projects. Instead of bettering the quality of life of residents, TIF is often used to improve the physical aspect of the community, generating more opportunities for development corporations and involved parties to profit from gentrification.

Many of the negative consequences of TIF occur because accountability and community agency is restricted by the TIF model. During the TIF process:

City officials and developers may work hand in hand on…important development projects to assure profits to the developer and further officials’ political careers. Public Private partnerships restrict the impartial decision making ability of city officials and reduce the ability of citizens to restrain government power….Important business figures…are likely to have more clout in the political process than low-income residents and can assert more influence on the outcome of development projects”(470).

Once again I pose the questions: Whose interests are served? And whose voices are marginalized in the process?

Stay tuned for possible solutions…

 

Works Cited

Michael, Catherine (1996) “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime: Tax Increment Financing in Indiana,” Indiana Law Journal: Vol. 71: Iss. 2, Article 6.< http://www.repository.law.indiana.edu/ilj/vol71/iss2/6>

http://edcwc.com/wp-content/uploads/Tax-Increment-Financing1.pdf

 

Part 4 the differon and sustainability: one-size-fits-all as the source of problems in society

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Part 4 Stressing uniqueness to neutralize the power of normalcy

Parts 1, 2, & 3 covered the idea that many people get bullied because they’re “different” compared to normality. This suggests normalcy is unsustainable. So what do we do? Question the paradigm of one-size-fits-all by embracing the reality of the uniqueness of each person.

We need a society based on a culture following principles where everyone:

–has a right to know/express their uniqueness
–is capable of recognizing the uniqueness of every other person
–is capable of understanding that difference/uniqueness do not pose a threat, but rather a positive opportunity for the individual and the whole community
–is capable of understanding the importance of supporting others in their quest to find uniqueness
–is capable of recognizing that the integration of differences guarantees a world that chooses construction over destruction

All mechanisms of society must be responsible for the integration of these differences (Hecht, 2003).
___________
Hecht, Y. (2003). The Third Wave: Present, Mission and Vision. Presentation given at IDEC
2003. Troy, NY. www.democratic.co.il/en/

My Personal Journey to Indianapolis

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Arriving in Indianapolis three days ago, I didn’t know what to expect. From the relative safety of an airplane window, this city looked like many others: grays, blacks, greens, buildings, cars, people. When I told my friends I was headed to Indiana, they all looked at me with bemusement; why was I, a city boy, headed for the “middle of nowhere”? I even asked myself that question a few times. Why was I leaving the comfort and safety of my home for the Hoosier capital? But over the past few days I realized that I’ve come to really like it here.

A mentor in college once told me, “Life is just a bunch of clichés.” Recently suffering from a bout of depression fueled by the stress of my senior year of college, I helplessly watched as the balance of school, relationships, activism, and other responsibilities teetered precariously. I felt lost on the “road of life,” and the last thing I needed was more school work. Professors, friends, and mentors all noticed a change in my attitude and energy even as I was determined to hide it, to be “strong in the face of adversity.” In reflection now, this feeling was what others would call “burn out” and I was too young to be burned out.

Now that I’ve shared a little too much, we’ll backtrack. Let’s start with an introduction. My name is spang and I was born and raised in New York City to an immigrant family. I graduated two weeks ago from Pomona College majoring in Asian American Studies. My grandmother has been my inspiration throughout life and my only wish is to be a quarter as cool as she is. I’m here in Indianapolis for the next month in a half interning at KI and planning Convergence, a conference focused on community work which you can learn more about here.

I came to be involved in this internship because of my previous involvement in different community-based organizations in the past and I wanted to continue social justice work after graduating. The same college mentor also told me that that community work was both selfless and selfish; selfless because of the genuine care we show for our communities but also selfish because of the high we get from the work. For me, that selflessness and selfishness came from a critical understanding of the world around me, something I’ve been developing over a long period of time.

Before my first day of kindergarten, my mom sat me down and told me, “You need to be proud of your roots, your family, and your culture. People won’t like you because you’re different, but always keep your head up.” As those words were made manifest later that day, I realized as a working class, Asian American I would always be seen as different.

As I faced increasing discrimination, I developed not only stronger pride but stronger anger as well. This anger is familiar to most people of color or anyone facing marginalization for that matter. Hearing about the struggles of my family, my friends, and my community only fueled my anger further. I found an outlet for my anger through community work (and occasional pillow punching), finding others who were angry for the same reasons. This anger led me to become an Asian American Studies major, to make my education relevant to my life experiences. It was what drew me to spaces such as the Pomona College Asian American Resource Center, where I found home and community. Anger at systematic and institutionalized discrimination and inequality was what led me to want to develop a passion for elementary school education. But while anger motivated me to do all these things and more, long term anger was unsustainable and soon took its toll.

As I became more involved throughout college, I found myself slowing down, losing energy. The more I did, the less I accomplished. This same anger that kept me motivated crept into other parts of my life, wreaking instant havoc. Even though I had learned how to love, I let my own undirected anger and rage take that away from me, causing me to hurt instead. I lost many essential parts of myself and changed for the worse. As I lost my balance, I took others with me when I fell, especially those closest, the ones I loved most.

My assignment for this blog post was to write about my journey and I could have easily skipped some of these more personal details. To do so, however, would perpetuate a false façade of happiness which the dominant culture forces us to keep up. Following in the words of Audre Lorde, the personal and political are one and the same; my politics define my identity and my identity defines my politics. To keep it real, my road to KI has been a difficult one but through my failures, I have learned and have taken it as an opportunity for self-discovery.

While I am in a much better place now than before, I see that everyone needs to fall first before they can learn to walk. Luckily, I have always had others there with me, who have helped me learn, grow, and develop further. Finding community has always helped me keep me moving forward, focused on my goals in life, and grounded in reality. This internship at KI and with the Convergence is another step on my journey of self-discovery, learning more about myself, challenging and pushing myself, and being humbled by others. I find myself extremely privileged to have people who I can both learn from and share with. So while life may be a bunch of clichés, it is up to us to stay mindful, present, and centered in our daily practice for the continued growth and development of ourselves and our communities.

Sweet Tooth

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Everybody wants a piece of the pie

American apple, rhubarb

Very cherry pie

He took our land

The fruit from our trees

And said, “Eat this pie,

It’s what you need to survive.”

 

It tastes good

So we eat

Shoveling in as much as we can consume.

Diabetes, high blood pressure, cavities, obesity

And when heart disease sets in

He says, “You’ll be fine,

You just

Need

To eat

More

PIE.”

 

But I say: Give me the grass, the dirt

The leaves, the fruit from my trees

I’m tired of stuffing my face with greed.

 

The pie is poison.

Put down your forks.

 

 

Let’s Talk!

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The KI EcoCenter is engaging neighbors in an inter-generational community conversation to help bring the community and our resources closer. We want to bring the diverse talents, characteristics, skills, and perspectives that exist in our community to the light. What does community mean to you? What would you like to see in your community? How can you help improve the community?