I went to a "Rebuilding our Community" workshop today with about 65 people there from the community. We spent time moving table to table, forming new groups to listen to one another and dream together for our community. The pages of notes I wrote largely fell into the following dreams for the community:
1. Economic opportunity and justice for everyone.
2. Neighborhoods revitalized and beautified.
3. Youth empowered with opportunity to discover and use gifts. Also where there are community spaces to gather for recreation.
4. Unified, reconciled people across the many barriers that divide us.
5. A community that is safe and where people have community pride.
The youth that were gathered there today voiced their desires for more places where teenagers could gather for sports, music, art, theater, rollerskating, hanging out. They also spoke of wanting to find more businesses that were willing to hire teens and where transportation would not be an issue. I left at the point in the day when the young people at the table where I was seated were writing a "next step" to form a youth council so that the youth voice could be heard at the level of city government.
It was an interesting day listening to people, participating in the process, and meeting a whole variety of people with different passions and gifts in our community who desire to help create a better Cedar Valley.
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