On Saturday, February 11th, the BAM Team and I organized the first neighborhood potluck in the space formerly the Red Sea Pub and soon to be known as a yoga studio called the Joy Collective. This potluck was put together to “organize the organizers” for the Community Revitalization Collective for the Whittier Neighborhood. A simple meal to commune and break bread with leaders. That one potluck has spawned, in one week, all sorts of collaborations and opportunities. A Liberian community center is getting started across the street. Local growers are discussing collectively managing plots within the Whittier Neighborhood and using the food produced to fuel the potlucks. A group of us “Strong Towns” types are planning to redesign 8th Street for pedestrians, then, after engaging with the neighbors, pull out the paint and do the lines ourselves.
Like this one, there will be over 50 potlucks this spring and summer. These will be held where people gather in Whittier. It will be time for community members to talk to one another and discuss what they love about where they live. Myself and other members of BAM will be there to listen and begin to understand the neighborhood's identity. What gives this place, known as Whittier, a sense of community?
I am the Partnership Developer of the BAM Institute of Civic Biodesign. The BAM Institute of Civic Biodesign is a higher education organization dedicated to raising emergent leaders who deploy whole-system, regenerative strategies through immersive learning in embedded community contexts. Civic Biodesign is the practice of studying, mapping, and synthesizing systems where nature and humans meet to create conditions for wellness in specific bioregions. We recently received the South Dakota Community Foundation’s Big Ideas Grant to develop the Community Revitalization Collective within the Whittier Neighborhood of Sioux Falls, SD.
The CRC team will build human and biocapacity in the neighborhood through the human-centered process of empathy, defining, ideating, prototyping, and testing. We will partner with neighbors and surrounding agencies, like Habitat for Humanity, Helpline 211, and the Union Gospel Mission, to alter the built environment using regenerative strategies to build wellness into the system. The CRC emergent leaders will also identify and develop new neighborhood leaders so the area can lead from within. These future projects could resemble gardens, plazas, murals, community centers, and maker spaces.
The CRC will operate out of the Whittier Neighborhood Resource Library, a neighborhood storefront for gathering and organizing. This space will be focused on providing resources and services to support community members in taking action on social, economic, and political issues that affect their neighborhood. This space will provide resources such as information, training, and tools that help community members develop the skills and knowledge needed to take action on issues that are important to them. From this space, I will also be operating as a community health care worker to connect with the houseless populations that frequent several of the shelters within blocks of the space.
