Gifts

The Rev. Mike Mather walks with the youth at Broadway United Methodist Church in Indianapolis. The church has closed many of its traditional helping ministries and created new ways to connect and support the community surrounding it.   For an idea of...

The road to revolution begins with a walk through the neighbourhood. That’s what’s sparking for Mike Butler and Dan Benavidez as what they call “the Belonging Revolution” unfolds in their community of Longmont, Colorado. Since last July, Mike and Dan have...

Keri Keifer and Jocelyn Jackson found cooking as a way to create change by engaging their local community while nourishing their creative souls at the same time. Their distinguished catering company in Oakland, California, sources from local farmers and...

Often, when you get together with a group of people interested in Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD), you find a conversation about the gifts of individuals and what communities can do for themselves. But what about institutions? Institutions have been...

Some radio series find their proper moment, others don't.  A broadcast might be a little too far ahead of the zeitgeist, or too far behind it.  But every once in a while one's timing is just right.  This series,...

The Community Tool Box is celebrating its 20th anniversary by hosting an Out of the Box Prize to honor innovative and promising approaches to promoting community health and development happening in communities worldwide. The Grand Prize winner will receive...

Detail from a graphic record of a facilitated discussion in Vancouver, B.C., in which participants talked about what belonging and community mean. The artists included examples of local community development in the drawing. Illustration by Liz Etmanski and Aaron Johannes/Spectrum...

More than a little buzz was created last fall when a story on an unusual restaurant in Norwood aired on National Public Radio’s Weekend Edition Sunday. In fact, the local restaurant featured in the report is so unusual...

Next to Last Things for Jutta Mason and David Cayley each moment is a gift. nothing is guaranteed. so when she cups your cheek in her hand or when fresh cut flowers scent the room or the cardinal sings atop the birch in the yard or the sweetness of...

What does a one-room schoolhouse in Michigan have to do with Greece, Europe, Democracy and the now floundering economic globalization experiment? On January 25, 2015 the far-left Syriza Party won 149 seats out of 300 in Greece’s parliamentary elections and formed...