Gifts

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...

What space do we need to create? Is it necessary to retreat from the world in order to give most fully of ourselves to a world yearning for our gifts? For over ten years, the musician and lyricist who has...

Angela Fell has her feet in the soil of Wigan, UK. In this straight-talking conversation we name the disconnect from real life and community we see in the patterns and behaviour of our 'democratic' systems and the institutions, large...

The need for social connection has never been clearer. Lockdowns have shown us the importance of connecting and building relationships with those that live closest to us. Over the last six years Neighborhood Connect has successfully experimented with creating...

The article below tells the story of how one neighbor generated unity, learning and joy within her neighborhood by bringing fellow community members together around the African-American holiday of Kwanzaa.   Kwanzaa in Philly: How neighborhoods celebrate the African-American holiday by Michaela...

As the holidays unfurl, bringing hopes and promises of special flavors, cozy traditions and connection, an urgency also begins to brew within our minds and homes: to buy. At our best, we buy out of our desire to concretely demonstrate...

The discovery of imaginal cells, or discs, goes back to the 1600s, but the metaphor of imaginal cells was popularized by Norie Huddle in her 1990 book Butterfly. The story of a butterfly’s metamorphosis provides a lovely and useful metaphor...

Sometime in 2007 or 2008, Tim Vogt, who directed an award-winning agency serving people with disabilities, had his journey interrupted years ago by a visit from three people who were unknown to him who got up and spoke at...

    Despite its name, the U.S. Department of Arts and Culture (USDAC) is not a government agency. Rather, it is an independent organization formed around the importance of arts and culture to the health of communities (and, by extension, to any...

“Every human being is born with some sort of gift, an inclination or an instinct that can become a full-blown mastery. We may not see our gift for what it is. Having seen it we may choose not to...