SLIDESHOW IN BOULDER: Tales from a traveling organizer: grassroots social and ecological change in the "movement of movements"

Monday, February 4th, 7:00 p.m at the Boulder Meadows Community Room (19th and Violet)

Please join Portlander Jenny Leis in an evening of celebrating grassroots changemaking! After six years of organizing sustainable community in Portland, Oregon, Jenny took on the role of “full time cross-pollinator” among the movement of movements for social justice and ecological change.

Jenny will begin her slideshow with two inspiring grassroots success stories from Portland. The first is The City Repair Project (www.cityrepair.org), an “organized group action” that has facilitated thousands of neighbors to collaborate in addressing local concerns while reclaiming public space and building community gathering places on streets and sidewalks.

The second story is of Tryon Life Community Farm (www.tryonfarm.org), a dynamic seven-acre sustainability education center in the city of Portland. TLC Farm’s birth story is a testament to the power of the grassroots: in just ten months, thousands of people organized to prevent a high-impact housing development, raise $1.6 million to buy the land, and build a non-profit education center and residential intentional community. TLC Farm is founded on being a forum for a diversity of changemaking strategies, including the integration of native habitat, natural building, permaculture gardening, and community decision-making reaching into our political, economic and cultural fabric.

Building from these experiences, Jenny took a year to step back and examine the culture of grassroots organizing and activism in order to identify current patterns and possibilities for social change today. In her travels through the US and Africa (http://journeydejenny.blogspot.com), she witnessed the emerging network of creatively intertwined social change efforts; and also the yet-to-be-fully-recognized formal role for “cross-pollinators”—people who create critical links between changemaking community efforts. By strategically increasing connections between individuals, diverse communities can support each other without adding new programs or formal coalitions to our busy lives.

Overflowing with stories of successful grassroots organizing models and cross-pollinating ideas, Jenny is thrilled to host a slideshow and conversation in Boulder! Jenny would also love to meet folks during the days on Monday and Tuesday, Feb 4 and 5, for coffee or story-swapping! She can be contacted at jenny@cityrepair.org or 503-548-8459.