Asheville Summer of Solutions: An Invitation « It’s Getting Hot In Here

cross-posted from the Solutionaries blog

To the restless young person who wants to spend their summer collaborating with a community to usher in solutions for our planetary woes,

You are invited to join Summer of Solutions Asheville for a summer of extraordinary possibility. Unique to the city of Asheville, and yet tied to the other Summer of Solutions programs, SoS Asheville will work within our community to strive towards sustainable community development. This summer program, led-by and geared towards youth, will offer different levels of participation with some participants living together, while others work on projects for short term or part-time durations. Projects will focus on things, which are, or can become, solutions to the underlying global, regional, and local challenges we face, whether that is our fossil fuel dependency or our fractured local communities.
As this is the first year of the program in Asheville, every participant can have a hand in shaping the outcomes and creating the projects that will define our Summer of Solutions. We will live and work together on at least one large-scale project and several smaller projects through the summer that will challenge us to develop new skills.

Asheville has played host to adventurers, artists, and visionaries throughout its history and provides a fertile ground for a program like Summer of Solutions to emerge. Building on generations of this experience we will collaborate with partners from city council to art collectives. We are initiating SoS Asheville with a listening project in order to become more keenly aware of the possibilities for our place within the community. As the listening project continues we suspect that projects will come out of the countless conversations and public dialogues we have. Currently though, we are beginning to develop potential projects that will support an integrated understanding of the community, alternative economic models, and energy efficiency and conservation.

Tiffany Frye and JC Brew, who spent last summer with Summer of Solutions in St. Louis, are bringing Summer of Solutions to Asheville. JC, a student at the University of North Carolina Asheville, has been working in the Asheville community for several years now on many projects that have ranged from supporting green job creation with Asheville Green Opportunities (Asheville GO), to developing campus gardens that integrate permaculture techniques. Tiffany, a recent graduate from Washington University in St. Louis, is currently working with an afterschool program for middle school kids where she is helping to draw connections between their food and the land with gardening projects. Both JC and Tiffany are also helping to build the national organization, Grand Aspirations, which Summer of Solutions is a project of.

So, to the restless young person who is ready to roll up their sleeves and get to work, come to Asheville, for a summer of solutions (or continue to work from where you are) to truly “be the change you wish to see in the world.”

Apply HERE today!

We are also seeking funding for our program. If you are in a position where you can give, please help sustain our program by contributing here. For any questions, suggestions, or ideas that need digestion, please send us an email at sos.asheville@gmail.com

About Ellie

Ellie Johnston is a recent graduate of the University of North Carolina Asheville where she majored in biology, with a focus on ecology and evolution, and minored in environmental studies. She serves as secretary of SustainUS: The US Youth Network for Sustainable Development and as the Steering Committee co-chair of the Southern Energy Network. While at UNC Asheville, Ellie led Active Students for a Healthy Environment (ASHE) for two years, worked as the Executive of Sustainability in Student Government, and was part of the University's strategic planning group for sustainability. She helped to build the network of students working on climate and energy issues across North Carolina by facilitating several youth summits. She has studied the impacts of climate change from Colorado to Peru. In December 2009, she joined youth from around the world at the Copenhagen Climate Negotiations with the SustainUS Agents of Change Delegation. Ellie often speaks before conference audiences, college classes, and community groups about public engagement around climate change. She currently lives in Asheville, North Carolina where she enjoys biking, rock climbing, and hiking in the surrounding mountains.

It’s Getting Hot In Here