Friday, August 15, 2008

End of the Internship

Well, my seven and a half week stint with the Center for Sustainable Living officially ended earlier this month. It went by extremely quickly, and I found that it is very difficult to jump in and try to tackle large projects in a new community. Over the summer, I had a successful crash-course in small-time community organization and advocacy, building many connections with community members and learning much about local politics, the environmental blogosphere and community living. I learned that what sounds good on paper or works in one community oftentimes meets roadblocks and delays along the way. Unfortunately, with the short time-line we had, even small delays could sideline entire projects.

Therefore, we didn’t fully accomplish several of the community projects I had hoped to, but I've had the chance to get the ball rolling on several projects that have been researched and can be pursued in the future. Some of the projects still in the making include: Pedestrian Only Street Days (which was greeted with both excitement and skepticism from community members and which we decided a better goal for this would be the summer of 2009 rather than 2008 since there is much organizational and advocacy work to be done for this) a free school, where environmental workshops could be taught to interested community members, and several composting projects, including holding a community compost bin sale and continuing to guide Bridgewater Elementary School on their goal of teaching their kids to separate and compost their food waste at school.

I'm hoping to follow up on Pedestrian Only Street Days throughout the school year and hopefully it can kick off the following summer. The goal of this is to get people outside, to build social capital and community well-being, and to promote non-motorized types of transportation. If realized, it would consist of blocking off a section of downtown Northfield (on Division from 2nd-5th Street) to automobile traffic on a monthly, bi-monthly or weekly basis during the summers. Basically: More walking, more talking, less driving. I envision live music, street vendors, sidewalk dining, maybe some of kind of themed workshops on biking, pedestrian safety, etc. on Thursday evenings. Other cities (Toronto, Bogota) have had a lot of success with similar programs and I could see it being a huge hit in Northfield, but there's still a lot of organizing work to do. Even NYC has been trying this out with a huge chunk of Manhattan: . And so has San Fransisco: http://carfreeusa.blogspot.com/2008/08/come-out-to-play-in-san-francisco.html

The internship overall was a great experience. I learned an incredible amount about a wide range of topics and was fortunate enough to have the opportunity and freedom to pursue many different projects. Thanks especially to the CSL, Nate, Kris and Scott for that. I've decided to keep this blog-at least for now. I'm gonna to write in it as often and for as long as I feel is possible into the school year as long as people are reading it and finding it somewhat useful or enjoyable. From this point on I'm going to be writing almost entirely about whatever environmental and politic issues are pertinent or related things that come to my mind. Hope it's enjoyable!

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