I’ve been thinking a lot about all the stuff happening in Spartanburg these days. We have so much going on. If you missed Steve’s piece on ‘Critical Mass’ please give it a read — I really think he’s onto something. From the recently proposed Hub City Co-op sparking such immediate interest to Show Up for Spartanburg to the Upstate PRIDE march, the Charter school, just to name a few. These projects started off as ideas that one or two people started talking about and ended up flourishing into something more.
And I can’t help but think “How cool. Why don’t we do this more!?!?!” How cool when citizens step up and get stuff going in their communities!
So, in an effort to keep this momentum going as well as increase civic involvement, I’d like to challenge my fellow citizens to no longer sit on your ideas. Let’s see if we can make them work. Why not? Life is short. It doesn’t have to be a long-term plan. It may start as something small and grow into who knows what. It may not go anywhere. But, that’s OK too. (That happens to me all the time). Not everything will work but what if every once in a while we do hit success?
Spartanburg is currently home to a lot of great non-profits, below are a few that focus on sustainability issues (but we have SO many more great organizations out there too—support them!).
Partners For Active Living: Promoting active lifestyles, active environments and educating the Community
SPACE (Spartanburg Area Conservancy): Land conservation
Upstate Forever: Land Trust, Sustainable Communities, and Clean Air and Water.
Preservation Trust: Historic preservation of local properties
Hub City Farmers Market: Locally grown foods available to the community
These organizations were once someone’s ‘idea’. How did they make it happen? Maybe we can hear some of theirs and others stories as to how they came to fruition and learn a bit about how we might move forward.
So where can we go with this? I’m not sure where I can or will go with this One Citizen idea but, I think it is so very important to our community that we create a supportive environment for our citizens who bring ideas to the table. We need to cultivate our ‘out-side-of-the-box’ thinkers because these are the people that will ultimately change our community. I’m hoping by encouraging dialogue we’ll make the first step.
Would love to hear your thoughts here or via email at tdreamweaver@hotmail.com
Hope everyone has a safe, great 4th! I’ll be on vacation next week, so you’ll have to sustain yourselves in the meantime.
Tammy Stokes
