In the Arena with NOW

In episode seven, we visit the community of Travis County, Texas and speak with Dr. Michelle Gallas, a pediatrician who has worked for the last decade caring for children and families facing complex medical and social challenges that impact their health and wellbeing. Dr. Gallas reflects on her own personal journey that transformed her care approach away from an “illness” model toward a “health promotion” model. Serving as the lead...

In our sixth episode, we continue our conversation with Julie Garreau, Chief Executive Officer, Cheyenne River Youth Project (CRYP), and a 2022 Community Food Systems Fellow. We learn more about CRYP's intentional approach to developing expansive programs that are centered on interconnected healing, including the WInyan Toka Win Garden, which was started by community elders — including Julie’s mother — and has since become the...

As we reflect on last year and look ahead to a new year, we draw inspiration from our powerful conversation with Julie Garreau, Chief Executive Officer, Cheyenne River Youth Project (CRYP), and a 2022 Community Food Systems Fellow. In our fifth episode, Julie reflects on her personal journey, family history and the community experiences deeply rooted in Lakota culture that have shaped her perspective of leadership as public service...

In our fourth episode, we tune in from Vital Village Networks’ 2024 annual National Community Leadership Summit in Boston, joined by hundreds of grassroots community leaders from across the country dedicated to designing new systems grounded in the joy of children, families, and communities. As we collectively navigate a time of transition, we return to the wisdom shared from this powerful conversation with author and futurist, Mia...

In our third episode, we join in a healing conversation with “woman of the community,” birth specialist, and Boston Breastfeeding Coalition (BBC) leader, Dominique Bellegarde. A true servant leader and long time Vital Village Networks champion for birthing people and families in Boston, Dominique shares how her personal experiences navigating motherhood and becoming a certified lactation counselor and educator shaped her journey of...

In episode two, we continue our conversation with Josette Williams, long-time Vital Village Networks leader and Director of Boston Public Schools’ Countdown to Kindergarten. We delve deeper into what shared power and agency looks like in practice through building parent partnerships at Boston Public Schools and the city’s Office of Early Childhood. We learn about critical strategies to engage parents in processes to develop city pr...

Welcome back! We are excited to kick off our third season of In the Arena with NOW, where we explore two timely questions with community leaders across the country: What does it look like to harness, activate, and build community power? How can healing-centered advocacy transform systems and change policy? For the first episode of the season, long-time Vital Village Networks leader and founding circle member, Josette Williams, remi...

We’re excited to share with you a special bonus episode as we reflect on the year and look ahead to 2024. We return again to Vital Village Networks’ annual National Community Leadership Summit, and tune in this time to our 2022 keynote conversation with writer, storyteller, and educator, Tracey Michae'l Lewis-Giggetts. She is the award-winning author of Black Joy and shares with us a powerful reflection of what it means to mak...

In our final episode of the season, we return to Vital Village Networks’ 10th annual National Community Leadership Summit and tune into the dynamic closing keynote conversation with Camille Bennett, Founder and Executive Director of Project Say Something. Connecting the personal and political, Camille speaks to her and her family’s multi-generational work advocating for racial justice in Alabama. She shares the efforts that she and...

In this special episode, we tune in from Vital Village Networks’ 10th annual National Community Leadership Summit, where hundreds of grassroots community leaders gathered in Boston in October. Hear opening remarks from Founding Director, Dr. Renee Boynton-Jarrett, followed by an intimate conversation with best-selling author and educator Kiese Laymon and Ronda Alexander, Vital Village’s Director of Partnerships. Delving into the su...

We continue our conversation with Inés Palmarin, a long-time Boston community builder, coalition co-founder, and Vital Village National Advisory Board member dedicated to holding and creating space for mothers to connect and create solutions together. Inés unpacks what collaborative and shared leadership looks like, and shares more about her work with community economic development and other collaborative efforts that seek to ensur...

How can we practice collaborative relationships differently? For Inés Palmarin, long-time Boston community builder, coalition leader and Vital Village National Advisory Board member, this starts with building trust and creating intentional spaces to connect around our shared “why” and hopes for our communities. Ines reflects on her own personal journey, the creation of the Boston Mothers Care coalition, and the evolution of collabo...

Tune into the next part of our conversation with Reann Gibson, a community-based researcher, community changemaker, and social justice advocate in Boston and beyond. Reann delves further into her experiences with facilitating community-based participatory research and coalition building efforts, asking the critical question, “What does it mean to create spaces with community ownership of change?” particularly in the realm of health...

How can collaborative action support joy and community healing? And what does this mean for how we define and understand leadership? In our next episode, we speak with Reann Gibson, a community-based researcher, community changemaker, and an advocate for social justice in the fields of health equity, food systems, community development and more. Reann reflects on her decades-long work to support food access, transformation justice ...

In our second episode of the season, we continue the conversation with Allentza Michel, of Powerful Pathways, who reflects on the evolution of creative placemaking and community-led design work and her hopes for the future. We unpack the challenges faced in advancing systems change and navigating the fear of change in transforming oppressive systems. Allentza discusses the critical role of imagination, and how Powerful Pathways is ...

Welcome to Season 2 of In the Arena with NOW! As organizers, advocates, and communities continue to work towards systems transformation, what does it look like to make cities more equitable and sustainable? And, what can we learn from leaders who are centering anti-racism and anti-classism through creative placemaking and equitable community design? In our first episode of the season, we speak with Allentza Michel, of Powerful Path...

Based in New York City, the New York Immigration Coalition (NYIC), in partnership with Fifth Avenue Committee, LSA Family Health Service,  BACDYS (Bangladeshi American Community Development and Youth Services), and Masa, launched the Linking Immigrant Families to Quality Early Care and Education (LIFE) Project to connect quality early education to immigrant families including the city's Pre-K and 3K programs. Their work builds...

What does it look like to engage with community stakeholders to co-design a community plan for revitalization that authentically centers the needs of the local neighborhood? In our 14th episode we feature Austin Neighborhood Network, located in the largest geographic neighborhood of Chicago, to learn more about their participatory efforts to collectively transform their community. Listen in to learn more from Jose Abonce, Ruth Kimb...

What does it look like to create a trauma-informed early care and education community? Why is centering parent leaders critical to achieving this vision? In our 13th episode, we learn about the innovative work that the Essex County Council for Young Children (ECCYC) is leading to foster meaningful cross-sector partnerships between agencies and parents to create healthy, thriving, and resilient communities. Based in Newark, New Jers...