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CommunityBuilders Webinar - Small Town Comeback

2pm to 3pm Eastern

Jesse Silverstein, principal with the economic research firm, Development Research Partners, will share strategies for involving community and business assets for successful economic development. Using the mining community of Anaconda, MT as an example, he will discuss approaches that include the development of industry, retail, services, and tourism, among other sectors, while at the same time working within the local business climate and attracting a skilled workforce.

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Relocalizing Food Systems: Innovative Models from Local Orbit

10am Pacific Time/1pm Eastern Time

Inspired by its work building technology infrastructure for local and regional food networks, Local Orbit works with food entrepreneurs of all kinds who are interested in relocalizing the food system.  Join us for a discussion about innovative ways to build regionalized distribution systems, particularly in ways that keep capital costs low and increase viability in the long run. 

This webinar is geared towards anyone interested in the local food system: food makers, growers, processors, incubators, retail outlets, and specifically those who are focused on aggregation and distribution.  AND be the first to gain access to Local Orbit's interactive toolkit filled with resources and information to support those building a healthy, localized food system. 

Included in the discussion:

  • Innovative examples of local food distribution systems from around the country
  • Common bottlenecks to anticipate and some creative solutions to navigate around them
  • A process and framework that will help ANY food entrepreneur move forward in their business
  • Early access to a free Local Orbit interactive toolkit!
  • Q&A

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Presenters

Erika Block is the CEO of Local Orbit, which supports diverse local distribution models across the country.  Erika brings unique perspective on best practices and challenges within this emerging sector.  She’s also built and managed two start-ups.  Prior to Local Orbit, Erika founded an entrepreneurial arts organization, producing cross-sector partnerships in the US, Great Britain and South Africa. Throughout her career, Erika has created collaborative environments that facilitate learning and action.  She is a PopTech Social Innovation Fellow, and comes from a family of fruit peddlers, meat processors, restaurant owners and wholesalers.

Noah Fulmer was the founder and Executive Director of Farm Fresh Rhode Island before joining Local Orbit as Director of Training & Capacity Building.  Farm Fresh Rhode Island runs farmers markets, a processing kitchen and a wholesale food hub connecting 60 local producers to over 100 chefs, grocers, schools and institutions every week.

Local Orbit provides software and training services for the entrepreneurs who are building the New Food Economy.  They provide the tools for farmers, producer coops, food hubs, farmers markets and independent distributors to efficiently sell to local restaurants, grocers, and institutions.  Online marketplaces powered by Local Orbit are active across nine states and Canada. We help people build profitable businesses and healthier communities.

Building and Sustaining Vital Neighborhoods

4:00pm - 5:00pm, Eastern Time

Think about a neighborhood you just love. What is it that makes it feel so welcoming, so inspired, or so vibrant? The best neighborhoods make greatness seem effortless, but what you don’t see is that behind the scenes, a lot of hard work and dedication is going into sustaining a strong place.

What does it take for your neighborhood to achieve greatness, for residents to act neighborly and work together to achieve shared goals?

On the next CommunityMatters® conference call, Felisa Conner of the Office of Neighborhood Vitality in Garland, Texas will join us to talk about building and sustaining vital neighborhoods. We'll also hear from Councilman Scott LeMay of Garland, a graduate of the city's Neighborhood Management Academy and former President of the Camelot Neighborhood Association. Felisa and Councilman LeMay will share tools and strategies for neighborhood management - ways to foster collaboration and build capacity to develop and realize neighborhood vision and goals.

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Blog Post: Don Your Cardigan, It’s Time for Us All to Be a Little More Like Mr. Rogers

Speakers

Citizen-Led Sustainable Change March webinar: Vivre St. Michel en Santé

1-2 pm ET

St. Michel is one of Montreal’s oldest suburbs. Since 2004, Vivre St. Michel en Santé (for a Healthy St. Michel) has employed an innovative urban and social revitalization strategy that has rebranded a neighbourhood once known for its high crime rates and lack of services into one that is known for its active and unified citizens and coordinated action. Particularly innovative are the processes used build “community” among a transient, diverse and largely immigrant population. Vivre St. Michel en Santé takes an integrated approach involving citizens, community organizations, donors and government offices. Collectively, their efforts have helped residents, with its mix of new immigrants, experience a better quality of life in the areas of art, culture, housing, security, health, sports, leisure, transportation and access to services.

Join us on Thursday, March 6, 2014, 1-2 pm ET (noon - 1 pm CT) when Brianne Peters and Jean Panet-Raymond present this Citizen-Led Sustainable Change webinar on an innovative urban and social revitalization strategy.

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Jean Panet-Raymond talks about some of the factors that have contributed to the success of his organization.

Other resources

Event Contact

Deb Markley
Center for Rural Entrepreneurship
919-932-7762
deb@e2mail.org
http://ruralwealth.org/page/webinars-1

Essential Knowledge for Transition: Economic System

2:00pm - 3:15pm Eastern Time

Essential Knowledge for Transition

knowledge > empowering > change


The last in a 3-part series of teleseminars on economic transformation by Marco Vangelisti.

Economic System

The current economic crisis is a recurring phenomenon of a structurally unstable economic system. This part of the curriculum looks at the current economic crisis in its historical context, how we dealt with the last major crisis in the 1930s and how we are (counter productively) dealing with it now. It explains the essential features of of the system that makes it unstable and destructive of communities and ecosystems. We will then look at the systemic features of a new economic system that would be compatible with long term health of ecosystems and communities. Finally, we will explore the path from the current system to one that democratizes and localizes economic activity and anchors wealth and capital formation in the community.

For more information

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About Marco Vangelisti

Marco came to the US from Italy as a Fulbright scholar in mathematics and economics at the University of California in Berkeley. After a stint in the financial industry, Marco worked as visual artist on a full-time basis for 5 years and obtained a MFA focusing on the intersection between public art and ecology. He later worked for 6 years for Grantham, Mayo, Van Otterloo & Co. LLC ("GMO"), managing investment equity portfolios primarily on behalf of large foundations and endowments.

In April 2009 Marco left the finance industry and has since been instrumental in the formation and development of the Slow Money Northern California chapter where he currently leads the investor working group. Marco is currently developing Essential Knowledge for Transition - a curriculum for engaged citizens to understand the money and banking system, the economic system and the financial system and how we need to transform them.  Marco is also helping communities increase their capacity for local investing.


Essential Knowledge for Transition provides an understanding of the large systems that affect our lives and communities: the monetary and banking system, the economic system and the financial system. Such understanding is a prerequisite to transforming them in a way that allows the emerging of a socially just, environmentally sound and compassionate society.
 

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