As a self-identified "community weaver,” I've been excited about Weave’s impact and potential since becoming a member in January 2022. I have served as a “Welcome Weaver,” to orient new members; as a co-facilitator of our Weave's Weekly Community Hour; and as a founding organizer of Twin Cities Weave. I’m the author of a novel about building humanity through interracial friendship (Sweet Burden of Crossing) and a community educator/facilitator. Above all, I’m a “quilter of relationships and perspectives.”
Twelve years before George Floyd was killed, I worked with my daughter and her friends to build an award-winning, after-school circle for youth to talk about race at South High School in Minneapolis (just blocks from where Police Precinct 3 would be burned down during the 2020 racial unrest). We’ve brought the approach to many spaces, including a graduate program in culturally responsive teaching at Saint Mary’s University in Minneapolis, and a community-building initiative, Sweet Potato Comfort Pie. Inviting young leaders to share their stories in the community grounded me in their real-time experiences and challenges. Hearing about their trauma inspired me to work with international peace educator, Paul K. Chappell, to spread practices of Peace Literacy as a developmental, skill-based process.
I love to offer learning spaces where we can share the unique cultural gifts that support our wellness, but also to talk openly about where healing is needed. As humans, we have been wired to feel great empathy. How can we cast our collective vote to extend the ripples and muscles of humanity? How can we stretch toward peace and justice—face the truth of our reality, bravely name the emotions that surface in us, sit with them as they inform us, then take bold, compassionate action to ignite our future?
My life has been transformed by learning that community-building can also bring dignity and hope in seminal moments of stretching personal capacity, as when I tended to my brother with complications from HIV-AIDS in the last few years of his life.
I feel grateful to be part of a group of passionate, skilled peace-builders who approach the work with reverence, wonder, and deep commitment. I’m eager to learn and grow with you as we stitch together a quilt with squares that reflect a strong vision of peace and justice.