Departure

Today is September third. Tomorrow afternoon I will be embarking to Milan for a year long journey. In some ways, it hasn't hit me yet.

 I would tell you all the fact-y things that everyone's been asking me about for months, but I'm worn out with pretending to answer a question for the first time. I feel bad, because I know that these people love me and care about me and that is why they're asking. But all these identical questions and conversations are beginning to make once dynamic and unique relationships all feel identical, too.

 At the market today, I saw a couple of friends that I hadn't seen since the beginning of summer. I love these people, and our relationships were so authentic and genuine and still are in memory. But today I found myself feeling distant, hesitant to fall back into a relationship. I feel very much like I'm turning inward, feeling uncomfortable in social situations in which I used to thrive. I'm wanting time alone, to myself, to reflect.

 Time for reflection has been lacking this summer, as evidenced by this blog. My journal, too, lay stagnant this summer (I wrote in it for the first time in months a couple of days ago.). With working about 40 hours per week with Summer of Solutions and spending an additional 12+ per week interning at Brick House Kitchen, my summer is a blur. I think I've blocked some of it out -- the stress that comes along with maintaining a productive team and a very dry garden was overwhelming. I'm lucky that I have pictures to remind me of my successes:

Combining my love for activism, art, and bike-riding in this snazzy poster for our Day of Action! Seventeen summer programs nationwide (including the other 14 Summer of Solutions programs around the country) gathered on July 23rd in their local cities to celebrate and highlight the work they've been doing.

One of our main partners this summer was Bike City Recyclery, and awesome bike co-op located just off Center St. on the trail. Here, we partnered with them to give a workshop on bike maintenance in Walker Park to nearby residents.

I interned this summer under David Lewis in Brick House Kitchen. Incredible. My most frequent task -- washing produce from the market that morning. What a treat!

Making the delicious custards on my last day. You can feast on these at BHK Kafe on Dickson St. (inside Nightbird Books).

It happened rarely this summer, sadly, but I also experimented with food at home, too! This was a delicious meal shared with good friends, concluded with the most delicious banana cake and lemon buttercream icing. Mmmm.

Andrea and I. Together, we spent over 1,000 hours planning and executing this year's Summer of Solutions program in Fayetteville. What a treat it was to work with you.

At the end of the summer, forty representatives from thirteen Summer of Solutions programs nationwide gathered in Raleigh, NC for August Gathering. We celebrated our successes and our friendships and worked through challenges that we'd faced in our local programs. What a week it was and what friendships blossomed. Love you all!

For myself, I'll be documenting this year through sketching. For folks back home, this blog will probably be the venue for some semi-regular updates. Stay tuned!

A Synopsis: February, March, April, May

So, it's been awhile, probably evidenced by how much has happened since February. Since my last post, I've been busy doing this...





Building our garden beds with 75 of Fayetteville's coolest volunteers. The garden is now in production, and we're having another workday this Sunday, hopefully followed by our very first community potluck!

and this...



Volunteering with Northwest Arkansas Community College's culinary students at Apple Seed's free family cooking class hosted at Leverett Elementary. I'll be cooking a class at Leverett on May 31 at 6:00 on how to use fresh produce on a budget. Yum!

and this...

























My concentration for AP Studio Art, which is horrendously out of order above here, but html code is frustrating and I don't feel like rearranging them. These are 12 or the 29 pieces I submit for my portfolio -- my concentration focused on the beauty of industrial structures that have aged with the elements. I'm just wishin' on that 5...

and this...






Shifting power with 10,000 youth from around the country (and world!) in Washington D.C. during Powershift 2011. The conference focused on shifting to a clean energy economy through grassroots organization on a local level (accompanied with bi-annual, ginormous conferences like this one...).

while doing this...





Hanging out with my long lost family! The first picture is of me and my sister Melissa, who just graduated (so proud of her). That second one's Claire, my most adorable second cousin that we've almost kidnapped several times. Her parents were around there somewhere...

...not to mention taking three AP Exams (in addition to submitting my portfolio), planning a Summer of Solutions program, finalizing the details of my exchange, and securing an internship at the coolest restaurant in town -- Brick House Kitchen.

So, I'm sorry that I've been avoiding writing all this down. It's nearly summer time, which means that I get excited by all the colors flowing out of Farmers' Market, and I get antsy to sing on the square and learn new instruments (I'm learning diatonic accordion now!), which means that I have more to write about and the time (heh!) to do it.

Looking forward to being here a little more regularly.

All the best,
Serena

Solutionarily: How SoS Changed My Life

Empowerment. When I first heard that word, it meant nothing to me. I was participating in a program called Summer of Solutions, or SoS, with some friends of mine. At first the idea was pretty vague -- a program for youth that simultaneously empowers them and creates on-the-ground solutions for the community. Again, that word: empower. For the first semester of planning our summer program, I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I had all these questions hovering in the back of my mind -- what is community organizing? What are the “grassroots”? And what the hell does empowerment mean, anyway?

---

I was on a conference call, late one Wednesday night. Someone had asked me a question -- what was it again? What was I talking about? It'd been a bad week and my head kept spinning.

No, that’s cool. That’s great! Some overenthusiastic fellow named Matt on the other end was encouraging me to talk more, to keep going, to move on.

---

It was August, about a week after my father left. The summer was already over and our programs were coming to a close. That week happened to be the week of August Gathering, a chance for representatives from each of the twelve Summer of Solutions programs around the nation to get together and share their successes of the summer. The guy I heard on the conference call a few days before was named Matt -- one of the leaders from the Twin Cities, and he turned out to be the kindest and most genuine guy I’d ever met. Only, he wasn’t the only one.

There were about twenty youth reps in all:

There was Gustavo from Austin with his thick facial hair dark against his summer skin, with a red bandanna tied around his neck and black western shirts and baggy jeans. Gustavo who spoke about foxes and music like he were the most eloquent speaker in the world, gesturing without thinking the whole while. On our way back towards the square from Cheap Thrills, he stopped the whole group to point out a black widow making a web in an abandoned window. What did he tell us?

There was Joe, who shares my passion for food and music and creativity. Between every session he would quietly come talk to me, grinning goofily every time. We talked about carmalizing onions in white wine and sugar and about all the recipes he made for his summer program. We wrote a song together late one night accompanied by his old guitar covered in bumper stickers that were beginning to wear away, and I harmonized with him as he sang about graduating high school and Love in the Time of Cholera.

There were others, too, and I hold them all in my heart as though I still spoke with them every day. Ruby who unveiled her pits unshaved and spoke with such authority, such grace. Timothy who must be a prophet, whose body ignited when he spoke and burned his passion into us all. Jared who sat with his eyes closed, arms crossed, doing more than listening -- he was feeling us as we spoke, knowing not thinking, rising beyond himself to a greater divinity. These people changed me.

---

We were graciously hosted by St. Pauls church, which lent us their youth programs space. I remember it being hot and stuffy with the August heat. But more than that, and despite that, there was a certain quietness to the room we met in. It was a quaint room with two pianos crammed into the corner and a hurried medleys of couches and chairs forming a circle in the center. I remember it bathed in natural light slanting in from the stained glass windows. See, and I know we had lights on, but I remember it only in that natural, transient light than illuminated us from within.

I spoke in that group as though I never had before, as if it were the first time in my life I’d told my whole truth. Every word I spoke came from some reverberant bone in my chest, and it resonated as I spoke, purring at me with satisfaction and belonging. I spoke as if I’d known these people my whole life. But then again, no. I think not knowing them is what enabled me to speak so honestly about myself and my inhibitions and my joys. Not knowing them and yet knowing them -- I didn’t know where they grew up or where they went to college or what their favorite subject was, but I knew them on the deepest and most intuitive level possible. I knew that they would listen to whatever I had to say, drink it in and let it sit within them. They would hold space and resonate and feel what I had to say. They would listen because they talk that way too -- in a passionate slurring of words that leaves you shaking, shivering with resonance and passion and glory. It really was glorious, speaking in that half-lit room; it was glorious to be in the presence of my true peers. Their love and devotion and freshness was real to me then, and I was in a dizzying swirl of passion for about a week.

It faded, though, and so I’ve naturally sought that feeling every day sense. School started and my friends drove back to their pockets of the country. And then it was hard, because I knew that such learning was possible. I knew that I could create change and be a social entrepreneur. I could be anything in that room and with those people. School became monotonous and dry and uninteresting. I would daydream about urban agriculture and in-kind donations and our farmers’ market. I realized my full potential, and I realized that my education was more than just my schooling at FHS. I became frustrated with my peers who couldn’t relate to my summer stories and didn’t want to get involved.

Anytime I’m dissatisfied with school, which seems to be happening increasingly often, I think back to a moment at August Gathering when Joe hugged me, when he put his hand behind my neck in the most infinite support, and I could breathe in for one more instant. He loved me then and I him. Not even each other but the movement; we loved supporting each other and being supported and feeling cushioned. They keep me from giving up, and they hold me. They cradle me from a distance without even knowing they do because they did that one week in one faraway August when I was scared and lonely and opened to them.

With those thoughts in mind, I feel like there was so much more out there, and it’s worth my while to hunt it down. And in reality, I have. I taught a cooking class to kids and I went to a conference for youth activists in Minnesota. I created a pseudo business called Green Food Solutions, and I drove down to Little Rock to give cooking demonstrations to an inner-city school. The thing is, I really am proud of myself. I am satisfied with who I’ve become and who I’m becoming. I feel worthwhile, and I feel strong. Somehow even with my family falling apart and hating school and missing my friends from all around the country, I was still happy. I was content, and I still am. The memories of August Gathering, the voices of my friends from SoS on biweekly conference calls, and my passion for the work we are doing -- they all keep me going.

That’s the thing about the movement -- it’s not just a hobby, and it’s not quite a job. It’s a passion, full and verbose and all-consuming. It’s made up people and trainings and gatherings and solutions, and you can’t just limit it to one of those. The movement represents the voice of youth today, but it is also very personal. It is my own. And with that ownership, I am empowered. With that ownership, I want to work with these people to find solutions -- within a failing economy, amidst corruption and disconnection, for communities and people, by youth and for youth -- for the rest of my life.


------------------------------------

Summer of Solutions has changed my life -- are you ready for it to change yours?

Want to learn more?
Learn more about Fayetteville's program: http://grandaspirations.org/fayetteville
Check out the new SoS page on OMNI's site: http://www.omnicenter.org/sos-home/
Read about our principles, values, and the Solutionary Method: http://grandaspirations.org/summer-of-solutions/philosophy
Take a look at this be-a-udiful flier by Andrea Love: http://myemail.constantcontact.com/Update-from-Summer-of-Solutions-Fayetteville.html?soid=1102918551993&aid=8sx4z9e7_EQ

Really excited? We have a new position in desperate need of filling!
Apply to be a program leader in Fayetteville: https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=explorer&chrome=true&srcid=0B3hV6INSrQDTMmEwOTA1MTMtZTIzYy00M2I1LWJlOTgtNmEzYjhkMjFmMTI1&hl=en

Don't live in Fayetteville? No problem!
Check out our programs all around the nation: http://grandaspirations.org/programs

Wondering what's happening now?
Follow us on Solutionaries: http://solutionaries.net/



If you're still not interested, that's okay! Please feel free to spread the word to anyone else who might be. Thank you so much for your time, interest, and support. Best of luck to you all!

Updates from the New Year

Hello friends!

It's certainly been awhile, and boy does it feel good to be back. I took off time for finals and the holidays, and it was just the relaxation I needed (that is, after finals). I hope you had the merriest of winter holidays, and welcome to the new year!

There are a few things I'm very, very excited to tell you:


1) I will be spending my senior year of high school in Italy.

Here are some exclamation marks to make up for the lack of them in the previous sentence: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am so excited. When I found out that I had made it in, then that I had made it to Italy I jumped, screamed, and skipped for joy (thank goodness I was home alone). I am doing the Rotary Youth Exchange program, and I've already met friends who are inbound (my friend Lisa is teaching me Italian before I go) and outbound (I have friends from the 6110 district who will be in Switzerland, Belgium, and maybe even as near as France who I'll be able to spend time with while abroad!) students alike.

The last weekend of January, all of the Rotary students in the district (including me) will be attending SCRYE in Tulsa. The acronym means nothing to me either, but it's a conference for all the southeastern United States Rotary districts. In reality, though, it's an international conference, because all of the inbound students in the region will be attending. That means they could be from anywhere in the world! It'll be a cultural conversion and one very long dance party. I'm pumped.


2) This summer, I will be one of Fayetteville's Summer of Solutions (SoS) leaders!

Right along next to me in that leadership position is my friend Andrea, who is currently in Chicago or on her way home with the rest of the Fayetteville team. They just spend this past week at a conference called January Gathering, which is second (correct me if I'm wrong here) annual training for program leaders. Fayetteville is one of sixteen other cities in the nation, many of which are organizing their first year as an SoS program! Learn more about Fayetteville's program here.

I first got involved with Summer of Solution last spring when we began planning our summer program. It's incredible to see how much our program (and myself, too!) have progressed in retrospect. At the beginning of our planning process, we knew nothing (or at least I didn't) about the green economy, what it meant to be building it, or what even the word sustainability implied. In all fairness, there are still many things in the Youth Climate Movement that I am 100% ignorant of. Or maybe not entirely, but certainly compared to my peers. Rather than learning the background of solar energy or how photons work, I now feel comfortable with myself and the problems that are teasing us from afar.

Because I am so excited for the next year but don't really know where to go from here, I was so disappointed when I realized that I started school the same week of the Midwest January Gathering in Chicago. I was so passionate about this that I pursued a different idea: attending Northwest Gathering instead. So after many (many) hours of searching for plane tickets, then a few more on the phone after those tickets fell through, I found a ticket flying to Portland this upcoming Thursday afternoon!

I haven't been to the Northwest since I was five or six, and before that since I was a baby. I was born in the San Juan islands, and I wonder how it'll feel to go back to the general area. I've heard wonderful things about Portland, and I'm so excited to meet people from the other programs. I know that it will be such a transformational experience that the hassle to get there will be entirely worth it!

If it weren't for the generosity and understanding of the national team, the patience and flexibility of my wonderful mum, and the kindness and quick problem-solving of the woman on the phone from Expedia, there's no way I could've done it. I ended up buying tickets within seven days of my departure, meaning that the tickets I had originally had my eye on jumped to over $1,000. But thanks to that wonderful, wonderful lady on the phone whose name I never did catch entirely I now have a ticket for a nearly half that price (with donations for travel from previous fundraisers on their way).

Even so, I'll still be spending a good $200 out of pocket. If you are interested in contributing to cover these travel funds, even if you can offer no more than $20, please let me know! Any financial contribution, large or small, helps program leaders from around the nation to be trained, invigorated, and empowered by their peers from other programs. Please consider donating to lessen the load on the individual -- serena.caffrey@gmail.com for more information on how to fund this trip exclusively or http://grandaspirations.org/donate to donate to the national team.

Any suggestions for what I should do in Portland?! Leave your answers in comments!


Thank you again for your time, support, and consideration. I love being back, and I'm excited to show some progress in other areas of my life (art, cooking, and more!). Stay tuned in and hopefully we'll make this more regular.

Enjoy your Saturday and have the loveliest of weeks!

All the best,
Serena

P.S. The kale in my garden is still thriving! We harvest it midday (or sometimes by flashlight when we get lazy) and saute it with garlic in olive oil. Yum!

Videos, Rotary Exchange, and a green roof to come!

Hello, hello!

I owe you an update:

1)Here's are two wonderful videos of the Youth Summit in Minneapolis last week.

In the first one, you'll see Abby speaking first (she's incredible!), I'm thrown in there, then there's Ethan, our all-inspiring coordinator.

In the second, a student-made video by my friend Taylor from the leadership team, has actual footage of the Summit and some break out sessions. Hope you enjoy, and please pass it on!

2)I am applying for the Rotary Exchange program. That means, if my interview goes well tomorrow, I will be spending my senior year of high school overseas!

It's both exciting and nerve-racking. I don't want to disconnect myself from the grassroots movement, so I want to take a new perspective: In my exchange, I hope to make connections with other leaders in climate change and youth organization. It’s empowering to solidify this movement globally, and that's what I hope to do.

10.10.10, 350.org's Global Work Party, inspired events all over the world. It's incredible! There are youth organizers everywhere! We're not alone, and they're are photos to prove it!

3) The campaign to build a green roof on the new FHS building is going really well!

The planning team had our first meeting this past Wednesday, and a second is planned for this upcoming Tuesday. Dana Smith, FHS's new Energy Corps representative, is helping facilitate the meetings, and she even got us a field trip scheduled to the roof of the public library!

(The Fayetteville Public Library was the first in Arkansas to be recognized by the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED). We also have solar panels and a green roof!)

That's all for now. Thank you always for your support!

Best of luck,
Serena

Green Schools National Conference + The Youth Summit

It's been a crazy week. Somehow I managed to only go to school one day of it.

Tuesday night I arrived back home after making a trip to the "Silver City" or Minneapolis. I was there for the First Annual Green Schools National Conference. The Conference included a segment entitled the Youth Summit, a chance for high school students from across the state and nation to come together for a pow-wow of sorts and inspire each other.

As a part of the National Leadership Team, we planned and facilitated parts of the Youth Summit. Beyond and more importantly than that, however, we became a team. After some ridiculously brief amount of time, I and the 20 or so others became friends. I felt safe with them, and we bounced off each other's ideas in a way that made us much more than we could've been individually. And it was so refreshing! It was so incredibly comforting and inspiring and awesome to know that there are others like me -- other teenagers who value facing the tremendous problems ahead of us. Not only can we face these issues together, but we do it with enthusiasm, creativity, and boldness that enlivens my spirit even after a full day's work.

This wasn't exclusive to the leadership team. Because the Youth Summit was so interactive, we got to hear from leaders all over the state and country. They, too, had incredible input and ideas and goals. I felt that we were part of something larger than ourselves and the group -- we are part of a movement of youth that can and will change the world. As Siiri said in her speech to the general conference, "Just try to stop us." Because you can't. Nothing will stop us.

Admittedly, amidst all this inspiration and hope I was also discouraged. We didn't reach everyone in the Youth Summit. The main workshop, the Waking Up Experience, requires strength and patience and empathy. It's hard to feel all of that when surrounded by over 100 other high school students, especially when you already know some of them. Given, that may not be true for everyone, but there were enough snickers and uncomfortable glances that I was upset that people couldn't take it more seriously. The problems presented in Wake Up -- the incredible social injustices, the overwhelming failures of the generations before us -- are not easy to recognize. It's overwhelming, and it'd be much easier to replace the shades of the modern world. It would be easier to continue life in slumber, but we can't do that anymore. Because we have been educated on what must change, we are now accountable to creating that change. And while that responsibility is daunting, it is also empowering: it is possible.

When my plane landed in the XNA runway, I realized that I didn't want to be here. My friends, now halfway across the country, were the only ones who could appreciate the intensity of the previous few days. I was exhausted, and my exhilaration became self-pity. Here I am in Fayetteville, AR, and I feel like I'm reinventing the movement. I know it's not true, but I feel so empty after leaving the Silver City. The action plan I created during the Summit seems meek, lonely, and foolish. How could a weekend be simultaneously so inspiring and equally disenchanting?

If you are out there, reading this, support me, and want to be an agent of change, let me know! Leave a comment, shoot me an email, give me a call, or contact me in whatever way you choose. Being a leader isn't always easy, and we all need support now and again. I could use yours now.

All the best,
Serena

Crazy exhausted after a crazy awesome weekend

Hello friends!

While I speak to you all, this post is a special shout-out to my friends from the leadership team this weekend. After planning, facilitating, and participating in the Youth Summit (more to come, ahh!), we gave a presentation to the general Green Schools National Conference. We were presenting to our elders, so we wanted to come off as both professional and passionate about the movement.

This is the initial brainstorm regarding the National Leadership Team, what we did, and how more students can be involved. Yay to Elea for working with me, and maybe she can post the final speech?


LEADERSHIP TEAM:

ask Ethan about application process/ team characteristics
speak?

-everyone needs to do it!!!!
-we ahd totoo msososo muicfuffnfufnfufnf!!!!!
-you!! come!
-application through summit website
-(Ethan?) ....National Leadership Team
-Next year you should do it, really easy to apply
-we're all leaders, you can be on the other end
-gateway to trust
-Within 24 hrs., we built a TEAM!
-Next year, you can be a part of this team (have anyone in mind? encourage them to come!)
- Introduction (green schools youth summit??)
-application process
-group success what we did
-we are all leaders
- leading to the wake up

I am delusional from a very long, very exciting weekend. (To prove this, the lights on the ground from the plane seemed to be spelling (jibberish) to me. "Fight, jest, FOF.") I have much more to say about this weekend, the team, and the cities, but for now I am headed straight for bed.

Lots of love to all you folks readin', especially my friends in Minnesota, Maryland, California, Wisconsin, New York, and Iowa. I hope you all got home safely.

Best!andbest and best of all~!!!

-Serena

P.S. And boy are those photos nice...

Operation Minnesota

Hello friends!

I am typing from my brother's macbook in my cousin's house outside of Minneapolis. I am here for the Green Schools National Youth Summit, which starts tomorrow. I'm so excited!

I arrived last night around 8:45, and I made a point to sit on the left side of the plane to see the sunset. It was glorious! I wish the earth were molded like clouds, or perhaps I wish I could see the earth in all its expansiveness. For a while the plane sat between layers of clouds, so everything around us was highlighted in the dying golden light. Magenta, golden, brilliant clouds. There was a darker cumulonimbus fit for Zeus. Amazing I can be so high up above it all; I'm sure our ancestors would think it impossible.

Later, after the sunset, I began reading the training packet for The Waking Up Experience, which will be a section of the conference on Monday. As part of the National Leadership Team, we will be facilitating Wake Up, which I'm very much looking forward to. One of its parts is about looking to future generations for support amidst the epic systematic problems that we face. I hope that our children's children will be living in a safe, sustainable, thriving world, and on that hope we may act to create change.

Right now my second cousins, Maddox and Finn, are "tickling" my brother Ben on the couch. (I quote that because they are really jumping on him and screaming.) Maddox is dressed up as Daphne from Scooby Doo for a costume party in the neighborhood, and Ben and I are going to go to dinner and a movie with Monica later. I can't stay up too late, though, because I've a busy day tomorrow.

In the morning, Monica and I are going to attend a portion of the Northland Bioneers Conference at Macalaster College. Timothy, a friend I met at August Gathering and one of the founders of Grand Aspirations (the program in which Summer of Solutions is based), will be talking about our moment of choice in this rapidly deteriorating society. I heard a speech similar to this one in August, but I want to share with Monica more of what I've been working on in the past few months. (For those of you who have just started following The Paper Year and my project, Summer of Solutions that sparked my activism and Green Food Solutions -- learn more about it here.)

It's getting a little hectic, so that's all for now. Hopefully one of the people on the team will bring a laptop and let me borrow it for more updates. Thank you all for your support and kindness. I am able to pursue this incredible opportunity because of your consideration, interest, and donations. Please come back for more updates on my project (or, to make it easier on you, just follow me on Blogger or through Google!).

Thanks always!

Best,
Serena

P.S. I brought the camera but forgot the card, so you'll have to be patient for photos. (They're worth it!)