Lori met with our class at her art studio and impressed upon us the importance of art and artists in local community. She shared her plans for for murals she is preparing to paint on buildings near the corner Birch and Hastings.  Learn about Lori and her art through  artwork she has created for the cover of Volume One Magazine.

When Eric Anderson, Director, U.S. National Kubb Championship, was unable to meet with our class, Aaron and Tyler stepped in to provide a history of kubb and the Eau Claire community, and then led a workshop on playing Kubb.  With Eric, Aaron has been at the center of Wisconsin kubb since its beginning, and Tyler is an early convert and regular participant in kubb tournaments.  Both promote the power of kubb to "unite people and create peace on Earth" and have helped make Eau Claire the Kubb Capital of North America.  Learn about Aaron's kubb advocacy through the development of Kubbcaches.  (Click for Kubb Rules)

The culminating field trip stop was a visit to Lazy Monk Brewery.  Despite big preparations for the next day's May Day festivities and the upcoming Mother's Day release of a new strawberry-rhubarb radler, Theresa and Leos made time to share their story, a preview taste of that radler, and a tour of the beer hall and brewery.  It is clear from their accounts that the personal and professional care between the Franks and the Eau Claire community is mutual and multilateral; their support to and from Eau Claire enriches the entire community.  Read more about their journey on the pages of Volume One: 2011, 2015, 2017, 2020

Because the Volume One offices and facilities were closed for the Covids, we did not have to leave the classroom for our first "field trip" of the seminar. Instead, Tome came to us and shared  his observations as a long-time journalist in Eau Claire (previously with the Leader-Telegram).  Setting a historical stage with the closing of the tire plant in the 1990s, he pointed out the ensuing existential void, and then tracked the evolution of a new Eau Claire  identity since the early 2000s.  From his accounts, the importance of communication, shared forums, and the value of common experiences for a healthy community become clear.  Read Tom's work in Volume One.

Given Jeremy's extensive experience, tireless advocacy, and visionary role in enhancing and realizing Eau Claire's non-car transportation alternatives, there is no better person in Eau Claire to lead our introduction to Eau Claire's bike and pedestrian networks, public transportation systems, and city development plans.  This narrated bike tour began with the neighborhoods adjacent to campus, include the S and High Bridges, and culminated with an on-site sketch of the hopes for the Cannery District. Jeremy was reelected this past April to a third term on the Eau Claire City Council. His district includes the UW-Eau Claire campus, his alma mater. Here is an only slightly outdated biographical sketch.

Betsy's presentation highlighted the importance of good government  in vibrant communities and humane societies. Many studies of community stress the benefits of demographic diversity and of tending to the needs of people in all stations and circumstances of life.  Eau Claire County's Aging and Disability Resource Center provides services for older people and adults with accurate information, good planning and preparation, access to programs and services, and advocacy.  As opportunities for all people to live with dignity, security, independence, and prospects for meaningful qualities of life, community is strengthened.

In 1965, it was the third largest tire plant in the United States.  In 1992, the nearly 2 millions square foot tire plant with over 1300 employees closed.  Due to the persistent work of Jack, his dad and his family, Banbury Place is now home to apartments, storage units, and around 150 businesses.  Jack and Max gave us a presentation and tour of this former plant that is not only a prominent part of the Eau Claire community, it is a community in and of itself and has been an incubator of ideas and projects that spread from the Banbury location into the greater Eau Claire landscape. What could have lingered as a social disaster has contributed to new community life, hardly a surprise, then, that one of Banbury's current businesses is a rubber mixing company -- American Phoenix.

See here for a Wisconsin State Journal article on Banbury Place and the resurgence of Eau Claire. and here for a brief pictorial history  (including a picture of a Banbury mixer!).

In 2020, the Eau Claire Area School District (ECASD)  Hmong Parent Teacher Association Council was established to support Hmong students and their families, serve as a resource, and to provide a welcoming and safe place for Hmong parents to collaborate and advocate for their children's education. The ECASD Hmong PTA helps bridge the commitments, expectations, and aspirations between the Hmong- and European-heritage communities. Caitlin (via Zoom, along with Dang who was in person) shared her perspectives on community as a Hmong leader in Eau Claire. There is strong sense of community  and evolving sense of identity as young people work toward increased agency, inclusion, and authority within the greater Eau Claire community.  The prominent and highly respected role of elders within the Hmong community is consistent with the multi-generational integration found in other healthy communities.

Because the Feed My People Food Bank remains closed to non-employees, Nancy kindly came to our classroom to tell us about Eau Claire's food bank and its operations.  Feed My People serves 14 counties of Western Wisconsin through over 200 partner organizations.  Its service area is largely rural, making it a challenge to get food to where it is needed. As a non-profit (NGO), the food bank relies on the community even as the community relies on the food bank.  Thousands of people donate thousands of dollars with which the food bank procures food for redistribution, many companies and businesses in the food industry donate food for redistribution, and the food bank and its partners rely on a network of volunteers to organize and distribution food through pantries and to where it is needed.  Thus, the food bank community consists of its food-receiving guests, agency partners, program partners, volunteers, donors, and staff.  Since the average age of food pantry volunteers is around 70 years old, the food bank community is always lookin for new people to join their community.

Libby made time in her packed day to tell our class about her work since being hired as the state of Wisconsin's first library social worker in 2019.  Libby spoke to us outdoors in the Phoenix Park amphitheatre.  As a hub of information and resources, a shelter and haven, and a place of escape and free entertainment (think books, access to the web, community events and workshops), libraries are community centers. Librarians work diligently to create places where people feel welcome, safe, and cared for, where confidentiality and dignity is protected.  Thus, people go to the library for help when they have nowhere else to go.   It became clear to the City of Eau Claire that it could be more effect to have a social worker in the L.E. Phillips Memorial Library than to constantly refer people elsewhere or to have librarians attempt to help people undergoing crises associated with addiction, poverty, or mental illness.  Information for making an appointment with Libby is on the library's website.  Volume One has more about Libby and her work as Eau Claire's library social worker.

Chad met our class at the Boyd Park Bridge, from where we walked and talked our way through the East Side Hill Neighborhood observing and commenting on those neighborhood elements -- parks and playgrounds, little free libraries (for books, canned and dry goods, sleds, basketballs, even vegetables), sidewalks and alleys, porches, neighborhood events, reduced speed limits, bike friendliness, tunnels and bridges, etc. -- that support and build community.  Chad models neighborhood activism, care, and the benefits that come from being persistent for a wider good. 

We met up with Chris through Zoom. The West Central WI Regional Planning Commission (WCWRPC) serves a seven county swath from the Eau Claire County region of to the St. Croix River. Chris's presentation on the role of planning in support of community covered many issues we have been examining and affirmed many of the things we had been suspecting -- successful placemaking brings people together, puts function before form, and builds on local assets and identity.  Place is given meaning by the human experience as people look for aesthetics, social offerings, and welcomingness.  While government and planning processes are important, successful placemaking is found in diversity and interconnectedness, comes organically and from the ground up, and needs community consensus.

Andrew met our class at the community garden on Forest Street to explain its history, organization, and operation.  Having grown up on a vegetable farm, he has the background and experience to successfully direct activities on the shared garden.  As a five-term City Council member, Andrew has city-wide perspective that helps him appreciate the community garden's wide ranging benefits. It is a productive green space on the site of former houses that were removed because of their vulnerable location on the floodplain.  As a hub of activity, it is a vibrant center of sharing and learning, a supportive, low-stakes place for people who want to garden but don't yet know how.  It's success has spawned numerous other community gardens and its produce supplies the Community Table.  It is an inviting third space, where people of widely-varying backgrounds can actively contribute and work together in common cause.

Dang joined our class in person at the same time Caitlin joined via Zoom. Like Caitlin, he has grown to recognize, understand, and bridge the gaps between the Hmong and greater Eau Claire communities in service to both.  From his experiences and perspectives, it becomes clear that we can be parts of multiple communities, like the layers of an onion, with obligations to all of them.  It also appears that the outer, greater layers of community are healthiest when we can be supportive of each other in our various inner layers. Dang has been the director of UW-Eau Claire's Office of Multicultural Affairs since 2018.  Though he grew up in Wausau, he has been an active leader in the Chippewa Valley community and a student advocate since his graduation from UW-Eau Claire (Communications) in the early 2000s.

From the household band that plays music for the neighborhood elementary school kids to all the volunteers, teachers, civil servants, local businesses, artists, NGOs, elected officials, and many, many other thoughtful people, it takes a lot of individuals working collectively and selflessly to to build community.  If you value community, support them.  Be them.