Category: Community Voices
Celebrate Your Rhubarb, Alaska
In Alaska, rhubarb is one of the crops that grows with a pretty high success rate. The yield is excellent, it is a perennial – that means it grows every year – and harvesting the stalks is absolutely satisfying.
Some folks will even pull a shaker of salt out of their pocket at this moment, cover the stalk, and chomp in to it.
Alaska Native Fund to Award $125,000
At a Gathering last week of Alaska Native leaders and funders, the Alaska Conservation Foundation in partnership with the Alaska Native Fund Steering Committee announced $125,000 would be awarded this year to Indigenous projects that protect land, water and way of life.
Alaskan Students Awarded $21,500 in Scholarships
This year, Pride foundation will award the most it ever has in scholarships to lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer (LGBTQ) and straight ally students throughout the Northwest. Six Alaskan scholars will receive a combined $21,500 from Pride Foundation’s scholarship program.
A statewide committee of volunteers worked together to review applications and interview finalists.
Federal Spending in Alaska: Running Out of Steam?
After nearly a decade of explosive growth, federal spending in Alaska has turned flat, according to a new analysis of federal spending in Alaska by Scott Goldsmith, professor of economics at ISER.
Alaska Girl Scout Prepares for the Trip of a Lifetime
Girl Scout Connor Ito has been planning her summer vacation for years now. In July, Ito is joining six other young women on a trip to Japan through the Alaska Girl Scouts.
The journey is the second part of an exchange arranged with a group of Japanese Girl Scouts who came to Alaska last summer.
A Once-in-a-Generation Renovation
The Anchorage Public Library is preparing for a once-in-a-generation renovation of the Z.J. Loussac Library, a vital and beloved Anchorage institution. The Loussac Renewal is a large, multi-year project that will be completed in multiple phases.
The first phase, a facility master plan, began in April 2012.
Aging in Alaska: Sandwich Generation
It is estimated that one in six families in the U.S. live in a multi-generational home and around 20 million individuals are part of something called the “sandwich generation”. This term refers to those who find themselves “sandwiched” between two other generations, raising their kids while caring for an older loved one.
This is not a new phenomenon; however it is becoming a growing trend with the weakened economy and baby-boomers beginning to reach retirement age.
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Photo Gallery: Unpacking the Fossils
At a recent Open House at the University of Alaska Museum of the North, Earth Science Curator Pat Druckenmiller unpacked plaster jackets full of dinosaur fossils. A large plaster crate was full of hadrosaur fossils collected on Alaska’s North Slope.
Rural Outreach from an Urban Youth Shelter
Recently, I had the fabulous opportunity to leave the road system for the first time, for a visit to Newhalen, AK on the shores of the Newhalen River and Lake Iliamna. I was representing Covenant House Alaska at the April 2012 Academic/Athletic Meet hosted by the Lake and Peninsula School District.
Alaskan Empowers Transgender Students Nation-Wide
When I first met Tonei Glavinic in 2008 he was a senior at Stellar Secondary High School in Anchorage.
Now, four years and four Pride Foundation scholarships later, he is about to graduate from American University with a double major in Political Science and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality studies with his senior capstone project poised to impact the lives of transgender students all over the country.
Journey of the Seal Stone an Archaeological Tale
A rare example of Aleutian petroglyphs has been donated to the University of Alaska Museum of the North’s archaeology collection and will be used in a variety of research projects to better understand the cultural roles of rock art in Unangam culture.
Developing Alaska’s Clean Energy Potential
Last November, Facebook made headlines when it announced plans to build a $760 million internet server farm in Lulea, Sweden. The cold climate was a factor since all those machines need to be kept cool. But access to long-term, stably priced energy from hydropower was critical. Server farms use a huge amount of energy – as much worldwide as some small countries – and knowing that its cost for energy would stay stable for the long-term played a major role in the social media giant’s decision.
In Alaska we are home to vast supplies of energy, yet we have communities that pay some of the highest energy prices in the country. In some rural villages, residents pay more than five times the national average for electricity.
Howard Weaver: Whatever Happened to Facts?
In a world where everyone seems to find their own set of facts somewhere out there on “the Internet,” how can communities find common grounds around which to organize discussion, debate, and decision-making? Weaver will explore this and other questions with participants next Wednesday.
The Alaska Community Foundation invites you to join us for a discussion about journalism in the 21st century with former ADN editor Howard Weaver.
Library Fines Amnesty Day
For the first time in more than 25 years, Anchorage Public Library will forgive fines on overdue materials if they are returned on Wednesday, April 18. You can take advantage of this amnesty by returning any overdue library items you have to any of APL’s five locations.
The amnesty event is a way of recognizing a significant gift from long-time resident and library user Alfred Hanisch, who died in December, 2010.
Field Biology, Models, and Alaska’s Caribou
A scientist named Melanie Smith recently drew up a map of a particular tract of public land in Alaska’s far north. Look closely and you’ll see villages: Nuiqsut, Wainwright, and Atqasuk. You may notice, too, that though this map covers an area the size of Maine, there are no roads that criss-cross it. The roads and pipelines of oil developments at Prudhoe Bay lie to the east, far beyond the flat horizon of the coastal plain. The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge is even farther east, more than 100 miles from here.
How to Host Your Own Dialogue to Racial Healing
This detailed infographic was developed in order to help individuals to facilitate their own dialogues using the tools developed for the Alaska Native Dialogues on Racial Equity project.
Powerful Questions to Stimulate Dialogue on Racism
A series of questions was provided to participants in the Alaska Native Dialogues on Racial Equity project to help facilitate discussions on the topic of racial inequity. They are provided here as a tool for those interested in hosting dialogues of their own.
Dialogue Agreements
The Alaska Native Dialogues on Racial Equity approach to hosting conversations is born from the value of having meaningful and sometimes difficult conversations using indigenous principles and values.
Participants in individual dialogues were asked to approach the conversation within the parameters of the agreements chosen by the hosts.
Additional Video Conversations
In addition to the inner circle conversation included in the broadcast, participants also engaged in small group discussion of a series of powerful questions.
