Convened by Susan Thompson
Table A 5 p.m.
Table A 5 p.m.
Attendees: Susan Thompson, Stephen Lambert, Angelina Gonzales
- There are many “building bridges” outreach activities going on. It would help if there was more communication between the groups who sponsor them, and also more publicity about multicultural events both before and after they take place.
- Many churches and other organizations are not big enough to plan outreach multicultural activities, but could combine forces with other groups. There needs to be a communication mechanism in place. We could start with an email list comprised of the Community Outreach Coordinator for each group. These Coordinators would communicate event information and help requests back and forth.
- There needs to be a “clearinghouse” web site that celebrates multicultural success stories (of which there are many) and also includes an up-to-date calendar that lists upcoming multicultural events and opportunities in the area. The stories should be uplifting – to counteract the negativity around religious and race conflicts in the established media.
- Services to immigrants in the community could also be listed and celebrated.
- One person can make a difference. Once a person gets involved in reaching out and seeing how it feels, they “get addicted to benevolence.” Let’s set up a communication portal that can help to both coordinate and promote what’s already going on, and can encourage additional multicultural collaboration and events.
- This web site and communication mechanism can become a model for other areas, and perhaps we can be the first to create a platform that then could be connected to multicultural portals in other towns and cities across the world.
- One additional idea that was discussed was to have multicultural dinner exchanges – where people of different backgrounds could sign up to simply share dinner together. This could be in person, or a meal could be shared virtually online – with a family in another country,for example – via web cam. N/A We did not come up with specific action items. Though, the three of us at the session are willing to help with this.
