The morning kicked off on a healthy note with fresh fruit and pumpkin muffins (KCAW photo/Emily Kwong)
You know of how in sports movies, right before the big game, the coach gathers his team in the locker room and delivers a speech about how far they’ve all come? That’s kind of how Planning Day 2014 started, to the strains of The Verve’s “Bittersweet Symphony.”
“A lot of deferred maintenance, some might say,” facilitator Doug Osborne said. “Got a leaky roof. I don’t know how you’re going to make a go of it…go check out the Hames Center today. Go check out the Hames Center today!”
The crowd applauded.
Enrollment at the Sitka Health Summit was at a record high this year. 82 participants generated hundreds of ideas to improve health and wellness in the community. Their goal? To vote and commit to two ideas by the end of the day. (KCAW photo/Emily Kwong)
Doug Osborne, with the Southeast Alaska Health Consortium (SEARHC), has organized Planning Day since 2007. Projects got very little seed money back then, but that didn’t stop them from happening. The Choose Respect Mural, the Fish to Schools to Program, the Farmer’s Market – all once pies in the sky. Now concrete realities in Sitka.
“What if we dial this in and we get to where we consistently where we make big strides on two goals?” Osborne said. “What would Sitka be like in 20 years after 40 health goals have been accomplished?”
Doug Osborne explains the voting process, which is visible and public (KCAW photo/Emily Kwong)
In it’s eighth year, the Summit is bigger than ever. They hired a part time executive director, built a new website, and raised $2000 worth of seed money for each of the chosen projects. Representatives from Sitka Community Hospital and SEARHC were there, but also from the National Park Service and the Sitka School District, folks that aren’t usually in one room together.
“I was visualizing a pod of whales spinning around together and working together to get the krill to come up in that little circle for their benefit,” said Elizabeth Sutton.
Today, Sutton is leading one of the breakout groups – which are called “Conversation Cafes.” For 30 minutes, people can throw out new ideas. Some will be met with approval. And others?
“Not all the krill is gonna get eaten that day,” Sutton said. “Some the krill is meant to survive a little bit longer for other purposes. And so in that same way, I think those ideas are going to come up to the surface. The ones that are ready to be implemented in the community.”
Ideas were scribbled down on paper. The most popular ones made it to the voting wall. (KCAW photo/Emily Kwong)
Students from Sitka High and Mt. Edgecumbe were there in record numbers. Evan Ipock of Sitka High said the two rival schools found a lot of common ground at the Summit. Together they proposed a free community center with a separate space for teens.
Ipock: Couches. Free wifi. Feminine hygiene products. We want to make those readily available for free because you shouldn’t have to pay for something that’s a necessity in your life. We also want to make condoms available…
KCAW: Wait. There’s no place for condoms in Sitka?
Epock: There are places for condoms. You can get them in the counseling office at the high school. But we want to make a discrete or obvious place to get them. Because we want… We don’t people to be so embarrassed to get condoms that they don’t use them.
The Summit was held inside Harrigan Centennial Hall (KCAW photo/Emily Kwong)
Paulette Moreno stepped outside to get some fresh air. Moreno had spent all morning rallying planners around a project to revitalize Katlian street.
“Katlian is really Sitka,” Moreno said. “Many visitors and guests use it. It’s a high traffic area. But it has very narrow streets and very wobbly sidewalks and very low lighting.”
Moreno wants to make Katlian accessible for the disabled and to improve the lighting from the fuel dock to New Thompson Harbor. But there’s a deeper, symbolic value to the street — it’s cultural history within the Native community — that she would like to honor.
“Voting will start in just about a minute,” said Osborne. After a lot of brainstorming, dozens of ideas were written down and posted on a blue drop cloth at the back of Harrigan Hall, for all to see.
A free Community Center and a plan to revitalize Katlian Street swept the election this year (KCAW photo/Emily Kwong)
With the sound of a kazoo, the voting begins. Planners tag their top, second, and third choice with stickers. The teen center is covered with them.
“That’s where I walked with my sticker,” said Ed Gray. He attended the summit last year and witnessed a similar melding of the minds. “People independently have concerns about the same things and then people kind of coalesce around what’s most important.”
The sticky wall bore dozens of ideas for health and wellness (KCAW photo/Emily Kwong)
Over locally sourced fish tacos for lunch, Doug Osborne announced the winners.
Osborne: Your first 2014-2015 Health Summit Goals is – Community Center! Free![Applause] Your other official Sitka Health Summit Goal is revitalize Katlian Street![More applause]
Moreno pitched the project last year, but it didn’t earn enough votes to make the cut. Today, she is overcome with joy.
“It’s very humbling,” said Moreno. “I have tears in my eyes for the strength it will receive from our ancestors – everybody who lives here – to accomplish what it is that the goals will be set forth this afternoon.”
Now that the initiatives have been chosen, the real work begins of figuring out how to make these visions a working reality within the next 365 days.
Update: The Sitka Community Center Project will have an open organization meeting at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 11, at Harrigan Centennial Hall. The Celebrate Katlian Street: A Vibrant Community Group will have a Community Kick Off Event at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct. 28, at ANB Founders Hall.
