Maybe it’s the (albeit late) onset of Spring that lifts Alaska’s spirits and creative energies, but it certainly has brought several chances to celebrate the arts in Alaska – and the artists who make it. Last week Rasmuson Foundation announced its tenth cohort of Individual Artist Award recipients. If you didn’t get a chance to attend the event, you can watch a recording of it here. And trust me on this: watching Juneau film maker Patrick Race’s mini-documentary on the 2013 Distinguished Artist Teri Rofkar is a great way to spend 7 minutes today.

While more than $2.3 million has been placed directly into the hands of Alaska’s artists during the past decade, the benefits extend beyond the dollars. What we often hear from our artist grantees is that the Foundation’s work to elevate awareness of the importance of art to our state and in our communities also has great value.

Because the value of the arts can be calculated in both creative and real economic terms, Rasmuson Foundation became a partner in ArtPlace, a nationwide initiative to drive revitalization in communities with a new investment model that puts the arts at the center of economic development. Today, ArtPlace announced more than $1 million in project grants will be making their way to Alaska. The Anchorage Park Foundation (Anchorage), Perseverance Theater (Juneau), Bunnell Street Arts Center (Homer) and Sealaska Heritage Institute (Juneau) will each undertake projects to use art to activate public spaces, bring new life to rural communities and create anchors for communities through cultural institutions.

Maintaining their artistic focus on the subject of light and dark, themes of special interest to Northern dwellers, the Light Brigade, with the support of the Anchorage Park Foundation will plan, execute and document a series of site specific urban art interventions that will activate public spaces throughout the community followed by a pilot project to foster an upsurge in creative placemaking among Anchorage artists.

Perseverance Theatre will develop a summer theatre festival with the potential to reach visitors and locals with a rich mix of full productions, new play development and works in process, and training opportunities that provide authentic experiences in Juneau to encourage cultural tourism.

Bunnell Street Arts Center’s Old Town Artists Residency program will galvanize the community around Homer’s Old Town neighborhood through the creation and presentation of new work by artists in residence that activates the arts center’s space and surrounding outdoor sites including the Old Town People’s Garden Greenway.

Sealaska Heritage Institute will advance The Walter Soboleff Center, a 29,000 square foot cultural arts center in the center of downtown Juneau– in close proximity to the shops and restaurants frequented by residents, the legislature, and hundreds of thousands of tourists whose cruise ships dock at the wharf each summer. Through its design and programming the Center will establish Juneau as an important destination for authentic Alaskan Native art experiences.

This is the third round of grants made by ArtPlace. Read a summary of their 2012 Alaska grants here.

Last year, Rasmuson Foundation invested $1 million in a bold plan to boost Anchorage graduation rates through a broad community initiative spearheaded by United Way of Anchorage. In today’s guest post, Anchorage Chamber of Commerce President Andrew Halcro outlines a role for the business community in improving graduation rates in the city.

Posted by Andrew Halcro, President, Anchorage Chamber of Commerce

Andrew Halcro photo courtesy Anchorage Chamber of Commerce.

United Way of Anchorage (UWA) recently asked Anchorage Chamber of Commerce members the following question: Are you finding all the employees you require with the skills, attitudes and behaviors needed to grow your business?

The question was rhetorical. According to the latest Anchorage Economic Development Corporation (AEDC ) confidence index report, 58 percent of businesses cite the shortage of professional/technical workers, 51 percent cite the shortage of semi-skilled workers, and 50 percent cite poor job readiness of entry level workers.

Anchorage businesses are not alone in their struggle. Many teenagers are not graduating from high school ready to join local companies or go on to higher education.

Reasons students report for dropping out are varied and complicated. “I stopped going to school because I didn’t see the point.” “My best friend dropped out because he needed to support his family.” “I stopped coming because I felt like nobody cared if I showed up.” “Sarah didn’t graduate because she had to stay home and take care of her baby.” “My best friend stopped going to school, and he pressured me to do the same.”

Teens also report the inability to visualize a job or career future for themselves, and a lack of adults in their lives to positively motivate them as obstacles to graduation.

The conclusions drawn from these statistics are clear. The community needs to ensure kids start school ready and stay engaged and on track. Students need to achieve regular attendance, develop positive behaviors, and make good choices in order to graduate equipped to join the workforce or continue on to higher education.

These two problems, the lack of prepared workers and barriers to graduation, are interrelated but are within the community’s power to improve.

READ MORE

Congratulations Tis Peterman. A decade of your work has come to fruition.

My first meeting with Tis Peterman about renovating the Chief Shakes Tribal House took place in Wrangell ten years ago. I had known Tis for many years, going back to the days when she ran Wrangell’s public radio station, KSTK, and I headed Alaska Public Radio Network. According to Tis, the project was urgent; the House, which pays homage to the original Naanya.aayi clan house located at the same site in the mid-1800’s, had been built in 1940 by the Civilian Conservation Corps, working with local Native artists and laborers. The southeast Alaska rainforest climate was taking its toll on the House which was deteriorating rapidly.

I mentioned the meeting to Ed Rasmuson. Early in his banking career, Ed ran the National Bank of Alaska Wrangell branch, and was very familiar with the Chief Shakes House. He encouraged the Foundation’s involvement.

READ MORE

The Foraker Group Leadership Summit concluded yesterday. As @KathrynErnst said in her second Tweet ever, “We need stories to communicate what we stand for.” So here is the story of Day 2 as told by those where were there.

The Foraker Leadership Summit is taking place today and tomorrow in Anchorage. Given that the theme is “Telling Our Stories – As Leaders, As Organizations, and As A Sector,” it seemed logical to capture the events from Day 1 through a story. Using the social network service Storify, today’s events and learning are told by the people who were there.

This guest post is from Trevor J. Storrs, Alaska Children’s Trust Executive Director.

Trevor Storrs shows off a member of the next generation of Alaskans.

In recognition of April being National Child Abuse Prevention Month, it is important to remember that our future relies on the healthy growth and development of today’s children. As adults and community members, we are responsible for ensuring all children have a safe, stable, nurturing, and healthy environment to thrive. However, Alaska has one of the highest per capita rates of child abuse and neglect in the country. In 2011, Office of Children Services received more than 16,000 reports of harm to a child, and nearly 40 percent of those reports warranted additional assessment. Approximately 8.6 percent of Alaska’s total child population experienced some form of trauma. Approximately one out of every five Alaskan child deaths are related to child abuse or neglect; and nearly three out of four of these deaths occur in infants.

To overcome these staggering statistics, we need to empower all community members to be active participants in the lives of our children.
READ MORE

On Tuesday, April 23, Thaler Pekar will be delivering an interactive workshop in Anchorage at The Foraker Group Leadership Summit. This post originally appeared on the Stanford Social Innovation Review.

When you share a story, you will spark a story. That is the power of story: it is an emergent form of communication, possessing the ability to tap into the experiences of your listener. You can connect seemingly abstract, new information to your listener’s existing web of knowledge.

This is why I prefer to speak about story sharing, rather than storytelling. It is more than a semantic difference. Telling is old school, pedantic, and pompous. Telling is transactional; it implies a giver and a taker. When you tell someone something, you shut down true communication. Modern, effective communication is about engagement. It’s about achieving resonance. It’s about moving beyond sympathy to empathy.

You hold immense power as future professional communicators: you will not simply be telling stories to audiences; you will be helping people to share theirs. If you are selling change (and you will probably be doing a lot of that on either the nonprofit or for-profit side, selling a change in situation or in a change in status), you want to enable your audience to see possibilities, solutions, and their part in them. You can help your listeners become the hero of the story.

Read more here.

Thaler Pekar is the principal partner of Thaler Pekar & Partners. She is featured in the book Storied Careers: 40+ Story Practitioners Talk About Applied Storytelling, and is a frequent guest lecturer at the Columbia University Graduate Program in Strategic Communications.

Photo left to right: Co-Chair Joint Veterans' Caucus, Representative Steve Thompson; Rasmuson Fundation Board members Natasha von Imhof and Anthony Mallott; founder Alaska Veterans Organization for Women (AVOW), Vanessa Meade; Alaska Governor Sean Parnell; Rasmuson Foundation president Diane Kaplan and staff Jordan Marshall; and Co-Chair Joint Veterans' Caucus, Senate President Charlie Huggins. Photo taken by: Jeremiah Campbell, Alaska State House Majority Press

The mood was upbeat and jovial as camera flashes, shutter clicks, and warm accolades marked the conclusion of a very special event in the Alaska State Capitol late last month. It was standing-room only in the Speaker’s Chambers for the announcement of a newly endowed fund at The Alaska Community Foundation to support women veterans. As Senate President Charlie Huggins and Representative Steve Thompson, Co-Chairs of the Joint Veterans Caucus, gathered the assembled veterans and active military personnel together for a handshake and photos with Governor Sean Parnell, I overheard an informal exchange that underscored the importance of the event.

“A rush of memories came back to me as you spoke,” an attendee told Vanessa Meade, Operation Desert Storm military police veteran, founder of Alaska Veterans Organization for Women (AVOW), and one of the key civilian veteran honorees at the ceremony. “I completely understand the reason you started AVOW.”

AVOW was created by Meade and others who believe that women military veterans have unique perspectives and experiences relating to their military service. “Our vision is to support women veterans through advocacy, collaboration and empowerment,” Meade remarked, “to encourage connection with one another and our communities. Through acknowledging and honoring Alaska women veterans’ experiences and achievements, we support and affirm the contributions of all veterans in our country.

“Women veterans many times are invisible. Once we go back to our communities there’s a high percentage of women who are also single parents, so they go back into their communities and back into parenting. And there are some hardships that occur for women veterans. Sixty percent of women veterans have experienced some form of military sexual trauma. Military sexual trauma is defined by anything from sexual harassment to sexual assault. Also, 53 percent of homeless women veterans have experienced that. Homeless women veterans are the leading growing population in the veterans community right now.”

It troubles me to think what memories might have been the source of the comment I overheard at the conclusion of the day’s program, but I think it’s safe to say that we all owe a debt of gratitude to Meade for organizing and establishing support for women veterans in order to help curb the statistics she shared and help women veterans reach out to each other.

View photos here or view the entire 30-min ceremony by following this link to 360North’s Gavel to Gavel archive. To learn more about AVOW, check out U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski Veterans Spotlight featuring Vanessa Meade here.

The Women Veterans Fund is endowed with $500,000 from Rasmuson Foundation in honor of Mary Louise Rasmuson, former board member, 20-year U.S. Army veteran, and the fifth director of the Women’s Army Corps (WAC).

I was there, in the midst of some 400 other people. You could tell the food was prepared with care and it looked delicious: fresh garden green salad, seasoned baked salmon steaks, deep fried clam strips over rice, sliced cooked carrots, wax beans, rolls, and, for dessert, an assortment of pies: pecan, mixed fruit, banana cream, and pumpkin. The wait-staff were bustling to keep the serving dishes full so that those gathered for a noon meal would be served without delay.

Where was “there” you wonder? A buffet luncheon at Hotel Captain Cook or Dena’ina Civic and Convention Center? Neither, I was at Bean’s Café’ with several of my co-workers from Rasmuson Foundation to help serve lunch.

The Foundation encourages its staff to volunteer; it is a privilege for me to be able to go to Bean’s once a month to serve. I’ve been doing this now for eight years and on this day, 385 people moved through the serving line, non-stop, for one solid hour. It was not Thanksgiving or Christmas – it was Monday, four days ago.

I have never experienced a time when there wasn’t a slow-down of clients moving through the line to be served. Normally, there is a call for seconds, but on Monday there was no time for seconds because the last person went through the line just as lunch service ended. As much as I am so very thankful for Bean’s Café, it breaks my heart to see that the numbers of people in the line are not decreasing.

Every person there is special to me. Where else will you hear someone say, “I love you,” “God bless you,” or “thank you for being here?” If no words are spoken, very often there will be a smile to return mine. Each time I leave Bean’s Café, I am already looking forward to the next opportunity to be there.

The Arctic is increasingly featured in global media. Alaska, as the Arctic extension of the United States, is prominent in many of those stories. Keeping up with “Arctic issues” has become a major challenge – a Google search on that term currently generates 44 million hits. The explosion of global interest in all things Arctic has spurred an equally rapid growth in the number of conferences, articles, journal papers and webinar discussions. For example, just in the next few months, the following major meetings will be held to discuss the Arctic and related topics such as global energy development and Arctic science:
READ MORE