Just six months ago, we launched Summer of Solutions Oakland…  

Our impact was powerful.  Nearly 40 young people worked full time on community projects for 8 weeks. We helped Solar Mosaic launch Oakland’s first community-funded solar project!  We laid groundwork for a community urban farm in West Oakland. We started filming a documentary.  And we organized, designed curriculum, and operated a transformational summer camp for over 40 youth from Fruitvale!

And through it all, our participants built skills as community organizers, activists, entrepreneurs, artists, and visionaries.

Oakland Solutionaries attended the Summer of Solutions National Gathering in Raleigh, NC.  August 2011.

Our biggest lesson..  

We went back to our home communities (or back to work in Oakland) with a new sense of who we are as powerful youth leaders, and what it’s going to take to create the change we want to see in the world.  We certainly had our challenges this summer.  We learned a lot about ourselves and community work.  Our biggest lesson — do it with love, or don’t do it at all.  

No matter what you are doing to change your corner of the universe (or your city block), bring your love, your creativity, and your passion.  That’s what really transforms the world.

Summer of Solutions Oakland is about creating new possibilities, and doing it with LOVE.  We are about YOUTH POWER.  Social entrepreneurship.  New green jobs. Social justice.  And shifting the economy to work that creates a better world. We believe giving youth the opportunity to work together, inspire each other, and grow as leaders is WHERE IT’S AT!  Don’t you agree?

Support youth moving Oakland forward! 

Give this holiday season to support youth leaders of Summer of Solutions 2012!  When you donate before January 3rd, 2012, you entire contribution goes to support the next wave of young solutionaries to build SoS Oakland 2012!

Summer of Solutions Oakland is fiscally sponsored by Grand Aspirations, a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation. All donations are tax-deductible.

Do you LOVE Oakland?
Are you a passionate, creative, bold young person?
Are you ready to get to work creating opportunities for youth in Oakland?

We are building a rockstar team of young organizers who will make it happen!

APPLY NOW! Program Leader applications accepted on a rolling basis until 11:59pm EST, Dec 31st, 2011.

(Applications for full-time and part-time Summer fellowships COMING SOON.)

Thank you!!! 

A big THANK YOU to all our supporters and funders who made last summer a huge a success! We are so grateful for your generosity and support.

Happy holidays! 

Mary Shindler & Ethan Buckner
Co-founders, Summer of Solutions Oakland

Click the image below and sign up to be a daily voter.

The Summer of Solutions Oakland 2012 is now accepting applications for our program leader team. We are building a team of  passionate, diverse, and driven young leaders to organize our second summer program in Fruitvale. Applications are rolling until January 15th, so apply today!

You can fill out the application below, or fill out the form by clicking this link: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?hl=en_US&formkey=dFl0WHhMYy1vZWtOMGFLaVFoRERkNUE6MQ#gid=0

By Travis Lyons:

I came to Summer of Solutions Oakland specifically because of the “Transformative Media and Storytelling” track. As a writer and lifelong lover of good stories, I knew I had to apply as soon as I read that line on their website. I don’t get nearly the same level of inspiration, knowledge or even education from facts and statistics as I do from a well-constructed human narrative, and the more involved I become in the organizing game, the more I begin to suspect this is true for many people.

It’s easy to tell people how many parts per million of CO2 there are in the atmosphere, or how our changing climate affects food and water systems, or the injustices inherent in our capitalist system, and to expect them to take everything from there simply because they know the facts now. But the human brain is as emotional as it is intellectual, if not more so, and facts on their own usually aren’t enough to light a fire in the heart that moves a person to action. Charlie Chaplin could have made a documentary about why the US should get into World War II—instead he made a comedy called The Great Dictator, which drew people in with the promise of laughter and left them with an unexpectedly heartbreaking picture of life in Nazi Germany. And that was important not because it drove the point home to people who already understood, but because it spoke to people who until that point hadn’t even thought to wonder.

In large part, I feel the modern climate justice movement lacks that focus on storytelling, and that’s something I’m trying to bring with me into SoS Oakland (and into these weekly blogs). The best thing (in my opinion) that anyone ever said about the power of storytelling was G.K. Chesterton’s line that “Fairy tales are more than true; not because they tell us that dragons exist, but because they tell us that dragons can be beaten.” (Those may not be the exact words; I’m quoting from memory.) So this week I’d like to share a fairy tale of my own, which I wrote to share with children at SoS’s summer camp but which expresses my feelings on our movement and where it needs to go better than an essay ever could. I hope you enjoy it.

***

Once upon a time, a kingdom was menaced by a great and terrible dragon.

I say it was menaced, but that’s not precisely true—for a menace is an intruder, uninvited and unwelcome, and the people allowed this dragon to live among them. A long time ago, you see, the dragon had come to the people of that land and offered them a deal: if they allowed it to live in the mountains above them and promised never to cause it harm—to leave it alone in its lair and let it do as it would—the dragon would grant them ancient knowledge that would lead them to greater prosperity than they had ever imagined.

The people accepted the deal, having never dealt with a dragon before and not understanding their cunning. And so, with the dragon’s secrets to guide them, the kingdom flourished as never before—their crops increased yields tenfold, their tools and weapons advanced by leaps and bounds, and their knowledge of the world rapidly became unparalleled. For a while it was a happy time, as well it should have been.

And yet there came a day when smoke rose on the mountain, and in a storm of fire and venom the dragon streaked down into the countryside. It devoured cattle, burned fields, and ruined entire families to take what it wished, and when it was done it returned to its lair with nary a word.

The people sent an emissary to the dragon’s lair to argue that this had not been part of the deal, but it merely laughed. It pointed out that only a few fields had been laid to waste; only some cows had been taken; and as to the starving families, it had only taken from the very poorest, who had contributed the least to the kingdom’s coffers. Were those things such a very a high price to pay for the gifts it had given? Of course, the dragon said, the people were always welcome to go back on their agreement, in which case it would merely take back all of its secrets and wait for their attack.

The emissary took this news back to the people, who reluctantly admitted that though cruel, the dragon’s arguments were logical. The kingdom at large was still more prosperous than ever, and as long as the dragon’s attacks remained infrequent, it seemed absurd to give up their bounty. And so after a long council they sent the dragon their answer, and an apology.

So it went for many years. The kingdom prospered, the treasury filled up and the fields bloomed, and if every so often the dragon ravaged the outskirts most turned a blind eye. After each attack some of those who suffered would raise their voices at the council, where their voices were drowned out by the majority. Each new generation was raised with the knowledge of their forebears’ bargain, and given the dragon’s ultimatum: either live with the attacks and continue to prosper, or fight back and be left on their own once again. And as more and more were raised without knowledge of life without the dragon’s secrets, fewer and fewer were willing to risk the change.

Time wore on, as it does, and eventually there came a generation that tried to rise against the dragon’s rule. They took up weapons, and girded on armor, and went into the mountains to issue their challenge. But both weapons and armor had been forged using knowledge that came from the dragon, and no sooner had the attack begun than was it finished, for the fruits of a dragon’s labor are useless against their creator. The dragon easily dispatched the would-be attackers and returned to speak to the people of the kingdom.

The people quailed at the very thought of losing their prosperity and fell over themselves to apologize and beg the dragon not to punish them. The dragon, cunning as always, accepted their apology, but from then on its ravages came more frequently and lasted longer. And the people, so glad to be able to maintain their lifestyles, tried to ignore it.

And so more years passed, and more generations were born and died. There came times when others sought to cast off the dragon’s shackles, but their strategies inevitably failed. Some tried to kill the dragon with weapons of their own devising, untainted by the dragon’s knowledge, but they too were repelled: for to seek something’s death is to fear and hate it, and more than anything else dragons feed on fear and hate. Others attempted to reason with it, to plead for their neighbors’ land, and the dragon, chuckling to itself, would humor them—making a small concession here, altering its flight path there, so that it seemed to be changing its ways without ever really doing so.

On it went, for generations. Crops burned; livestock starved and died; families lost their livelihoods and fled or starved to death; the rivers filled up with poison where the dragon drank. The people watched as it preyed upon them more and more openly, leaving them just enough to dread a life without it. The dragon grew fat on their crops and on their terror, and the people clung to what it had given them in an effort to forget.

And then one day the dragon came to its doorstep to find a small group assembled there, waiting peacefully with their arms around one another. The dragon laughed, preparing for another ineffectual attempt, and asked them if they had come to fight or to plead.

“Neither,” they said. “We’ve come to say goodbye.”

The dragon cocked an eyebrow and asked them what they meant.

“We’re leaving,” the people said, “or you are. However you choose to see it. But we’ve decided we don’t want you anymore.”

“Oh? And how are you planning on making me leave?” it smirked.

The people looked at one another and shrugged. “We’re not. You’ll stay where you are, and we’ll stay where we are. But your bargain’s not worth it anymore.”

“And how will you keep up your precious little lives without me? For if I take back the knowledge I granted you, you’ll be lost.”

“It will be hard,” they said, “and we have no illusions about that. But we’ve come to realize that what you gave us wasn’t yours to give—knowledge is knowledge, and we’re resourceful enough to figure things out for ourselves. But even if we couldn’t, the lives we’re used to aren’t worth the price. We’d rather search for ones we can afford.”

“So what will you do? Kill me?” it asked, sneering.

“No,” they said, “because to seek your death is to become dragons ourselves. If we kill you today, tomorrow we’ll be killing each other.”

The dragon laughed again. “And will you keep me away by standing there hugging each other? I can crunch your bones just as easily while you throw your love at me as when you fling arrows.”

“No,” they said again, “we know you’ll come again. We know you’ll steal, and burn, and kill more than ever. But we’ll stand against you. Every time you attack us, we won’t run inside. We won’t bar our doors, or hide in our cellars, or turn our neighbors away. We’ll be there, where you can see us, to show that we’re not afraid. And even that won’t stop you. But the harder you try to stop us—the more you crack down, the more of us you kidnap, or burn, or kill—the less precious those lives of luxury you’ve given people will seem. And before you know it, they’ll realize they don’t need to be paralyzed by their fear.

“And what will you do when everywhere you go, you meet people who aren’t afraid anymore?”

For once in its long, long life, the dragon didn’t know. And when the people left it retreated into its cave, deep in thought. For the first time in its memory, it felt uneasy.

The people, for their part, didn’t know if their plan would work—they didn’t know if they had the power or the strength to succeed. All they knew was that they would rather try, and fail, than live in ignorance any longer. And when they went to bed that night they slept well, and their dreams were filled with visions of another future.

You are cordially invited to a sunset sailing adventure and dinner benefiting the Summer of Solutions Oakland. 

Dear Supporters and Allies of Summer of Solutions Oakland,

• Successfully accepted a diverse group of 42 fellows (well, they accepted us) from over 100 applications
• Created an internship program for about 10 high school students
• Designed and ran a new 12 day training combining visionary leadership, personal growth, and community organizing skills
• Built community partnerships with the Peralta Hacienda, Solar Mosaic,Generation Waking Up, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Green For All, and others.
• And now successfully raised $10k to support our fellows!

• Design curriculum for and operate a social justice and peer leadership summer camp for 40 kids from Fruitvale
• Build an urban farm hub in West Oakland
• Create a creative documentary of our Solutionary story
• Bring the first community-funded solar project to Oakland
• Design an energy efficiency venture to provide comprehensive energy audits to low-income families