NEAHTAWANTA CENTER
Mission Statement

The Neahtawanta Center is a place of gathering and a community of kindred spirits, created to serve people and institutions interested in working toward a sustainable and just society. As a place of gathering, we provide an environment in which people can enjoy, seek wholeness and uncover their own spirituality. As a community, we seek the common good in all we do and believe that the earth and all living beings which inhabit it are fundamentally good.

We believe that the earth can be transformed from a place where excessive suffering is allowed to exist, to a place where harmony, peace and balance is accessible to all. We are committed to bringing about this transformation through partnership with those in our broader community, with a focus on communication, hospitality, education and service.

We dedicate ourselves to living a life of congruence and caring so that we might serve as a model to all those whose lives we touch.

Archive of old web site

Our yearly fund raising letter -- December 1, 2008

Just when we were collectively reaching the end of our rope, a new wave of possibility has spread across our country and the world. We are ecstatic to be able to write an upbeat, positive fundraising letter for a change! Of course, there are many critical problems facing our communities, country and the world. Nevertheless, we are optimistic that the solutions are within our reach.

Thank you so much for your interest, involvement and support of our work at the Neahtawanta Center. If you haven't made a donation to the Center in the past, please consider making one this year. Local, grassroots support is the engine that drives the Center. Your support truly does make a difference. It is more important than ever for us to pull together now that we have an administration that shares our values.

Our focus at the Center remains helping to build a strong, sustainable local community and networking with other communities who are promoting peace, sustainable lifeways and finding common ground.

Current Projects

Great Lakes Bioneers Conference

The Neahtawanta Center has co-sponsored the Great Lakes Bioneers Conference for the past six years in Traverse City along with our sister organization, SEEDS. This year more than 1,000 people were in attendance, including 300 elementary school children who came for a workshop/concert and over 100 high school and college students. Highlights included workshops on renewable energy, green building, activism, and more. One of the most valuable outcomes of the conference is the connections that are made, the cross-pollination of ideas and the creation of collaborative projects.

Media

From the very beginning of the Center, in 1987, we have recognized how important it is to create ways to communicate and share information. We call this area of our work "media", a word that has taken on new and complicated meanings these days. It is the plural of medium: an agency by which something is accomplished, conveyed, or transferred; a means of mass communication, as newspapers, magazines or television. The American Heritage Dictionary, where this definition came from, will, no doubt, need a revision in the next addition to reflect the ever-changing media landscape. We are working to stay media-savy here at the Center in the following ways:

Pre-Conference

In 1992 the Neahtawanta Center held the conference, Communication, Media and Democracy, at Northwestern Michigan College (NMC). This was the catalyst that started public access cable in the Traverse City area. Fast forward to 2008, the Center hosted a half-day pre-conference, Community Media, on the campus of NMC on the Thursday before the Bioneers Conference. It covered topics such as free speech, public access, media technologies and policies, and helping organizations to frame a communication strategy. We brought in Lauren-Glenn Davitian, Executive Director of CCTV's Center for Media and Democracy in Burlington, Vermont, as a keynote speaker who had been a presenter at the 1992 conference. This conference is particularly timely to the Traverse City area as tctv2 has been reorganized as Up North 2 as part of the Northwest Michigan Community Media Center, housed at LIAA, a local non-profit organization.

Video Programs

Bob Russell has produced several programs that have been aired on Up North 2. The Center is interested in continuing to sponsor programs of interest to the community. A future program series on relocalization is in the planning stages. Many of the programs produced for Up North 2 are made available on the Internet, hosted on our web server. The Center also produces our own short news video clips on local topics of interest shown only on our web site.

Internet Server

We have maintained an Internet server for the Center's needs since early 2003. We upgraded to a new server in October with the help of the Pierce Family Foundation. We continue to provide Internet services to local nonprofit organizations that we collaborate with.

Collaboration with Other Groups

The Center has played an important role in the community through collaboration with other groups.

Traverse Area Progressives:

For the past several years, the Center has drawn together representatives of area organizations, as well as interested individuals, into a loose-knit coalition which we call the Traverse Area Progressives. In 2008, we met quarterly to explore ways to work together more effectively and to share the news about plans, event, and projects of each group (see the online calendar -- www.traverseareaprogressives.org). At our most recent meeting, we decided to continue to meet more frequently to facilitate better collaboration.

Peace work:

The Center continues to collaborate with local area peace groups, especially Mideast Just Peace, to educate and organize around peace issues. Each year, we sponsor the Hiroshima Candlefloat on the Boardman River. The gathering begins with a circle in which we share our hopes and thoughts about peace, followed by the creation and launching of the little candlefloats; participants walk along the river in silence as the candles float down the river. This simple ritual, which we have done for more than 20 years, symbolizes our commitment to peace and honors the victims of all wars.

On the national and international level, with a new administration, we will be joining with others to call for: ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, closing Guantanamo Bay Prison, closing the School of the Americas, reducing the military budget, and replacing the use of force with diplomacy.

SEEDS, Earthwork Music Collective and ISLAND (Institute for Sustainable Living, Art and Natural Design):

The Center continues to work with these new organizations by collaborating on projects, helping to spread their news and supporting their work in whatever ways we can. We are thrilled at the emergence of younger activists becoming a force in our community.

We look forward to continuing to work with the Michigan Land Use Institute on the 350 Campaign to reduce CO2 and on local food and farming initiatives.

We are at a turning point, just in the nick of time. There is an excitement and also an urgency in continuing to put forth our best efforts. It's up to us. All of us.

We welcome your input, energy, financial contributions, and moral support as we move forward to address the issues that will define the world for future generations.

When faced with a radical crisis, when the old way of being in the world, of interacting with each other and with the realm of nature doesn't work anymore, when survival is threatened by seemingly insurmountable problems, an individual life-form -- or species -- will either die or become extinct or rise above the limitations of its condition through an evolutionary leap.
-- Eckhart Tolle

It's time to leap!

Peace,
-- Sally Van Vleck & Bob Russell

Neahtawanta Center • 1308 Neahtawanta Road • Traverse City, MI 49686 • (231) 223-7315 • center(at)nrec.org