Each night of the Village Building Convergence was a different evening event for people to come and eat and discuss relevant issues in relation to the work of placemaking.

This year, the discussion revolved around the theme of resiliency and inclusion and to really delve into more difficult topics of land acknowledgements and white supremacy culture in order to continue City Repair’s goal of placemaking instead of placetaking.

The first night at the central venue was themed Intersectionality and Belonging with speakers discussing how to understand positionality in interactions with class, race, history, culture, education, etc… and how to engage with other people’s differences.

The second night at Central Venue we heard from Marie Knight (Warm Springs) and Fish Martinez as they spoke about the original placemakers – the Indigenous 1st peoples of this land and how to go about this work and living on this land as a guest.

The final day of programming at CV we heard from Native activist Shilo George and acclaimed permaculturist and witch, Starhawk both about how to grow together and lift the world up through diversity, respect, acceptance, inclusion, and learning. To finish out the night, Blaque Butterfly (black woman music group) played a set for us.

I spent a lot of my time setting up the central venue and was proud of how the space looked for the events. I even put up my art piece above the food window! Each night I cut flowers, arranged the kids corner, set up lights and plants and got the T-Horse ready! and sometimes served tea or orchestrated youth activities.