ASPIRE office, Ashland High School “I’ve lived in Ashland all my life. I want to go away to college,” Emma, then a rising senior at Ashland High School (AHS), told me last spring. I had recently signed up to be a mentor in the high school’s ASPIRE program, designed to support juniors and seniors as they sort out post-graduation plans. “My dream is …

In a previous post, I described my family’s mutigenerational attachment to math, travel — and mountains. I wrote about Pikes Peak in Colorado, a family favorite for more than a hundred years, which my husband Tony and I (re)visited during our stay this summer in Denver.  More striking than the panorama from the top, I later learned, were the stories that …

In the mountaineering parlance of the Western United States, a “fourteener” is a mountain peak with an elevation of at least 14,000 ft. The 96 fourteeners in the United States are all west of the Mississippi River and  Colorado has the most (53) of any single state. Last week, Tony and I—on a two-month hang-out with our grandson in Denver, …

These have been tough weeks, bracketed by searing heat (certainly here in Southern Oregon) and scathing Supreme Court decisions. It’s hard not to feel overwhelmed, even though there are so many untold stories — stories mainstream media find unprofitable — that provide occasions for hope. (I cherish the newsletter from Jessica Craven that lists and reminds us of these small …

We stand at the forefront of a consequential lawsuit, driven not only by a commitment to the environment but also by a love for the people and places that make Montana home. We are plaintiffs in Held vs Montana, the first ever constitutional climate case to go to trial. – Georgianna Fischer and Claire Viases, Environmental Health News, June 16, 2023 A …

Last week, I did a deep dive into poems that spoke to my complicated feelings about the state of our democracy. I came up with these eight and figured I’d share them. This small collection begins with Carl Sandburg’s 1970 poem, “The Long Shadow of Lincoln: A Litany,” which builds off of President Lincoln’s message to Congress in 1862 to …

Twenty-one years ago, the year after I started my nonprofit What Kids Can Do, I wrote a story for the W.K. Kellogg Foundation about the Boston Food Project, whose mission was to bring together a thoughtful and productive community of diverse youth and adults to build a sustainable food system. Since 1991, the Food Project has employed more than a 100 …