Citizens4Community (C4C) recently selected ten organizations, businesses, and individuals as the recipients of its 2024 Momentum Grants. Now in its fifth year, the program offers funding for grassroots community building initiatives aligned with the core principles of the Sisters Country Vision.
Each year, C4C dedicates a small pool of funding to help catalyze community-led actions aligned with the Sisters Country Vision. After thoughtful deliberation, we are proud to announce our 2023 Momentum Grant recipients.
Civic engagement is a C4C cornerstone. So we’ve been partnering with Sisters Country Horizons to help promote broad participation in the visioning project. …
This week, Horizons is launching a series of public meetings. We urge you to attend one or more of these events and to invite your friends and neighbors along, too. Your input will help shape what Sisters Country will look and feel like for years to come. It’s the perfect time to engage…
The Sisters Country—Our Values, Our Vision—signature quilt that many of you helped create has moved into the quilting stage. During the past couple weeks, the quilt—which features more than 180 local sentiments—was sewn together. Seeing the squares brought together, each square with its own unique feel and message, has been very rewarding and exciting. The quilt offers such a nice metaphor for community. Thank you again to everyone who inked their values and visions—and even their sketches—onto the quilt.
You helped make Citizens4Community's recent visioning and quilt-signing booths a success. Special thanks to our volunteers and to Ray’s, Sisters Library and Suttle Tea for hosting these four events. Stay tuned for updates as the Community Values & Visioning Quilt comes colorfully alive and as C4C helps present a visioning event focusing on senior issues next month (April 25).
Citizens4Community is pleased to be helping with outreach efforts for the local visioning initiative—Sisters Country Horizons. This is an exciting time for our community. And it's a great time to engage, because conversations held during the next several months will impact local planning for years to come.
A group of agencies and nonprofits, led by the City of Sisters, is embarking on a visioning and planning initiative to help determine what kind of community residents want Sisters Country to be in 5, 10 and 20 years.
The Sisters Country Horizons initiative will officially launch with a regional survey of residents in mid-March. Following several months of community outreach, visioning and planning work, a Vision Action Plan is expected to be released in late 2018 or early 2019.
On March 9, Sisters Country will begin bringing to life an interactive piece of public art that will showcase the hopes of local residents—in their own words.
The Community Values & Visioning signature quilt project invites residents to ink short- to medium- length values statements onto pre-made fabric squares. This spring, those squares will be assembled into a finished quilt, which will be unveiled during the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show (SOQS).
There's a new, easy (and free!) way to help Citizens4Community continue our nonprofit work in Sisters Country, thanks to “Community Rewards” at Ray’s Food Place.
As a Ray’s All Access Rewards member, you can designate Citizens4Community as a local nonprofit you would like to support through the "Community Rewards" program.
A new survey reports 71 percent of Americans believe important societal discussions have been silenced by political correctness; and most Americans now feel discouraged from sharing heartfelt opinions and beliefs.
“Fifty-eight percent of Americans believe the political climate today prevents them from saying things they believe,” notes Emily Ekins, author of the 2017 Free Speech and Tolerance Survey report. In some subgroups, up to 73 percent feel forced into silence, she reports.
Is “civility” a passé concept? Hopefully not now and not ever, noted C4C board members who recently led discussion during an inaugural Ford Family Foundation event.
Civility must not go out of style, they said, because new challenges will always keep coming; and civility is key to helping communities thrive while meeting those challenges.
C4C is collaborating with the Senior Alliance of Sisters to co-host the upcoming town hall: "Creating Age-Friendly Communities." The free event runs 2-4 p.m. Friday, Nov. 3, at Sisters Community Church. All are invited.
Citizens4Community seeks to build bridges—to foster communication and connections that bring a diversity of voices together—so Sisters can partner more effectively to respond to local issues. Therefore, C4C feels honored this week to be recognized for playing a role in bringing about the recent Sisters Fire Family Night—a fun and informative collaboration involving the Fire District and Sisters' Latino family community.
During last October's C4C quarterly session, Bryn Hazell, co-founder of the Center for Compassionate Living in Bend, offered Sisters residents a wonderful introduction to the tools of “Nonviolent Communication.” Our local audience learned about effective ways to speak honestly and clearly for their values and to listen to others more intently. Bryn’s talk drew much interest and encouraged thoughtful discussion, so C4C wanted to help get the word out about a rapidly approaching series Bryn will be leading—for anyone who might be interested in learning more.
FROM THE COLUMN: “I am involved with the Citizens4Civility (C4C) non-profit here in Sisters Country. For about 18 months we have been hosting quarterly Civility Project/Speak Your Peace meetings to share ideas and techniques for how we can all be more respectful with each other. We have been focusing on nine core tenets of civility.”
EXCERPTED FROM THE ARTICLE: “Citizens4Community is presenting its sixth free skill-building presentation on Thursday evening, April 20, at the Sisters Fire Hall. The evening will be a community conversation about civility, to help one another improve skills and understanding. Local volunteers who care about community, communication, and civility will facilitate the conversation. ….”
