Dear Editor,
We’re sending out so many thanks to all our friends and neighbors across the region who turned out for the Far West Texas Community-Building Summit last weekend. Over 200 of you came to visit about new ways we can come together to create the things we want for our communities and our whole region. As we all said at the summit, this is just the beginning of our work (and fun) together.
We also want to thank those that donated space, money, and time to make the summit happen. First in line are our friends at the Permian Basin Area Foundation and the Still Water Foundation — you were our first big donors, and that support made it feel possible that this event could really happen. Thank you for your constant dedication to our region. To our anonymous donor — thank you for your generosity of spirit in addition to your financial support. We truly could not have done this if you hadn’t stepped in. To Johnny and Nathalie Parker Weisman of Hunter Industries, Ltd and KLP Construction — your substantial support allowed us to provide hospitality to our guests that we would not have been able to extend otherwise. Thank you. To Jean and Chris Cornell, in addition to coming up with the whole idea for the summit, your financial support continues to fill in big holes where needed most.
Kiowa Sibley-Cutforth and Greg Bow of Fabrica made sure our facilitators had a beautiful and comfortable place to stay and work, and Wendall and Scarlet Hirschfeld got our speaker, Doug Griffiths, from Canada to Alpine and back and fed and sheltered him while here. Thanks to all of you for extending hospitality to our guests.
To our facilitators Liz Grindstaff, Danelle Smith, Malinda Veldman, and Kendra Jones, thank you for donating all that time and wisdom to helping us figure out how to focus our energy to get done the things we want to.
To Benjamin Garcia of The Granada Theatre and Alcove Social, thank you for literally giving us the space to receive our big dose of inspiration from Doug Griffiths on Friday. And thank you for all the extra work that you and your staff put in all weekend to make sure the summit was successful. We hope the new weekend lunches at Alcove Social take off so we can add that restaurant choice to our weekends!
And to Julie Balovich at the Law Office of Julie M. Balovich PLLC, thank you for sponsoring the music from our local musicians The Swifts, Doug Moreland and Neil Trammel. We feel so lucky to have these musicians living and playing among us.
To Valynda and Judge Greg Henington of Double K Flowers and Gifts — thank you for all the many ways you think up to help in our communities, and thank you for sponsoring all the materials for our Saturday sessions. We’ll keep close track of leftovers, and we’ll be using them as we continue this work over the coming months.
Anne Calaway, you’ve been our most enthusiastic and constant supporter for years. Thank you for giving so many people copies of Doug’s book so they could be ready to hear what he had to say, for having books and staff set up at the summit, and for making sure the bookstore is keeping 13 Ways to Kill Your Community in stock so people can get a copy even faster than from ***zon.
Conley Rasor of Rasor Creative, you always manage to get it done, whatever “it” is. Thank you for sponsoring the creation of the video we’ll be using at upcoming showings to those who couldn’t make it to Doug’s talk.
To Joe and Betse Esparza of Printco, thank you for agreeing right away to help promote the event, and Joe and Stephanie for rescuing me from that tumbleweed that pinned me to the car on the way out of the shop during Friday’s wind.
To PJ and Martin Benevich at Big Bend Radio and to Marfa Public Radio, thanks very much for creating and sponsoring the public service announcements that told a lot of people about the summit. And to Jenny Hatch at Americana, thank you for sponsoring advertising with other outlets.
Thank you to The Van Horn Advocate, The Jeff Davis County Mountain-Dispatch, The Presidio International, The Big Bend Sentinel, and The Alpine Avalanche for running our news releases about the summit.
And we’re thankful to Peggy O’Brien, the local governments manager for the Rio Grande Council of Governments Marfa office, for her outreach on our behalf, and to the area libraries and businesses who let us put our posters up to help get the word out.
Historic Alpine board members Abbey Branch, Wendy Little, Carol Fairlie, Dona Ward Blevins, and Matt Walter — thank you for managing the check-in process.
Mateo Mares at Cedar Coffee Supply volunteered to make sure we had plenty of good coffee on Saturday, and then he insisted on doing it for free.
We also want to make sure people know that two other local vendors agreed to be part of the summit without assurance that the business would be good, just to support the effort — Gaby Montilva of Bread Garden Bakery in Alpine was there from the very beginning until the very end for two days, with a huge variety of her always-delicious fresh pastries, and Sam Stavinoha of The French Co Grocer in Marathon held a burger pop-up shop for our guests on Friday night.
We’ll sign off the same way that Elizabeth and Stephen Wood of Sky Island Culinary (our Saturday lunch caterers, providers of always delicious and beautiful food and service) do –
Yours in service and gratitude,
The Summit Steering Committee (Chris Cornell, Robert Halpern, Kendra Jones, Kirsten Moody, and Jeanine Southerland) and Alpine Community Projects Board (Abbey Branch, Scarlet Clouse, Kirsten Moody, and Heather Haynes Smith)
