Summer Campaigns and Autumn Nuts

An important role of newspapers in a community is that of public service. With Leading Voices: Iowa, I constantly keep my eyes open for projects that can benefit from a partnership with a newspaper. One such project with which I am involved is the Chrysalis Foundation’s Women’s Alliance. Often, information I come across while researching articles turns out to be useful to the project. In turn, discussions among partners has provided me with content for my bi-weekly publication. For example, at one meeting we debated what it meant to be self-sufficient and what it meant to be empowered.

Planning for the Women’s Alliance project has been underway for about a year and a half. It will provide grant money to help organizations work collaboratively to improve the lives of women and girls in the greater Des Moines area. The latest meeting of partners narrowed down lists of priorities in four areas, set benchmarks to reach, and identified strategies to use.

As I was walking from that meeting to have the latest issue of Leading Voices: Iowa printed, I passed by Principal’s offices on Seventh Street, north of High Street, in downtown. I discovered that the white oaks were full of acorns, a sign of autumn’s approach. Then I noticed a robin whose speckled breast indicated a bird new to the world just this spring past.

Over the weekend, as I was waiting for Barack Obama to stop speaking so I could interview women attending the event, I decided to take a picture of the cookie lady’s basket. Ann wanted to be included, though. She has become an emblem of what it means to be around Des Moines in a presidential campaign summer. Her cookies carry the pie chart of Sensible Priorities, a group that has field workers at nearly all, and possibly every, event  here a presidential candidate appears. The group also has a vehicle with the symbol that is driven around town.

Guest Author: M.R. Field is editor of Leading Voices: Iowa.

Sandy Renshaw is Sandy Renshaw is a self-employed communications consultant. You will also find her blogging at Purple Wren.
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