2.5 Weeks + 1000 Miles + 4 States + Countless Encounters. Follow Cindy Gilbert, program director for the Sustainable Design program at Minneapolis College of Art and Design, as she bikes from Montana to Minneapolis to raise awareness about sustainability challenges and opportunities in the region while raising need-based scholarship money for students.
Sustainability: the ability to sustain. The capacity to endure. To maintain, regenerate, energize, restore, recoup, go on, last, make it, survive.
I know that I couldn't have even considered sustaining the planning and pedaling required to Ride the Talk without the unwavering support of my unsung heroes. But what I didn't realize is how much of my ability to endure, motivate, inspire and engage would be undeniably linked to my growing community of new supporters. Most of these folks don't know me from a hole in the ground, they may have never even heard of MCAD, or sustainable design for that matter, but somehow they want to "ride the talk" right along with me.
These people have done more than open their wallets to help the future students of MCAD's sustainable design program, they open their hearts and minds to the cause, to the potential, to the dream. Together we have created a positive feedback loop: one that energizes and inspires the other. We immediately bond and create another connection in the web of the expanding community. We need each other in an un-needy way. We help each other by sharing and caring.
These everyday heroes are unassuming and come in all sorts of shapes, sizes, ethnicities, job descriptions and vehicular choices but they are cut from the same cloth in a few defining ways: 1) they are give spontaneously, generously and unconditionally, 2) they are unflaggingly positive and 3) they're magnetic. Number three might seem a tad hokey but what I mean is that there is a sense that they drew me to find them—like they were waiting for me to show up so that they could lend me their support.
Here is an all-star lineup in order of appearance:
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