Featured, Roddenberry Fellowship
Meet A Roddenberry Fellow
Evan Weissman
June 11, 2019
Meet Evan, a 2019 Roddenberry Fellow
Evan is the founding executive director of Warm Cookies of the Revolution, a Civic Health Club that blends innovative arts and culture with crucial civic issues. Evan teaches nonviolence at The Colorado College. He was a Kellogg Foundation Leadership for Community Change Fellow with Mi Casa Resource Center for Women, as well as a board member of Rose Community Foundation’s Roots and Branches Foundation for emerging Jewish leaders.
Civic engagement has become boring and a spectator sport. Evan created Warm Cookies of the Revolution as the first Civic Health Club, by engaging residents to flex their civic muscles and work to extend civil rights and create a just community by blending necessary community issues with inventive programs. Evan engages residents to work for justice and extend civil rights by making civic life necessary and fun.
“Those of us who enjoy watching football on Sundays, who like to knit, or bake, or tell stupid jokes, or like to build robots…we all have the capacity to understand and take part in the decisions that affect our lives. However, we all have such limited time and money as we work and raise families and so after spending it on what is necessary, we spend what is leftover on what we find fun or meaningful. Further, those with the most privilege are usually the most able to show up in civic spaces to advocate for what they want and so we need to find new creative ways to meet people where they are and create beautiful and vibrant and fun, new systems. I use innovative and surprising approaches to get people who are not as likely to get involved in this push.”
During the 2019 Fellowship
In 2019, Warm Cookies of the Revolution is debuting a year-long, monthly series: “Own This City: A Live Instruction Manual”. This has grown out of the past decade of work in the community. They are using collectively owned aspects of the community as inspiration for programs that wrestle with questions about who owns what? why? and what can we do to extend the ownership? Schools, Jails, Water, Public Transportation, Parks, etc are the themes. Each program is created by multiple artists, residents, and organizations. Participants will learn about the history, struggles and successes, and current civil rights movements that they can take part in having to do with each aspect of the community.
“Justice is the goal and equity is the road to get there. City council meetings and crucial (but boring) meetings on zoning and enforcement policy should be at accessible times and locations with poetry and music embedded into the gathering (not as a distraction). The way these things are promoted to the community should have just as much excitement and design (and an assumption that people want to participate) as pro sports or shopping or concerts.”
How to get involved:
Donate: Donating to Warm Cookies of the Revolution right now will help us create materials and organize effective ways to share our approach with other communities.
Join the community: Come check out a program we have, let us know what’s worked and failed where you live, and maybe even start a Civic Health Club in your community!
Follow/Share: Support Evan and Warm Cookies of the Revolution on social media:
Facebook: @warmcookiesrevolution Instagram: @warmcookiesrevolution
Learn more about Evan and Warm Cookies of the Revolution: www.warmcookiesoftherevolution.org
