We’re all a bit bleary-eyed in the office today. Springing back from Daylight Savings Time is always hardest on that first Monday after the weekend. Our bodies, like yours, are much smarter than the clock. They know that 7am is a big lie and that 6am is the honest truth.
Daylight Savings Time is one of those things we have in common. And across our region, we share a particular relationship to this shifting of time: it means that spring is just ahead. And for the Upper Midwest in March, spring is something we long for, fierce in our eagerness and completely without shame.
Our region: the Upper Midwest. When PFund’s founders defined the foundation’s reach as “Minnesota and the Upper Midwest,” there was no clear definition of what that meant. When you hear “the Upper Midwest,” what do you think?
This is a vast landmass, including the once-prairie-now-farmland of Iowa, the pine and oak forests of northern Minnesota and Wisconsin, the badlands of the Dakotas, and the western edge of the Great Lakes. You could define us as the headwaters of the Mississippi River watershed, but that extends much further than the upper five states. What exactly makes us a region? And why just these five states?
We’re going to be asking that question a lot over the next few years. Because if PFund is to be a foundation serving the Upper Midwest, we have to understand what the Upper Midwest means. The easiest thing we can do is make sure that we’re in community with the variety of LGBT communities and organizations found in this region. And we’ll certainly do that. But we would like to go deeper. Why does it matter to build our strength in this region? What other local issues impact our lives as LGBT people? And what does it mean to truly, truly “build communities in Minnesota and the Upper Midwest where lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are celebrated and live free from discrimination, violence, invisibility and isolation”?
We’ll be asking versions of this question wherever we go. And as PFund continues to travel across the region, learning more about LGBT lives in a variety of communities, we’ll also be asking how a foundation can support those communities to define their own visions and strategies. After all, what needs to be done today in Waterloo, Iowa isn’t the same as what wants to happen in International Falls, MN or Minot, ND, let alone in the Twin Cities.
We’re ending many of these blog postings in the same way, but each is equally true: we are excited to learn with you.
-Kate and Susan
Iowa Pride Network (IPN) leadership programs empower students to address the social conditions affecting them and strengthen students’ critical analysis of diversity, coalition building and building inclusive GSAs, schools and campuses. Ultimately, this will lead to an LGBT community of students who grow into well-placed advocates and community leaders who are part of a long term social change within the state making Iowa a better place to live and grow. However, none of this could be possible without PFund's support! Thank you for investing in our students and our work over the years--you've certainly helped us achieve a lot here in Iowa!
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