At this week's Round Table, Jack and Kenisha spoke with Cornell Woolridge, Program Manager of the Civic Saturday Fellowship atCitizen University (CU). Cornell got involved in politics at an early age– a campaign in 3rd grade—and has been around the political space since then. What brought him to civic work and keeps him in civic work is bringing people together and helping them discover and use the power they have together. Born in Oklahoma, and growing up in Texas, Cornell was “a double PK”—Preacher’s Kid–since both his father AND his mother were preachers. Growing up in a strong faith tradition, today his energies are organized around civic faith, which binds spiritual faith with civic engagement and blends it with belief in the power of community and the intangible connection and energy to create together. Through his work at CU, Cornell is committed to assuming good intent, focusing on finding the chords of connection between people, and helping them understand one another’s experiential realities and why those might lead them to see things differently. This is why he loves coaching people in facilitating Civic Saturdays, to which you invite people who you don’t generally speak with and ideally who may be on opposite sides of an issue and create a powerful and unifying experience through the structure and rituals that bring people together through layers of communication and connection. Cornell noted that “no one leaves a Civic Saturday worse than they came in.” Participants walk out more energized and inspired and if you leave feeling better than when you walked in, you’re more motivated and likely to take action that leads to different outcomes. In the end, it comes down to trust. For any system of government or community to succeed, you have to have trust—in yourself, in your community, and in being able to get something done together that you couldn’t otherwise do. Sign us up! Thank you for listening.
