At this week's Round Table, Jack & Madeline spoke with Michael Whidden and his 16 year old daughter Miranda Whidden, founders of American Tributaries. American Tributaries is dedicated to promoting experiential education travel within the United States for U.S. high schoolers through bridge-building itineraries. Their trips emphasize learning from and about fellow Americans in different regions and communities through on the ground face-to-face engagement. They extend to everyone – regardless of background, belief, profession or any other categorization – the four core virtues of civil civic engagement: curiosity, respect, compassion, and humility.
While they explore many different aspects of history, tradition, and culture, the most prominent theme in their trips is food because of its connective nature. Its distribution relies on interdependence between various regions, communities, and professions. The collective experience of a meal in the same physical space promotes conversation, understanding, and fellowship. The Whiddens strive to cultivate the agile intellects and emotions which future leaders will need to navigate, manage, lead, and inspire the disparate people and communities of 21st century America to be able to better understand the world simultaneously through their own viewpoint and others’.
We discussed what their experience was in putting together the inaugural trip to South Carolina last year; the bridging experiences they had on the trip, from engaging with a pro-Trump farmer in Charleston, with soldiers at an Army base in Columbia and with SC high school students in Greenville; how simply being curious projected (and invited) respect; and their concerns about the current emphasis in high school travel on overseas trips rather than domestic exploration. More broadly, we discussed how context influences how we prioritize our values and the power of applying the four core civic virtues unconditionally to build bridges and promote understanding–themes that are core to us at Next Gen. Thank you for listening!
