nominate a local patriot | dinner awards april 28

Nominate a Local Patriot

This entire year The Village Square will look for, talk about – and honor – people who stand up and make things happen where we live right here in Tallahassee. Nominate a local patriot you know — we’ll honor their work and if we choose your nominee, you get two tickets to dinner April 28.

Monday, March 9th 2020 | 6 to 8 PM | WFSU Public Media, 1600 Red Barber Plaza

Our Town Series: Tallahassee Town Hall

Our annual town hall pairs commissioners from the City of Tallahassee and Leon County to have a constructive (and neighborly) cross-governmental discussion about where we are, where we’re going and what the challenges ahead might be.

March 26, 2020 @ 6-7:30 pm | Local Color | The Junction

Can we transcend political ideology for our kids’ education?

If you’re a person of color in Tallahassee, your kids are more likely in schools with suboptimal educational outcomes. Yet education is just one more topic we seem unable to discuss across the partisan divide. We’ll aim for a conversation that throws off the binary choice between left and right and instead sides firmly with our next generation.

March 27, 2020 @ Noon | God Squad |
St. Thomas More Co-Cathedral

Suicide and Self-harm

Suicide rates are up 30% since the turn of the century, for girls between 7 and 17 it’s up 70%. 72,000 Americans die from the slow suicide of opiate addiction and depression rates are skyrocketing. 50% of Americans say no one knows them well. There is an epidemic quietly playing out in our hometowns — and this hometown is no exception.

April 24, 2020 @ Noon | God Squad |
Temple Israel

The God Squad
10th Birthday Blowout

It’s hard to believe but The God Squad has been a part of the Tallahassee civic landscape for an entire decade now so we’re going to throw a shindig and the remaining OG God Squadder Pastor Darrick McGhee is going to pick the topic. Even The God Squad won’t know the topic – join in to see if he can stump them.

April 28 @ 6 pm | Dinner at the square | Location TBA

Stand in the place where we live. The Story of Us.

This entire year The Village Square will look for, talk about – and honor – people who stand up and make things happen where we live right here in Tallahassee. In this final leg of our journey, we’ll be guided by Futurist and former Walt Disney Blue Sky Studio Imagineer Joe Tankersly to change our future by telling a story. The Story of Us.

May 7, 2020 @ 6-7:30 pm | Local Color | The Junction

“This is Us.” Coming to grips with our story on race. Then telling a new one.

our local color 2019-2020 community sponsor

Thanks to our Local Color sponsor Bank of America

Local Color would not have been possible this year without generous financial support from The Bank of America Foundation, which invested over $200 million annually to support pressing community needs. We thank them for making it possible that — in this time of so much separation between us — this community gathers.

DIY Village Square

Lunch Across the Aisle:
“Let Friendship Redeem the Republic”

Eat Lunch. Get Swag. “…You and I ought not to die until we have explained ourselves to each other.” — From John Adams end-of-life letters to lifelong political foe Thomas Jefferson

all year | in partnership with bridge alliance

Host or Attend a Jefferson Dinner

Early legislators came to work “in the spirit of avowed misunderstanding, without the smallest wish to agree.” Jefferson’s solution? He invited diverse lawmakers to dinner and was widely credited with saving democracy. Maybe we can too?