The centerpiece of this cutting-edge experiment in electronic democracy is an online database of neighborhood-scale solutions that have proven effective in solving local problems. This database of ideas and resources will be compiled by community volunteers and paid student interns, managed by professionals, edited when necessary by an advisory board, and available throughout the year.

Easy to access, user friendly and available to all, this database will draw from as well as inform a series of live events. These will provide an ongoing feedback loop, providing publicity and recognition for successful community solutions. Each Celebrating Solutions! event will be broadcast live on local network (PBS) primetime television and on at least two radio stations, with input by fax, e-mail, telephone, and extensive newspaper coverage.

The events will be part festival, part Town Hall. Artists will join with social activists, musicians with mothers and volunteer social workers. Under a giant revival tent, to the accompaniment of music and dance, individuals and groups will brainstorm ideas, examine working solutions, and present their greatest successes. Experts will be on hand to facilitate follow-through by communities, politicians and the media. Live feeds from satellite events and outlying communities will tie the whole region together.

Celebrating Solutions! will pull ideas from a vast network of collaborators representing (among others) community organizations, nonprofits, governmental agencies, schools and churches. Volunteers will serve as the eyes and ears of the project, sending in tried and true solutions from every neighborhood.

The goal of Celebrating Solutions!
Celebrating Solutions! aims to inspire extensive public participation, initiating successful and sustainable results to help build safe and healthy neighborhoods. It will encourage participants, those who help build and use the database, television viewers and the live event audiences to participate in renewing democracy. It will provide an ideal platform to engage and empower disadvantaged and under-represented members of the community.

The Celebrating Solutions! concept will initially premiere in the San Francisco Bay Area. Subsequent initiatives, in partnership with organizations like the National Civic League, will broaden the project’s geographical scope to include other key cities throughout the nation, with multi-center live telecasts.

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