Category Archives: Summer Showcase

Big Voices Start Small

Posted on September 20, 2011 | Leave a comment
Photograph of Rosa Parks with Dr. Martin Luthe...

Image via Wikipedia

The weather is turning cooler in the northern hemisphere which means it’s time to bring our summer of small voices series to an end.  I am so grateful to everyone who shared their story and hope you were as inspired by their stories as I was.  

If, through out this series you ever found yourself saying “I could never do that,”  today’s final guest post by Susan Johnstone is for you.

In the story we usually hear about Rosa Parks, she was an ordinary black woman in Alabama who just tapped in to a well of courage one day and turned the United States upside down by refusing to be segregated according to law.

This is something most of us feel we could never do. We’re sure we just don’t have that kind of deep courage or conviction.

Well Rosa Parks didn’t either – at least not when she started. Continue reading →

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Posted in personal mastery, Summer Showcase

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17 Years of Being My Own Boss: One Woman’s story

Posted on September 13, 2011 | 2 Comments

As we draw close to the end of the summer of small voices series (the final post will be next week) I’m excited to share one woman’s story of entrepreneurial success.

Linda Gatten Buttler is the president and owner of Butler Consulting, Inc where she has been helping organizations target grant seeking, fundraising, training and management since 1994.  She has also gone out of her way to show me the “entrepreneurial ropes”  during Low Hanging Fruit Communications first year–for which I am extremely grateful.

Welcome, Linda!

It all started with purchasing a shopping center. After eight years of capacity building, organizational developing and revamping board and staff members at a dying family service agency, we were a team prepared to conduct a successful capital campaign.

As the Executive Director, I was challenged to administer, supervise, fundraise, create, mentor, monitor, market, counsel and lead (are we having fun yet?). With a little help from our friends, we were able to position the family service agency as a well-deserved recipient of a large, anonymous gift from an “angel” (what every campaign needs, right?). This individual’s campaign donation enabled us to purchase a shopping center with monthly income from a non-profit health clinic and a pizza business (what fantastic marriages!) that insured sustainability.

This campaign turned out to be my  “swan song”, as upon its completion  a “higher power” delivered a message encouraging me  to continue serving and assisting others through my gifts–but not as a traditional non-profit employee. Continue reading →

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Beth’s Legacy

Posted on September 7, 2011 | 1 Comment

This week’s small voices story comes from Shannon M. Turner.  Shannon works for Alternate ROOTS as Manager of Programs and Services. When she’s not being an arts administrator, she also blogs, writes poetry, performs, and tells a pretty good story. Shannon enjoys her residence in the Little 5 Points community of Atlanta, GA, and along with her active membership in Alternate ROOTS since 2005, she serves on the Advisory Board for the Community Arts Network and recently joined the board of WonderRoot. She received an M.F.A. in Arts Administration and Public Dialogue from Virginia Tech in 2007.

Thanks Shannon, for sharing such a personal story with us!

Often times in life, we meet people along the way who leave a lasting impact on us. Sometimes it’s for things they do. Or don’t do. Or for the things they do to you. Sometimes it’s for the example they set.

When I was in high school, my father’s job led us to move back to a town we’d lived in before, Kingsport, TN. It was halfway through my junior year. As hard as it is to move that late in high school, you would think it would have been easier to move back to a place I’d already lived. In some ways it was. In others, it was every bit as hard.

One joyful part about it is that I got to know new people that I had not known before, somewhat in partial thanks to the large church we were serving in Kingsport 2.0.

The person I put at the top of this category was Beth Griffin. Beth was one of those ethereal creatures who was seemingly always happy. She could find the good side of anything. Continue reading →

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Posted in storytelling, Summer Showcase, Values

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In Your Face, Lucy! One Woman’s Story of Dealing with Adversity

Posted on August 30, 2011 | 2 Comments

I’m so excited my friend Darykk agreed to find time in her insane schedule to share her story as part of the summer of small voices.  I think you will agree there is nothing small about her ambition, or the impact she and women like her are making on the world.  

I guess my story is interesting in that it even surprises me. Whenever someone points out how far I’ve come and what I’ve accomplished, my response is something like, “I know! Holy crap, right?!?” I’ve fumbled through life in Charlie Brown-like fashion. If there was a mistake I could make, I probably made it. If something could go wrong, it probably did. The main difference between Charlie Brown and me though, is that when life pulls the football out of my path, I don’t feel sorry for myself. I get mad. When I’m mad, I dig in my heels, I evaluate my options, and then I figure out a way to not only kick the ball, but kick it out of the park. I guess it has worked in my favor that a lot of things make me mad. Injustice makes me mad. Lack of opportunity makes me mad. The fact that some people just never seem to catch a break makes me mad. So what did I do with all this stubborn anger? I did the most logical thing I could think of:

I went to law school. Continue reading →

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Posted in Summer Showcase

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The Circle: Moving Forward by Giving Back

Posted on August 23, 2011 | Leave a comment

Please welcome Sally Peters, the founder of Speak Art Loud and  this week’s Summer of Small Voices guest blogger.  Thanks for sharing your passion with us, Sally!

It is an honor to be included in Low Hanging Fruit’s summer series showcasing small voices. I follow Maureen on Twitter and read her blog; I have always found her work to be helpful.

Lately I have been thinking a lot about the gift economy. The gift economy is a social system where you give goods and services with no expectation of receiving anything in return, finding pride in your contribution to others rather than pride in your possessions.

My thinking about the gift economy has been inspired, in part, by the book I am currently reading, The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World by Lewis Hyde and, even more so, by the support I have recently experienced.

You see, I am in midst of establishing a non-profit organization, SpeakArtLoud
Starting anything new has its challenges. I also have a day-job, home and family obligations, and a social life – all those things that keep us busy. To be
honest, it is not always easy to come home from work and spend the evening laboring on SpeakArtLoud tasks.

But there is something that helps keep me going. Continue reading →

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