RSFIC is a private operating foundation building long-term, systemic resilience in Iowa City. We say "rizz-fick!"
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A lot of folks are looking for ways to build on the momentum of the huge anti-authoritarian rallies going on. Anger and awareness are important, and now many of us are looking for ways to turn them into systemic change.
One of my answers is to take small, achievable steps away from the car-centric infrastructure that separates us and empowers oligarchs.
We spend billions of dollars on roads, which gives us the power to drive anywhere easily. It also gives large companies the power to use massive, streamlined scale to undercut local businesses and exploit the rest of the world. The ease with which we travel gives us the power of flexibility, opportunity, and exploration, and lets us learn about other cultures and environments. It lets us do more with our time when a ten-mile trip takes fifteen minutes instead of a day. It gives us the power to strip previously inaccessible nutrients out of the ground for economic productivity, which also gives us the power to kill the land and ruin the water.
Could we all choose a specific bit of the power that easy driving gives us, and voluntarily replace it with another, better power?
We’ve done this before: by giving up the power to drive to Donnelly’s or Merge, we gained a community stage that we can use for music, gathering, and political rallies. We gained trees and a place for our kids to play - a library that’s safe for young folks to run in and out of without worrying about traffic. Now that we’ve done it, can you imagine giving up all of what the ped mall gives us, just so it was a little easier to drive to Riverside Theater?
We could scale it up. Imagine a grassy pedestrian park running down Burlington instead of tens of thousands of cars and trucks. We’d lose some of our power to drive easily, deliveries would be a hassle, emergency vehicles might respond slower - it would be a real sacrifice. But might we gain healthier children, stronger community, lower crime, cleaner water, and less dependence on oligarchs?
Tyesha Perry has accepted the position of Executive Director for RSFIC! Her role now explicitly includes developing partnerships with other organizations, managing our progress on our strategic plan, and other vital responsibilities that she has been performing as Associate Director for over a year.
As for me, I’m moving off the RSFIC payroll to become volunteer VP of the board. I’ll still be managing this newsletter, our tech stuff, bookkeeping, and helping with program development.
Congratulations Tyesha, and thank you for accepting this responsibility!
RSFIC is in its fifth year of helping neighbors get organized so we can all transition to a resilient, sustainable future together. We’ve helped folks start over 200 projects, produced 25+ short films celebrating them, created dozens of gatherings to bring people together, and shared space with over fifty other non-profit organizations literally thousands of times, saving them well over a quarter-million dollars they might have to spend on rent or fees otherwise. But these achievements are just a drop in the bucket of real systemic change, and we are focusing on how we can create more opportunities for more people to jump on board.
We’re starting to identify goals that volunteers could help us tackle, either in whole or just chipping in with a bit of elbow grease. We’re starting with things we’re already working on so we can ease into having a volunteer program. Our overall vision is an Iowa City where we’re in right relationship with nature and each other, and our mission is to help groups of neighbors get organized to carry out the transition to that future. To those ends, we’re helping people practice sharing space in our Gathering Space, which means welcoming people, helping them understand where things are and what the expectations are, and making sure they know how to leave the space in good order when their event is done. We’re also making the RSFIC back yard into a space with a bit of wildlife, which will take gardening, nurturing, cleaning, painting, signage, and creative & critical thought about what would make the space more effective. And if anyone likes organizing and interior decoration, we have unused office space that could be, you know, used office space. We let folks use the space for free, but we have several rooms that are just disorganized messes, and they want furniture arranged, artwork hung, maybe some painting done, and just some love.
TL;DR: We need help with all this. If any of these goals seem like worthwhile uses of your time, please come to one of our volunteer orientations! The next one is April 8th at 4 PM.
One event I really have my eye on is ReMatriating Urban Spaces: Indigenous-Led Resilience Hubs and Land Liberation. The technologies and practices for living in right relationship with the earth do not need to be invented new - they have existed for millenia. Let’s make sure to remember what some cultures already know about the subject.
You can also check out a few other events we happen to know about on this events page.
The whole car thing drives me nuts because we foot the bill for streamlining our own demise. Michal points out that in every movie with a beautiful urban scene, the streets are full of people at a cafe, in a park, playing soccer. Nobody likes a busy street. Paris has closed over 500 streets to cars and opened them to people. It’s like, kind of obvious. Would you let cars on the pedmall!?
But what I love about it is how easy it is to change. We just stopped driving on that one block of N. Linn St, painted the road, and put some picnic tables in, and it’s flourished since then. The community benefits are obvious, but it also costs Amazon a little more to deliver there, and the people there are a little less hooked on their phones, and authoritarians have a little less power.
Peace
Riley
Co-founder of RSFIC
RSFIC is a private operating foundation building long-term, systemic resilience in Iowa City. We say "rizz-fick!"
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