Spark! Lit a Fire
At Causeway we work everyday to inspire and equip Chattanoogans to develop smarter solutions to our city’s toughest challenges. Our workspace on Patten Parkway serves as the front door where anyone with an idea for making Chattanooga better can find support and resources to get their idea off the ground. Since we opened our doors two years ago, we have seen over 600 ideas for a better Chattanooga come through here. For every person we’ve worked with, we know there are many more we haven’t even met yet.
This past Friday, we hosted Spark! to celebrate the amazing change-makers we know and to broaden the network of people making Chattanooga great.
For those of you who didn’t make it out Friday night, let me tell you a little about Spark! At Causeway, we host monthly get-togethers that we call “Causeway Collisions.” They vary in size and purpose and vibe, but are generally intended to encourage people from different backgrounds to come together. They inspire people to get to know one another, to create “collisions” that lead to good ideas, new relationships, and a stronger network of people doing great things in our city. The program is based on the idea that good ideas don’t happen in a vacuum, but rather when a diverse group of ideas and people collide. (Check out Steven Johnson’s Ted Talk for more on the theory behind Causeway Collisions.)
Spark! was our July installment and grew out of a desire to celebrate our two-year anniversary of being the front door for civic innovation in town. However, rather than merely host a party, we wanted the event itself to be supportive of our work building a network of individuals working together to make Chattanooga great. We invited our entire network of doers (all the causes we’ve worked with over the past couple of years) to come to the celebration AND bring someone with them also doing great community work. The idea was to expand the network.
In true Causeway fashion, this party was built on grassroots connections. We knocked on a neighbor’s door, who generously let us use their rooftop as the venue, recruited our other neighbors The Bitter Alibi and Taqueria at the Plaza to do the drinks and food, had handy-causeway-fellow Jeremy build light posts and artistic-causeway-fellow Josiah create live art, brought virtually all the contents of our collective homes in to create a cozy vibe, added a friend’s Defender 110 and another friend’s Airstream as backdrops (because, why not?), got DJ Southtek and Cutlass Cult to spin, hired the gals at Cookie Cow to keep us cool with ice cream sandwiches, and hosted over 350 Chattanoogans at one of the most fun parties I’ve been to lately (IMHO).
In addition to the setting and the people, what took Spark! to the next level was the balance of fun and productivity. I’ve had countless people tell me that they not only had a great time, but also met new people they would never have otherwise met (one guy told me he gave away all his business cards that night). So, to all of you who came, here’s my challenge to you: follow up with someone you met or set up an intro meeting with Causeway if you need help maximizing your cause. Together, we’re building a movement of civic innovation, so keep that spark going.
