Hello Aspire Community,

Fall is upon us. Many look to fall with a frown. The summer is over, winter is around the corner, and gardens are beginning to die – at least in the northern hemisphere where we all live. It is my favorite time of the year, though. I think about fall with a smile. There is a crispness in the air, the newness of the school year is fresh, and it is a time to harvest all that we have sown over the summer. I feel fall is the beginning of the annual earth cycle. For me, fall brings reflection and calm.

This fall I am thinking a lot about ALL On Board, and I am extremely excited about it. Last week was the launch, and it was very successful. It offers new employees of the agency the opportunity to begin making connections and developing relationships from day one of their new journey. It offers participants a space to share their stories of the road that led them to Aspire, and it gives Aspire the opportunity to embrace the newest members of the organization with open arms and hearts. All On Board paves the path towards everyone feeling like they belong and that we are all working towards the same, important mission.

The work of All On Board is so closely linked to the work of the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (DEIB) committee. We want Aspire to be an agency where caring is supreme, and where all members of our community are equally valued irrespective of their backgrounds. We want Aspire to be an agency where no one is excluded from the mission and where everyone feels a sense of belonging. Admittedly, we have a ways to go with this work, and not any one of us can do this work on our own. We need each other. We need each other’s commitment to the goals of DEIB. I am committed to this process. I wholeheartedly believe that the issues of narrow-mindedness, inequality, exclusion, and disconnectedness, whether systemic or personal/internal, are what holds us as humans back from realizing our humanity. Of course, when it bleeds into our work at Aspire, it prevents us from truly serving one another in a person-centered manner.

I urge you all to embrace the enormous value of difference, the eventual triumph of equality, the beautiful humility of inclusion, and the exquisite deliciousness of feeling like you belong. Once again, I urge you to be curious, ask questions, say what you think and believe, be creative, and, above all, not judge. We are all on board doing this together. Let’s fall forward into the journey – together.

Sincerely,
Lou