Leadership Gilroy … Ongoing tales of future leaders !
Leadership Gilroy … Ongoing tales of future leaders !
By
Whitney Pintello
Whitney is a local artist whose paintings can be found at local wineries and restaurants , as well as the Gilroy Garlic Festival . With her family , she has enjoyed staging comedies at Pintello Comedy Theater in Gilroy for over 11 years .
When you last joined our class , we were brand new students of leadership , having barely gotten our feet wet with a flurry of classroom instruction and a quick snapshot of local social service agencies . Just three months later , we have bonded at our weekend retreat , taken time to meet on our own , toured Gilroy ’ s history and gotten a glimpse of local government ’ s inner workings .
The most exciting thing I ’ d like to share is that we have presented our class service project to our board , and it was approved ! Students of Leadership Gilroy are trained in current schools of thought in negotiating , communication and conflict resolution , but to what end ? How can we practice what we ’ ve learned ? The group project gives us a chance to use our newfound skills with each other and in the community to launch our project . We will build this event from the ground up , covering every aspect from PR to fundraising .
At the retreat in a beautiful Los Gatos convent , we all spent hours brainstorming possible projects , negotiating and narrowing down choices , regrouping and trying to sell others on our plans , and finally choosing a plan we could all support . We were encouraged to use our new leadership skills and tactics and to stay open-minded . Our initial project ideas varied from homeless support in the form of showers , transportation and laundering facilities to neighborhood or downtown revitalization , to daycare or playground improvements . We finally settled on a bicycle drive to provide new and refurbished bikes , along with helmets and locks to the underprivileged children and adults in Gilroy . Our group is so motivated that we have already settled on a date and time and are now looking to our community to come out and make a difference by donating to this great cause !
We hope you will all join in by donating a new or used bicycle , or new locks or helmets , either at our event : Spokes for Folks ! Changing lives one spoke at a time ! We will be collecting bikes at a fun bicycle fair on Saturday August 2 nd , 2014 from 10 a . m . to 2 p . m . at the Gilroy Center for the Arts on 7 th and Monterey Streets . Stay tuned to local press and Facebook for how you can donate in the weeks leading up to the event . We are all excited to be putting our skills into action , to be reaching out to new people and places in the community ! S U M M E R 2 0 1 4 G I L R O Y T O D A Y 69