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Winds of Change Newsletter, September 2006 See sidebar for table of contents Welcome to OVECs Newest Organizer Please join OVEC in heartily welcoming our newest organizer, Patricia Feeney. Tricia will focus her efforts in Mingo County. Many of you already know and love her, because she was working with us for months prior to joining OVEC on staff. She organized the Appalachian Coalfield Delegation to the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (see above). Tricia graduated with a degree in biology from Berea College in May of 2005. As a student, she organized locally on campus and nationally with the Student Environmental Action Coalition to raise awareness of mountaintop removal.
In 2005, Tricia won one of only five Compton Fellowships awarded to college graduates nationwide. Her Compton grant work focused on supporting grassroots organizing efforts in communities where the drinking water apparently has been contaminated by coal sludge thats how her path intersected with OVEC. If you havent met Tricia in person yet, some excerpts from her report for the Compton Fellowship serve as an excellent introduction: This year for me was about learning how to live my ideals these principles that I have been reading about and talking about for the past five years. What does it mean to work for social justice, to build power at the grassroots? I can say that it means constantly checking ourselves and each other.... Truly believing in people, in community, means that no one person has the answer, least of all, the outsider, the academic, or the expert. Everyone is needed. We bring people together to share ownership of their collective self-determination. the real answer to the injustices here and in any community is that we fight. Relentlessly. We fight the status quo that tells us we have no power to change the world around us. We fight the rumors and deep cultural divides that threaten to tear us apart and keep us isolated from one another. We build the base. Every day. Talk to one person, and then another person, and then another. ...I am grateful for this role and proud to be a community organizer. Welcome Tricia!
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