Dear Community,

As I reflect on America's 250th this year, I am reminded that each generation inherits an unfinished country. And our task is not to finish it. Our task is to steward the places, relationships, and resources that make the next generation of renewal possible.

Since 1776, when our country’s founders declared independence and established the United States as a new nation, we have been a work in progress—building, dreaming, fighting, working, and deciding together what kind of nation to be. Our progress has not been easy or linear. It is messy, ongoing work.

Looking back on 250 years of American history holds different meanings for different people. Some in our community will feel celebratory, while others will feel the tension of so much work left undone. Like many of you, I hold both.  

Our history is full of stories worth celebrating—stories of people who stood up for what they believed in, cared for the people around them, and built better lives for themselves and their children. So many have worked to expand freedom, right past wrongs, broaden opportunity, and make our nation better.  

It is also true that we have not fully reckoned with our past, we face real challenges today, and the burden of injustice continues to hold us back.

America is both.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. spoke directly to this tension in his speech, The Other America, reminding us that, “Social progress never rolls in on the wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless efforts and the persistent work of dedicated individuals.”

I see this all the time at the local level in my work at the Community Foundation of South Puget Sound. When change happens here, it is driven by dedicated people doing persistent work together.

That idea connects many of the things the Community Foundation has been working on in our community over the years.  

We were founded to steward local resources so that people across Lewis, Mason, and Thurston counties could participate in creating the future they envisioned. At our best, we are a reflection of what many people in the South Sound want and what they love about the place they call home.  

Over time, by listening to our community, we’ve learned that our purpose here is more than grants. Funding community needs and opportunities remains crucial, but we also have a role to play in helping our communities create lasting change for themselves.

In practice, this has looked like funding leadership development, hosting Community Conversations, responding to youth mental health challenges, growing our grant committees for greater participation, expanding community generosity through Give Local, and launching Project Connect.  

It has also led us to our upcoming work with Community Heart & Soul—an inclusive small town visioning process designed to bring people together in conversation around what matters most in their communities.

Each of these efforts is a step toward supporting the conditions for communities to do better work together. This is crucial, both locally and nationally as we shape America’s next 250 years.

One idea that has stayed with me from our Community Conversation with Eric Liu is that America is an argument—not in the sense of constant conflict, but as an ongoing conversation about what kind of future we want to build together. Local communities are microcosms of that argument.

Our responsibility is not to achieve agreement or win, but to stay engaged with one another long enough to work through the hard questions.

Then, it is possible to be grateful for the freedoms, opportunities, and progress that generations before us fought to secure while also recognizing the work that remains. It is possible to love a place and still want it to be better. It is possible to care deeply about your community while being frustrated by its challenges.

The people and communities around us are more complex than we often assume. The only way we learn those truths is by spending time together and by finding ways to remain in relationship.

As I reflect on this anniversary, I find myself focused on what we are leaving for the people who come after us. What relationships are we strengthening? What are we building together? What are we making possible?  

Those questions offer a simple invitation. Stay part of the work in progress. Keep giving, volunteering, discussing, participating, and showing up. Keep investing in the place you love and in the people who live there with you.

When we pass on this unfinished country, let’s leave our descendants something better as they take on the opportunity and responsibility of stewardship and future renewal.

‍Mindie Reule
President & CEO