back in my college days here at Illinois
Wesleyan University go Titans I became a
tour guide and becoming a tour guide was
a huge break me because it meant
becoming comfortable speaking in front
of groups of people like this and that
was scary at first but eventually I got
used to it the real breakthrough I’m
here to talk about today though is the
way in which I found a home a sense of
community and really a sense of self
here in bloomington-normal and my
friends make fun of me for this right we
are here in Bloomington in Illinois one
of the flyover States it’s very flat
around here kind of boring we certainly
don’t have any purple mountain Majesties
we don’t really have any lakes nearby no
beautiful blue clear water beaches and
we don’t have water features of any kind
to speak of
we don’t have a beautiful reflecting
pond for our skylines the way that many
many cities do and I would argue that we
actually do have skylines both
Bloomington and normal my friends make
fun of me for that too but they
certainly aren’t among the most
beautiful skylines in the world and
we’re not even in the suburbs you can’t
even see one of the most beautiful
skylines in the world from Bloomington
or normal right so what the heck do we
even have beautiful swamps to look at
here in bloomington-normal we do have a
beautiful blue sky and obviously I’m
exaggerating a little bit physical
beauty is not all that there is in terms
of making a community great there’s so
much more and I’m not the only one who
loves living here in bloomington-normal
the dog and the doorway there that’s
Piper Piper Gorman
she loves living here too and there are
so many others this is my home base in
Bloomington and that’s exactly how I
think of it right because all of those
photos that I took before all these
photos by the way are from my Instagram
I was too lazy to get photo licensing
rights this makes it a lot easier just
using my own photos so this is my
home base and all of the photos that you
saw before are actually from places that
I’ve been fortunate travel to and I
travel to every single one of those
places in a single summer and the reason
I’m able to do that is precisely because
I live here in Bloomington if I lived in
a more expensive city cost of living
would be too high I wouldn’t be able to
travel as much as I get to if I lived in
a place like Bermuda or in the mountains
of Colorado I don’t think I’d get to
travel and I’d be stuck in that one
place and with all the bad things of
that one place I wouldn’t necessarily be
able to travel and really I enjoy being
here in bloomington-normal and it is
beautiful this is my street it’s Clinton
Boulevard and there’s humongous old
trees there’s character in my
neighborhood I’m walking distance from
green top grocery you guys if you were
here earlier heard about that but I’m
also walking distance from Illinois
Wesleyan University from downtown
Bloomington from Illinois State
University where I work now and from
uptown normal location location location
I live in the white place historic
district and I love it there there’s so
much history there but really I’ve been
enchanted with the history all around
here in Bloomington Normal when you have
a sense of history you can really become
invested in a place did you know for
example that Abraham Lincoln practiced
law for much of his career here in
Bloomington did you know that Jesse fell
the founder of ISU and normal one of the
people instrumental in founding Illinois
Wesleyan was actually the person who
told Abraham he should run for president
so when you think about these figures
like Abraham Lincoln who in our minds
have been elevated to a god-like status
you realized they were one day many
years ago just walking around on the
streets of Bloomington like you or I it
helps me at least realize that I can
make a difference
speaking of differences you’re not going
to find many in the suburbs they are
created in terms of economies of scale
to create a utopia of convenience but I
think that they’ve failed in many ways
instead what we have is a dystopia where
you have to drive everywhere here’s a
suburban scenario for you you wake up in
the morning you get into your car
through you’re attached garage
I wouldn’t want to have to go outside
and interact with anyone or see anyone
you drive the average American commute
of 25 minutes to and from work you’re
driving a gun by yourself it really
minimizes human or an interaction
obviously this is bad for the
environment but did you know that the
commute the car commute is the second
most dreaded daily tasks for Americans
did you know that if you can cut an hour
out of your commute sorry if you add an
hour to your commute you literally have
to make $40,000 a year more to be as
happy so instead of thinking about the
suburbs let’s think about instead a
denser community like our core here in
bloomington-normal between uptown Normal
and downtown Bloomington this is Michael
Gorman
he spoke earlier as well big thanks to
him for helping out with the lights and
sound today and he’s KO’ing Piper Gorman
here you might see some interesting
things while you’re commuting to work if
you bike or walk but the key is you know
to have resources like the Constitution
trail in a community so that you can
walk and bike and to have a dense enough
community that that’s possible
besides being healthier to do something
like this for your commute instead of
sitting in a car it’s also I think a
great way to meet people you might walk
by and see some familiar faces too I
might walk to Illinois Wesleyan back
when I worked here every single day I
would pass the Illinois Wesleyan Peace
Garden and the Peace Garden is just one
of many community gardens in this
community there’s even a refuge food
forest which will be an entire forest of
trees growing vegetables and fruits and
that will be available in normal soon
but the community gardens are fantastic
because they create a shared sense of
ownership among people among community
members when you walk by as I did every
day you feel like you should pick up
some trash because it’s part it’s it’s
yours it’s part of the community and to
be honest I often would grab a grape
tomato or two as a snack as well I might
walk to Illinois Wesleyan and then of
course I’d arrive here and it’s no
secret I think Illinois Wesleyan is an
amazingly beautiful campus but there’s
so much going on here too
I’ll always remember one single week
where we had three incredible speakers
come to our campus a few of them spoke
here in the Hanson Student Center the
first speaker that week was David
who’s on NPR and PBS weekly he’s also
written for The New York Times pretty
frequently the second speaker that week
was Arun Gandhi maybe the last name
sounds familiar to you he’s the grandson
of Mohandas Gandhi and actually
continues his grandpa’s work for world
peace and the final speaker that week
was prince georg von habsburg i got to
meet all three of these individuals I
was honestly the most nervous to meet
Prince Georg von Habsburg because I had
to refer to him as your Royal Highness
and that was a unique experience for me
for sure I actually got to give him a
tour around our campus so there’s a lot
going on here at Illinois Wesleyan
campus and luckily for me now that I
don’t work here anymore a lot of it is
free and open to the community thank you
to all the community members who are
here today now I work from the campus of
Illinois State University I work for W
GL t which is Bloomington Normal Public
Media the NPR station that stands for
National Public Radio here and we’re so
fortunate to have a news source like glt
a good news source makes a good
community it provides information for
its citizens to really be them their
best citizens and glt provides obviously
NPR programming which is global but also
an increasingly rare high quality of
local programming and Illinois State’s
campus is also very beautiful I’d be
remiss if I didn’t say that
both Illinois Wesleyan and Illinois
State are Arboretum’s meaning that they
have all of the trees native to the
state of Illinois take a walk through
the quad or buy their campus sometime if
you’re feeling like there’s not much to
do here in Bloomington and if you’re
someone who enjoys natural spaces we
here in Bloomington Normal do have our
parks this is my favorite water feature
in bloomington-normal White Oak Park
it’s a mile trail around the the pond
there that you can run walk bike
whatever on and it’s fantastic fantastic
for sunsets too but we shouldn’t have to
drive out of town to places like funks
Grove or Kamara Park those are amazing
resources for our community but we
shouldn’t have to drive out of town to
get to them so let’s advocate for a more
beautiful natural public space here in
our community now that said we are very
fortunate to have Starved Rock State
Park just about an hour’s drive away
from here it’s I think one of the most
beautiful places in all of Illinois and
I think nature is
important part of a community too
because it helps you center yourself it
helps you realize how relatively
insignificant you are in the grand
scheme of things so if you’re someone
like me who loves getting your hands
dirty being outside maybe volunteer at
epiphany farms
this is epiphany farms restaurant and I
promise that that rainbows real someone
commented that they thought it was
photoshopped but it really is in many
ways perfection epiphany farms
restaurant is farm to plate meaning that
you have a real connection to your food
you can literally go and volunteer at
the very farm where your food will later
be used in the restaurant you can eat it
then you know and that connection I
think is so lacking these days we don’t
know where products come from we don’t
know where our food comes from but when
you can have that connection again again
you feel more invested in the community
one of my favorite stories to tell about
bloomington-normal is a time when I ate
at anjou above right after it had opened
that’s one of the Epiphany farms
restaurants with a friend and I was
lamenting to him ah Chicago one of my
favorite bands is performing later
tonight at the arena in downtown
Bloomington and I don’t have tickets I’d
love to see them perform sometime so you
know we ate our dinner and my friend
said oh my gosh that’s Chicago so they
were eating at the same restaurant as us
pretty cool but what makes Bloomington
special is that later a friend of my
friend came up to us and said hey I have
two tickets to the show tonight do you
guys want to go and that was an amazing
experience and it absolutely made me
feel like Bloomington is something so
special there’s a lot going on here but
it’s still so accessible and like any
community with a lot going on we have
our share of microbreweries craft beers
all the rage right
I promise Piper didn’t drink any of the
beer I feel like I should say by the way
that having a pet is a great part of a
community – gets you out walking about
you get to meet other people and Piper’s
featured perfect pretty heavily in these
slides but distill brewery is actually
the largest of the micro breweries here
in Bloomington they distribute their
beer all around the country and their
brewery is open for tours as well so go
there gather with your friends it’s
pretty amazing if you ever feel like
there’s nowhere to gather here in this
community just go to Uptown normal or
downtown Bloomington walk by herb
Eaton’s gallery so
but or to chalk a lot right now in
downtown Bloomington herb Eaton will
talk your ear off trust me
but he’s incredible because he’s an
artist and he’s amazingly skilled but he
still makes you feel welcome here in
come here in Bloomington we have a sense
of community and we don’t exclude anyone
so even if you’re an expert at something
you’re still part of it if you’re going
to upper limits and you want to go rock
climb and you’re a beginner you’re going
to be welcome there with open arms it’s
one of the largest rock-climbing indoor
rock climbing gyms in the world if
you’re going to go and visit the
galleries of over 100 artists with their
artwork on display in downtown
Bloomington we’re gonna welcome you to
and they’re going to talk with you as if
you’re a regular person they’re not
going to act like they’re above you I
think that a lot of bigger cities fall
prey to that sort of hipster ISM that
elitism but we don’t here and we’re so
lucky for it and the arts are very much
alive and well here in
bloomington-normal we’ve got a great
live music scene thanks to venues like
the castle theater and jazz up front
thanks honestly to coverage from G LTS
John Norton who really does a great job
covering the local music scene we’ve
also got the Illinois experi reverie
summer at the historic Ewing Manor the
plays are performed under a outdoor
theater that is similar to the Globe
Theater where Shakespeare’s plays were
originally performed and actors are
auditioning from all across the country
to perform in these shows when I wrote
local artisans is tani Lathrop and she
owns retrofit culture and retrofit
culture is an amazing store but it’s
also an amazing community hub you can
see on the sign there how walkable the
community is everything’s within a mile
away and there’s lots of history on the
west side right if you go to the west
side and you have uninformed eyes you’re
going to see a lot of dilapidated
buildings the average age of a home is
over 100 years but what you’re missing
is the character there and the sense of
community people like tani make it
possible people like Deborah Halperin
make it possible because of the WB RP
the West Bloomington revitalization
project we’ve got the tool library which
my high school and Illinois Wesleyan
classmate Matt Lalande speak about later
but the WB RP office offices also house
the bike co-op and the bike
co-op got its start as walk-in bike out
which is a program that ran for several
years people literally would line up at
the crack of dawn to get bikes for free
it was an amazing program that gave away
hundreds of bikes and now the bike co-op
has kind of taken this over and what it
allows is for people to work to
literally literally put in sweat equity
to earn a bike the community here has
really fostered philanthropy we’re so
lucky to have amazing philanthropists in
our community and I think it’s because
we realize how interconnected we all are
if we were a community that thought of
success in just a little bit of a
different way I think this wouldn’t be
the case you can think of success as a
ladder right where you’re going to climb
to the top screw everyone else and then
maybe when you’re at the top you’re
going to find yourself in a very
precarious position where it’s easy to
fall if instead you think of success as
a web I think that this is really great
for creating a sense of community if
success is a web and you’re in the
middle I suppose you’re the most
powerful but there’s never a power
struggle because everyone is working
together and all those connections
benefit everyone another way to think
about I guess when things go wrong is a
crisis or a famine if things are a
famine everyone’s fighting each other to
get food this is a scene at the
courthouse the old courthouse now the
McLean County Museum of History in
downtown Bloomington and it was a rally
in solidarity with Muslims across the
United States and here in the community
of bloomington-normal and when things go
wrong our community unites we think of
things instead of as a famine as a
crisis when there’s a crisis like the
Hurricanes that we saw last year you’ve
got people driving across the entire
country to help each other out that’s a
little bit different than beating up
your neighbor to get some food right and
a famine and so the thing that makes
Bloomington great is the people
ultimately many of the people here in
this room today many of the people
speaking here today are what makes this
community so amazing the people here are
the ones who help me live with freedom
from fear the people who help me feel
the sense of community in the sense of
self that I do feel here in Bloomington
I feel so blessed to feel I hope that
you all wherever you end up will grow
where you’re planted and bloom
especially if it’s in a community here
like Bloomington Normal thank you
Wesleyan University go Titans I became a
tour guide and becoming a tour guide was
a huge break me because it meant
becoming comfortable speaking in front
of groups of people like this and that
was scary at first but eventually I got
used to it the real breakthrough I’m
here to talk about today though is the
way in which I found a home a sense of
community and really a sense of self
here in bloomington-normal and my
friends make fun of me for this right we
are here in Bloomington in Illinois one
of the flyover States it’s very flat
around here kind of boring we certainly
don’t have any purple mountain Majesties
we don’t really have any lakes nearby no
beautiful blue clear water beaches and
we don’t have water features of any kind
to speak of
we don’t have a beautiful reflecting
pond for our skylines the way that many
many cities do and I would argue that we
actually do have skylines both
Bloomington and normal my friends make
fun of me for that too but they
certainly aren’t among the most
beautiful skylines in the world and
we’re not even in the suburbs you can’t
even see one of the most beautiful
skylines in the world from Bloomington
or normal right so what the heck do we
even have beautiful swamps to look at
here in bloomington-normal we do have a
beautiful blue sky and obviously I’m
exaggerating a little bit physical
beauty is not all that there is in terms
of making a community great there’s so
much more and I’m not the only one who
loves living here in bloomington-normal
the dog and the doorway there that’s
Piper Piper Gorman
she loves living here too and there are
so many others this is my home base in
Bloomington and that’s exactly how I
think of it right because all of those
photos that I took before all these
photos by the way are from my Instagram
I was too lazy to get photo licensing
rights this makes it a lot easier just
using my own photos so this is my
home base and all of the photos that you
saw before are actually from places that
I’ve been fortunate travel to and I
travel to every single one of those
places in a single summer and the reason
I’m able to do that is precisely because
I live here in Bloomington if I lived in
a more expensive city cost of living
would be too high I wouldn’t be able to
travel as much as I get to if I lived in
a place like Bermuda or in the mountains
of Colorado I don’t think I’d get to
travel and I’d be stuck in that one
place and with all the bad things of
that one place I wouldn’t necessarily be
able to travel and really I enjoy being
here in bloomington-normal and it is
beautiful this is my street it’s Clinton
Boulevard and there’s humongous old
trees there’s character in my
neighborhood I’m walking distance from
green top grocery you guys if you were
here earlier heard about that but I’m
also walking distance from Illinois
Wesleyan University from downtown
Bloomington from Illinois State
University where I work now and from
uptown normal location location location
I live in the white place historic
district and I love it there there’s so
much history there but really I’ve been
enchanted with the history all around
here in Bloomington Normal when you have
a sense of history you can really become
invested in a place did you know for
example that Abraham Lincoln practiced
law for much of his career here in
Bloomington did you know that Jesse fell
the founder of ISU and normal one of the
people instrumental in founding Illinois
Wesleyan was actually the person who
told Abraham he should run for president
so when you think about these figures
like Abraham Lincoln who in our minds
have been elevated to a god-like status
you realized they were one day many
years ago just walking around on the
streets of Bloomington like you or I it
helps me at least realize that I can
make a difference
speaking of differences you’re not going
to find many in the suburbs they are
created in terms of economies of scale
to create a utopia of convenience but I
think that they’ve failed in many ways
instead what we have is a dystopia where
you have to drive everywhere here’s a
suburban scenario for you you wake up in
the morning you get into your car
through you’re attached garage
I wouldn’t want to have to go outside
and interact with anyone or see anyone
you drive the average American commute
of 25 minutes to and from work you’re
driving a gun by yourself it really
minimizes human or an interaction
obviously this is bad for the
environment but did you know that the
commute the car commute is the second
most dreaded daily tasks for Americans
did you know that if you can cut an hour
out of your commute sorry if you add an
hour to your commute you literally have
to make $40,000 a year more to be as
happy so instead of thinking about the
suburbs let’s think about instead a
denser community like our core here in
bloomington-normal between uptown Normal
and downtown Bloomington this is Michael
Gorman
he spoke earlier as well big thanks to
him for helping out with the lights and
sound today and he’s KO’ing Piper Gorman
here you might see some interesting
things while you’re commuting to work if
you bike or walk but the key is you know
to have resources like the Constitution
trail in a community so that you can
walk and bike and to have a dense enough
community that that’s possible
besides being healthier to do something
like this for your commute instead of
sitting in a car it’s also I think a
great way to meet people you might walk
by and see some familiar faces too I
might walk to Illinois Wesleyan back
when I worked here every single day I
would pass the Illinois Wesleyan Peace
Garden and the Peace Garden is just one
of many community gardens in this
community there’s even a refuge food
forest which will be an entire forest of
trees growing vegetables and fruits and
that will be available in normal soon
but the community gardens are fantastic
because they create a shared sense of
ownership among people among community
members when you walk by as I did every
day you feel like you should pick up
some trash because it’s part it’s it’s
yours it’s part of the community and to
be honest I often would grab a grape
tomato or two as a snack as well I might
walk to Illinois Wesleyan and then of
course I’d arrive here and it’s no
secret I think Illinois Wesleyan is an
amazingly beautiful campus but there’s
so much going on here too
I’ll always remember one single week
where we had three incredible speakers
come to our campus a few of them spoke
here in the Hanson Student Center the
first speaker that week was David
who’s on NPR and PBS weekly he’s also
written for The New York Times pretty
frequently the second speaker that week
was Arun Gandhi maybe the last name
sounds familiar to you he’s the grandson
of Mohandas Gandhi and actually
continues his grandpa’s work for world
peace and the final speaker that week
was prince georg von habsburg i got to
meet all three of these individuals I
was honestly the most nervous to meet
Prince Georg von Habsburg because I had
to refer to him as your Royal Highness
and that was a unique experience for me
for sure I actually got to give him a
tour around our campus so there’s a lot
going on here at Illinois Wesleyan
campus and luckily for me now that I
don’t work here anymore a lot of it is
free and open to the community thank you
to all the community members who are
here today now I work from the campus of
Illinois State University I work for W
GL t which is Bloomington Normal Public
Media the NPR station that stands for
National Public Radio here and we’re so
fortunate to have a news source like glt
a good news source makes a good
community it provides information for
its citizens to really be them their
best citizens and glt provides obviously
NPR programming which is global but also
an increasingly rare high quality of
local programming and Illinois State’s
campus is also very beautiful I’d be
remiss if I didn’t say that
both Illinois Wesleyan and Illinois
State are Arboretum’s meaning that they
have all of the trees native to the
state of Illinois take a walk through
the quad or buy their campus sometime if
you’re feeling like there’s not much to
do here in Bloomington and if you’re
someone who enjoys natural spaces we
here in Bloomington Normal do have our
parks this is my favorite water feature
in bloomington-normal White Oak Park
it’s a mile trail around the the pond
there that you can run walk bike
whatever on and it’s fantastic fantastic
for sunsets too but we shouldn’t have to
drive out of town to places like funks
Grove or Kamara Park those are amazing
resources for our community but we
shouldn’t have to drive out of town to
get to them so let’s advocate for a more
beautiful natural public space here in
our community now that said we are very
fortunate to have Starved Rock State
Park just about an hour’s drive away
from here it’s I think one of the most
beautiful places in all of Illinois and
I think nature is
important part of a community too
because it helps you center yourself it
helps you realize how relatively
insignificant you are in the grand
scheme of things so if you’re someone
like me who loves getting your hands
dirty being outside maybe volunteer at
epiphany farms
this is epiphany farms restaurant and I
promise that that rainbows real someone
commented that they thought it was
photoshopped but it really is in many
ways perfection epiphany farms
restaurant is farm to plate meaning that
you have a real connection to your food
you can literally go and volunteer at
the very farm where your food will later
be used in the restaurant you can eat it
then you know and that connection I
think is so lacking these days we don’t
know where products come from we don’t
know where our food comes from but when
you can have that connection again again
you feel more invested in the community
one of my favorite stories to tell about
bloomington-normal is a time when I ate
at anjou above right after it had opened
that’s one of the Epiphany farms
restaurants with a friend and I was
lamenting to him ah Chicago one of my
favorite bands is performing later
tonight at the arena in downtown
Bloomington and I don’t have tickets I’d
love to see them perform sometime so you
know we ate our dinner and my friend
said oh my gosh that’s Chicago so they
were eating at the same restaurant as us
pretty cool but what makes Bloomington
special is that later a friend of my
friend came up to us and said hey I have
two tickets to the show tonight do you
guys want to go and that was an amazing
experience and it absolutely made me
feel like Bloomington is something so
special there’s a lot going on here but
it’s still so accessible and like any
community with a lot going on we have
our share of microbreweries craft beers
all the rage right
I promise Piper didn’t drink any of the
beer I feel like I should say by the way
that having a pet is a great part of a
community – gets you out walking about
you get to meet other people and Piper’s
featured perfect pretty heavily in these
slides but distill brewery is actually
the largest of the micro breweries here
in Bloomington they distribute their
beer all around the country and their
brewery is open for tours as well so go
there gather with your friends it’s
pretty amazing if you ever feel like
there’s nowhere to gather here in this
community just go to Uptown normal or
downtown Bloomington walk by herb
Eaton’s gallery so
but or to chalk a lot right now in
downtown Bloomington herb Eaton will
talk your ear off trust me
but he’s incredible because he’s an
artist and he’s amazingly skilled but he
still makes you feel welcome here in
come here in Bloomington we have a sense
of community and we don’t exclude anyone
so even if you’re an expert at something
you’re still part of it if you’re going
to upper limits and you want to go rock
climb and you’re a beginner you’re going
to be welcome there with open arms it’s
one of the largest rock-climbing indoor
rock climbing gyms in the world if
you’re going to go and visit the
galleries of over 100 artists with their
artwork on display in downtown
Bloomington we’re gonna welcome you to
and they’re going to talk with you as if
you’re a regular person they’re not
going to act like they’re above you I
think that a lot of bigger cities fall
prey to that sort of hipster ISM that
elitism but we don’t here and we’re so
lucky for it and the arts are very much
alive and well here in
bloomington-normal we’ve got a great
live music scene thanks to venues like
the castle theater and jazz up front
thanks honestly to coverage from G LTS
John Norton who really does a great job
covering the local music scene we’ve
also got the Illinois experi reverie
summer at the historic Ewing Manor the
plays are performed under a outdoor
theater that is similar to the Globe
Theater where Shakespeare’s plays were
originally performed and actors are
auditioning from all across the country
to perform in these shows when I wrote
local artisans is tani Lathrop and she
owns retrofit culture and retrofit
culture is an amazing store but it’s
also an amazing community hub you can
see on the sign there how walkable the
community is everything’s within a mile
away and there’s lots of history on the
west side right if you go to the west
side and you have uninformed eyes you’re
going to see a lot of dilapidated
buildings the average age of a home is
over 100 years but what you’re missing
is the character there and the sense of
community people like tani make it
possible people like Deborah Halperin
make it possible because of the WB RP
the West Bloomington revitalization
project we’ve got the tool library which
my high school and Illinois Wesleyan
classmate Matt Lalande speak about later
but the WB RP office offices also house
the bike co-op and the bike
co-op got its start as walk-in bike out
which is a program that ran for several
years people literally would line up at
the crack of dawn to get bikes for free
it was an amazing program that gave away
hundreds of bikes and now the bike co-op
has kind of taken this over and what it
allows is for people to work to
literally literally put in sweat equity
to earn a bike the community here has
really fostered philanthropy we’re so
lucky to have amazing philanthropists in
our community and I think it’s because
we realize how interconnected we all are
if we were a community that thought of
success in just a little bit of a
different way I think this wouldn’t be
the case you can think of success as a
ladder right where you’re going to climb
to the top screw everyone else and then
maybe when you’re at the top you’re
going to find yourself in a very
precarious position where it’s easy to
fall if instead you think of success as
a web I think that this is really great
for creating a sense of community if
success is a web and you’re in the
middle I suppose you’re the most
powerful but there’s never a power
struggle because everyone is working
together and all those connections
benefit everyone another way to think
about I guess when things go wrong is a
crisis or a famine if things are a
famine everyone’s fighting each other to
get food this is a scene at the
courthouse the old courthouse now the
McLean County Museum of History in
downtown Bloomington and it was a rally
in solidarity with Muslims across the
United States and here in the community
of bloomington-normal and when things go
wrong our community unites we think of
things instead of as a famine as a
crisis when there’s a crisis like the
Hurricanes that we saw last year you’ve
got people driving across the entire
country to help each other out that’s a
little bit different than beating up
your neighbor to get some food right and
a famine and so the thing that makes
Bloomington great is the people
ultimately many of the people here in
this room today many of the people
speaking here today are what makes this
community so amazing the people here are
the ones who help me live with freedom
from fear the people who help me feel
the sense of community in the sense of
self that I do feel here in Bloomington
I feel so blessed to feel I hope that
you all wherever you end up will grow
where you’re planted and bloom
especially if it’s in a community here
like Bloomington Normal thank you
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