Category: Tea Time

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Tea Time: Gear up for Welcoming Week!

Welcoming Week

Updates & Opportunities for Inclusive Communities

I’m happy you are here. This is my favorite time of year, when the days are sunny and breezy, music and cultural festivals are in full swing, and Welcoming Week is just around the corner!

Welcoming Week: “Where We Belong” Sept. 9-18

Welcoming Week is a national initiative that Nebraskans participate in each year in September. It’s a time for cities, organizations, and communities to hold events that bring neighbors from different backgrounds together to get to know one another and celebrate what unites us as a community. This year, Welcoming Week is September 9-18.

The theme for Welcoming Week this year is “Where We Belong.” By focusing on the places and spaces that foster belonging (ie. cities, workplaces, neighborhoods, etc.), we can go deeper and spark individual reflection on how and why belonging occurs, and ways we can break barriers so that places can foster belonging for all community members, including immigrants and refugees.

What’s happening across Nebraska?

Each September, people across Nebraska seize the opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to inclusiveness by hosting dozens of cultural and bridge-building events!

Events can be big or small, virtual or in-person. Find ideas, inspiration, and a toolkit on the official Welcoming Week website. You can also check out this recap of last year’s Welcoming Week festivities across Nebraska.

Already planning your Welcoming Week event? We’d love to hear about it and help get the word out. Email me!

We’ll start to add local events to our Nebraska Is Home Blog soon, so check back on the blog and help spread the word by sharing it on social media.

In the meantime, check out Belonging Begins With Us, where community members share their thoughts on ‘belonging.’ You can also share your story!

I can’t wait to hear about what’s happening in your community!

Beyond Welcoming Week

If you haven’t started planning your event yet, it’s not too late! We are extending Welcoming Week to the entire month of September and beyond. Send me a message, and I would be happy to help you plan an event to showcase what makes your community welcoming. The Welcoming Week Toolkit has lots of useful ideas, information, and even social media graphics to help you get started.

Thank you for making Nebraska a place where we all belong.

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Tea Time: Upcoming inclusion events you won’t want to miss!

How are we in May already? But here we all are, and as the May flowers blossom in all their colorful glory, there are many emerging opportunities around cultivating communities where everyone feels that they belong.

Belonging Begins With Us

Together, we can create communities where everyone feels they belong. Together with Welcoming America’s Belonging Begins With Us campaign, we are thrilled to share local Nebraska stories, beginning with Tut’s story. Tut found and created a sense of belonging in Lincoln, and is now helping others buy their first homes, putting roots down to become vital members of their community.

Read Tut’s Story

We will be sharing more stories on our Belonging Begins With Us page, so stay tuned!

Rural Assembly Everywhere!

Rural Assembly Everywhere
May 10 and 11 from 1 to  4 pm CT
Free, Virtual Event

Rural Assembly Everywhere will this year feature Nebraska inclusion leaders Nancy Tellez, City of Crete Community Assistance Director; Valeria Rodriguez, paralegal with Immigrant Legal Services and Co-Founder at Empowering Families:Empoderando Familias in Scottsbluff; and Christa Yoakum, Senior Welcoming Coordinator at Nebraska Appleseed. Join the conversation about successes and challenges of rural community inclusion!

Rural Assembly Everywhere is a virtual festival for rural advocates and the rural-curious, listeners and leaders, neighbors and admirers. Participants will enjoy two days of programming featuring artists and poets, civic leaders, and experts.

Rural Assembly is a nonprofit connecting with people and organizations across the country dedicated to building more opportunity, changing perceptions in service to healing a divided nation, and working toward better policy for rural communities.

Register Now

Welcoming Interactive

Welcoming Interactive
May 18 to 20, 2022
In-person event in Charlotte, North Carolina

There is still time to register! We hope you’ll join us at the annual Welcoming Interactive. This gathering of people from nonprofits, local governments, and many other sectors highlights successful practices and inspiring stories about immigrant inclusion, programs, policies, and partnerships on economic development, civic participation, government leadership, and more. Attendees learn about local innovations from peer communities and come away with new ideas and energy to foster welcoming places for all.

Welcoming Interactive is hosted by Welcoming America, a nonprofit leading a movement of inclusive communities to become more prosperous by ensuring everyone belongs, including immigrants.

Race and Equity Resources

Co-creating a home where everyone belongs, has a voice, and is valued in their fullness requires us to tackle systemic barriers to inclusion and belonging. Here are some tools for that journey of learning and understanding together.

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Tea Time: Statewide Book Club + See you next year!

Tea Time with Khenda

The quarterly newsletter where we share Updates & Opportunities for Inclusive Communities

This year has been full of wonderful opportunities and challenges, and I could not be happier to have shared the journey with all of you Welcoming leaders of Nebraska.

You’re invited: Statewide book club!

As you may have heard, we are ending the year with a bang and began a book club, Real Talk on Racism, around, You’ll Never Believe What Happened to Lacey: Crazy Stories About Racism by Nebraska authors, Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar.

You’re invited to join the book club! This is the perfect book to curl up on cold winter nights, or to gift to a friend or family member!

Find out where to get the book locally, register to join a discussion near you, or find out how to host a small book club yourself HERE!

Join us in Meeting the Authors!

Don’t forget to register for our virtual conversation with Amber Ruffin and Lacey Lamar, moderated by Lincoln City Councilwoman Sändra Washington on January 19, 2022! The discussion starts at 5:30 pm CT and the authors will join at 6 pm CT.

Register Now

Thank you and see you in 2022!

Thank you for all of your incredible work to build a more inclusive and welcoming Nebraska. We know this work is hard and full of challenges, and this year was no exception. But you persevered with grace, creativity, and strength. We appreciate you!

On behalf of Nebraska Is Home, we wish you all a wonderful holiday break and a happy New Year!

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Tea Time: Welcoming Week in Nebraska + more

Tea Time with Khenda

The quarterly newsletter where we share Updates & Opportunities for Inclusive Communities

Now that the leaves are changing color and autumn has arrived, I hope you are warming up with a steaming cup of your favorite tea or coffee. I am glad you’re here, so let’s share some feel-good stories.

Recently I sat down with Hope Dunbar on the CASATalk Podcast to talk about Nebraska Is Home and the growing Welcoming movement in our state. Listen to the episode!

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Tea Time with Khenda: Creating Communities of Belonging

Welcome, I’m glad you’re here. The thing about brewing a good cup of tea is you can’t rush the process. You have to put the tea leaves in and pour the water slowly so as to not make a mess. Then you have to wait a couple of minutes to allow that tea to steep, because boiling would burn the tea leaves and extract too many tannins, which are what give teas their bitterness. If you want a quality cup of tea, there is no way around the waiting and allowing the process. In that way, it is a lot like building welcoming and inclusive communities, which requires a lot of patience and waiting for results to unfold once you have added the leaves and poured the water.

Continue reading “Tea Time with Khenda: Creating Communities of Belonging”