A Summer Starter Pack: Connection and community in summertime
Exploring Memorial Day remembrance, summer violence interruption, neighborhood heat islands, and the American Exchange Project
Back when I (Sam) was running the Armed Services Arts Partnership, I never knew how to talk about Memorial Day. Should I be solemn and reflective to honor the dead, or celebratory to honor the fact we’re still alive? In reality, there was no right answer. Memorial Day Weekend can be a time of solemn remembrance for some, a time to celebrate the unofficial start of summer for others, or a time of solemn remembrance and summer celebration for others still.
For this week’s newsletter, we fall squarely in that last camp. We start by sharing a moving reflection on Memorial Day, and then explore three features on the intersection of summer, community, and connection:
Memorial Day: What do we owe those who have perished in our generation’s mismanaged wars?
Summer Violence Interruption: How can communities create social outlets to prevent spikes in violence during the summer months?
Neighborhood Heat Islands: Why are some neighborhoods up to 20 degrees hotter during the summer compared to others just blocks away?
American Exchange Project: Is a summertime domestic exchange program for high school students the key to facilitating connection across geographic difference?
This was admittedly a broad theme, so we’re curious: when you think of summer and community, what comes to mind? Feel free to respond with links in the comments section or reply directly to this email.
And, as always, let us know what you think about how the newsletter is going. What’s working? How can we continue to improve?
Stay cool and connected,
- Sam, Eric, + David
PS - A very warm welcome to the 100+ new subscribers who joined us by way of
. Every other week, we feature a curated list like this one, where we explore a theme related to the connections, communities, and commitments that bind us together. We owe a special thanks to super-subscriber, , for the shout-out that brought y’all here!
The Reads
New York Times - “What do I owe the dead of my generation’s mismanaged wars?” by Phil Klay
“For so many of the kids I saw, their mission mattered to them, and so their mission should matter to all of us when we remember their deaths. And the mission was a catastrophe. Memorial Day should come with sorrow and patriotic pride, yes, but also with a sense of shame. And, though it has faded for me over the years, with anger.”
In this moving essay, USMC Veteran and author Phil Klay challenges us to uphold our civic obligation to remember the dead—in all its messiness and complexity. Notably, he not only writes this piece as a veteran, but also as an American citizen living “in the midst of the most divisive antiwar protests since the early days of the Iraq war.” Obligation is a continued theme throughout Klay’s work—and, to him, “We owe it to the dead to remember what mattered to them, the ideals they held, as well as how those ideals were betrayed or failed to match reality.” This means remembering not just who they were, but “...why they died. All the reasons they died.”
Block Club Chicago & Virginia Mercury - An exploration of summer youth violence prevention programming by Maxwell Evans and Nathaniel Cline
“Things are not going to change overnight, and you have to have everybody working in tandem. From business leaders to the police department to parents, schools, churches … that’s how we can begin to tackle the violence within our community.”
Several cities and states are expanding summer youth programs as interventions to reduce violent crime, provide safe environments for children, and foster connection within their communities. In Chicago, the Obama Foundation’s My Brother's Keeper Alliance is giving $1 million to 33 community groups that create safe, engaging spaces for young Black and brown men. Each organization will run unique summer programs in fields as diverse as archery, maritime arts, violence interruption, mentoring, and more. Meanwhile, the Commonwealth of Virginia is creating a new Community Builders Pilot Program in response to rising concern over youth gun violence. This new initiative will offer community programming, workforce development, social-emotional development opportunities, and more during the school year and summer months. Similar summer youth violence prevention programs are being implemented in cities across the country including Memphis, Denver, and New York.
→ Read about the Obama Foundation’s work here and Virginia’s Community Builders Pilot Program here
The Research
New York Times, The Guardian, and KFF Health News - “Summer in the City Is Hot, but Some Neighborhoods Suffer More”
“This is one of the hottest parts of the city because the people here don’t have political power. We need shade, but trees also suck up carbon dioxide, create places to socialize and healthier, happier neighborhoods.”
Summer is (informally) here and that means temperatures are rising in communities nationwide. But not all neighborhoods are created equal—and it turns out that’s also the case when it comes to summertime heat. During the hottest days of summer, poor and minority neighborhoods can experience temperatures that are 20 degrees higher than wealthier neighborhoods that are mere blocks away. Researchers refer to these neighborhood-level disparities as “urban heat islands” or “shade deserts,” which result from discrepancies in the design and planning of the built environment. Neighborhoods with lots of uncovered pavement, little tree cover, and few parks and green spaces have more “heat islands” and “shade deserts,” while their leafier peer neighborhoods remain cooler during the hottest summer days.
In recent years, several cities have developed plans to begin addressing these neighborhood disparities in heat—both during the summers and year-round. Phoenix, a city that experienced 133 days with temperatures over 100 degrees in 2023, launched a citywide tree-planting drive to create shade in the city’s majority low-income and Hispanic neighborhoods with the lowest levels of tree cover. But planting trees is no easy task. While Tampa’s mayor has set a goal to plant 30,000 trees by 2030, their resilience officer described planting trees as “the hardest thing I have done” considering their “finite green space.” The stakes of summer shade couldn’t be higher though. With summers getting hotter by the year, more people in more neighborhoods are at risk of heat-related deaths.
→ Read the NYT article here, Guardian article on Phoenix here, and KFF news article on Tampa here.
The Work
American Exchange Project - National
The American Exchange Project (AEP) aims to make a summertime, post-high-school domestic exchange experience a rite of passage for American youth nationwide.
Native Bostonian David McCullough III founded AEP in 2019, after a multi-month road trip across the nation. He wasn’t struck by the difference in our country’s landscapes, but rather by the similarities that so many communities shared. He’s since built AEP as America’s first domestic exchange program for high school students, and AEP now coordinates week-long exchanges for hundreds of American high school seniors in the summer following their graduation. A student from a big city like New York might be paired on exchange with a student from a rural heartland community like Kilgore, TX. Through just a short summer experience, the organization is making headway toward realizing its vision of “stitching our country together, one student, one high school, one hometown at a time.”
→ AEP’s been in the news a good bit of late - see a recent video here and a recent article here