Write up from the Siskiyou School

Eberley Wedlake’s Visit




You never would have guessed that she was terrified of public speaking. The poised young woman who spoke with clarity and conviction to our eighth graders last week was the very picture of a person with a sense of mission and with the qualities it takes to accomplish them– a leader. She explained to them why her banner was exactly 350 feet long (#350 relates safe level of C02 in the atmosphere) and encouraged them to add their names and paint their message onto it. Eberley also told our students that the banner had traveled with her across the country, from the east coast to the west, and that she had several more stops to make on her way to Washington, DC where she planned to display the banner on the Mall in front of the Capitol Building for senators and congressmen to see. The last leg of her trip would take her to Copenhagen in December for the summit of world leaders on Climate Change. The afternoon ended with Ms. Shelstad’s students painting and drawing on the section of the banner Eberley had (in beautiful calligraphy) titled Siskiyou School Eighth Grade. A sweet moment was when Christine Crawley, Eberley’s former class teacher, came across the quad from her third grade classroom into the 8th grade and the two spotted each other. We all realized that Eberley had learned her beautiful lettering skills from the master herself!





When asked by the students about what had prompted her trip Eberley answered, No, she’d never done anything like this before. No, she’d never thought of herself as an activist. But there was a day a few weeks back when this 24 (?) year old recent college graduate decided that she couldn’t just sit by any longer, and she got up from her life in Boston and hit the trail -- Sojourner Truth style! In service to something greater than herself, she literally found her voice. Today, just a few weeks (?) into this adventure, she is astonished at the confidence she has gained about speaking in public. To watch and hear her is to suspect there has been learning at other levels as well—the sense of possibility that comes when you realize that just by deciding something, you can set things in motion that then develop a momentum of their own. Life looks different once you perceive that universal MO! There’s that quote from Goethe on our banner in the hall which reads… Concerning all acts of initiative and creation, there is one elementary truth – that the moment when one definitely commits oneself, Providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would never otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from that decision, raising in one’s favor all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man could have dreamed would have come his way…. Who knows how Eberley’s visit will live in the students with whom she met. But it was a picture of that quote and we can never put enough of those in front of our kids.

Highlights from Minnesota

- Paul Thompson, founder of Cool Planet, connects me with the Edina High School Volunteer Club - they collect 139 signatures!
- Minnesota Democrat Al Franken's office signs the banner
- The Will Steger Foundation Expedition Copenhagen plans to take the banner to Copenhagen: see their amazing work www.willstegerfoundation.org and www.expeditioncopenhagen.blogspot.com

Project Kick Off in Sommerville, MA

Despite the rain, over 70 residents of Somerville and the greater Boston area braved the weather to sign the first 20 feet of the banner last Saturday.  Folks hailed from several countries, including Haiti, Switzerland, Thailand and the U.K.