 |
| Featured Speaker: Saul Cruz-Ramos |
|
| We will be gathering community leaders together November 3rd on the beautiful Cornell Museum patio of Rollins College from 6:30-8:00pm to focus our attention on the well-being of Greater Orlando at the second annual State of the City dinner. Gallup has ranked our community 116th out of 188 U.S. cities which means we dropped from the previous year in which we were 80th. We will be recognizing the organizations that are doing the best job to improve well-being and providing research-based guidance on what we can do together to improve well-being.
We are delighted that Saul-Cruz Ramos, Ph.D. will be our featured speaker this year. Saul is co-director of Armonia Ministries in Mexico City and an expert voice on solutions to poverty. Through his leadership, five peer-led communities have been formed since 1987 and hundreds of young people have embraced life changing opportunities for education.
|
Inaugural Event - Oct. 28, 2010
Thanks to our hosts, Greg and Dottie Clendenin, the inaugural State of the City Event at the Country Club of Orlando was a wonderful evening. 120 community leaders were present representing foundations, academic institutions, local government, non-profits, churches, and businesses. We revealed that Orlando was ranked 80th out of 185 cities in the country in well-being by Gallup and challenged the group to work together to improve our ranking by engaging the talents of people in the 100 distressed neighborhoods of the city.
|
|
During the evening, the video to the left was introduced followed by Eddy Moratin's summary of the initial research project. Rebecca Lujan Loveless then led the guests through an awareness exercise followed by John Crossman's history of service in Orlando. Phil Hissom, founder of Polis, concluded the evening by issuing the challenge to improve well-being in Orlando by engaging the talents of the poor. He also described the Polis vision, products, and services. Below you will find the slides and audio for each speaker.
|
 |
| Phil Hissom |
|
| "Orlando is a very important city in the world and she needs something. She needs her most needy people and a guide to effectively engage their talents. Polis Institute is that guide."
"According to the Gallup well-being index, Orlando is ranked 80th out of 185 cities in the US. There is absolutely no reason why we can’t be the number one city."
"It is not ok to say, 'Change and I’ll love you.' We love people and through that, they and we begin to change."
Audio Slides
|
 |
| Rebecca Lujan Loveless |
|
| "Your story is important to the well-being of our city as it will draw you to the most pressing needs in our city."
"Polis Institute firmly believes that the well-being of our city will improve when the potential of our most needy residents is championed."
Audio Slides
|
 |
| Eddy Moratin |
|
| "Poverty robs people of dignity every day. Our caution and passion at the Polis Institute is to make sure that what we do to help does not rob them even more."
"Orlando is a work of art in progress which is reason for excitement. "
"If we just think differently about the challenges we have before us, we would find ourselves producing different results."
Audio Slides
|
 |
| John Crossman |
|
| "While some people are fulfilling a dream in our community, some people are living a nightmare. What are we going to do about that?"
"When leaders are relevant at a point of crisis, great things happen."
"Dignity Serves changed me. I used to think they were messed up. You know who was messed up? Me. The depth of that study in helping change my heart, in changing my mind, was unbelievable."
"Polis Institute has better ways and by doing them we can have better days."
Audio Slides
|
|
