Header photo © Joni Kabana By Sara Veltkamp, Minerva Strategies – Disconnection has become a national challenge. Much of the political polarization plaguing the US is a result of Americans not feeling connected to each other. People on our coasts and in major cities have radically different world views than those in the middle…
Minerva Musings
Sara Veltkamp By Amanda Clark, Intern, Minerva Strategies— Like many Americans, I watched President Obama’s farewell address last week with a mixture of awe and sadness. While I am apprehensive of the proposed policies and rhetoric of the incoming administration, Obama encouraged the nation to embrace inclusive change and gave the upcoming generation of Americans his…
Minerva Strategies I love the promise of the New Year. It’s one of my favorite holidays as it celebrates the things on which I thrive – uncertainty, hope, starting over, and novelty. I do not know what’s going to happen this year, but I am hopeful about the possibilities; I get to wipe my proverbial slate clean…
There I was, donning full operating-room garb, watching an accomplished surgeon begin the one-hour procedure that would change a woman’s life. The patient was a 35-year-old mother of six children – five living, and one stillborn after an obstructed labor several months earlier. That harrowing experience left the mother with a fistula, a hole between…
Joy Portella By Kelly Boudwin, Minerva Strategies – Five months ago, I was an anxious post-grad nervously scrolling through job listings wondering if anyone would take me after a few gap years of self-exploration. I saw a listing for a summer internship with Minerva Strategies – a communications consulting firm focused on helping nonprofits, foundations, and for-profit businesses…
By Sara Veltkamp, Minerva Strategies – More than ten years ago I came across an Aquarius horoscope that I cut out of the Anchorage Press, a weekly paper published in Anchorage, Alaska, where I was living at the time. The clip has been lost in my subsequent travels, but the suggested “mantra” for the…
By Sara Veltkamp, Sr. Associate, Minerva Strategies — Heroin use can bring out the worst in people, and I’m not talking about the users. Try this experiment: Google “heroin overdose deaths,” locate the first media story, and then scroll down and read the comments to the article. You’ll discover that the stigma toward heroin use is…
By Sara Veltkamp, Sr. Associate, Minerva Strategies — Like many people, I’ve ranted and raved this week. Tragedy affects people differently, as does helplessness in the face of tragedy. When I feel helpless, I get angry. As expected, the vast majority of that anger is directed at the Islamic State, the group that Arabic speakers…
By Sara Veltkamp, Minerva Strategies – This past Sunday I had the privilege of supporting good friends of mine through the labor of their second child, a baby girl. I struggle to find words that describe the experience; it was stressful, intense, exhausting, and without a doubt the most beautiful and inspiring thing that I…
By Joy Portella, Minerva Strategies – I’m embarrassed to admit that I’ve never paid much attention to Veterans Day. Every year I call my dad, a Korean War vet, to thank him for his service, and I feel inspired by generations of veterans gone by – men who served and sacrificed in World War II,…