Hello, I'm April Chatham-Carpenter.

And I'm Glen white.

Welcome to A Braver Arkansas, where we engage in respectful conversation with Arkansas's leaders and with each other.

Over the past several episodes, we've spent a lot of time talking about political polarization, why it happens, what it cost us, and what skills help us to navigate it better.

But today, we want to pivot toward a different question where do we want to go?

And what do we want to build for ourselves and our communities?

So in Braver Angels, we hope Arkansans will get involved in civic action in their communities.

Our guest today is Shana Chaplin.

Shana has spent decades working in civic education, community development, and rural outreach across Arkansas.

Shannon will help us explore those issues.

And we'll talk with Shana in just a few minutes.

But first, April, I know you have some things on your mind, but before you share your thoughts with us, I have to call you out on your fashion choice.

Would you please raise your right hand?

Are great.

Notice how she has her cast matching her outfit.

There we go.

That was because I broke my hand in Philadelphia when I was there recently and I was running.

So I'm trying not to gesture with this hand.

But in case you see this, that is, we call this Rocky, you know.

Oh, Rocky, as in the movie.

Okay.

All right.

Yeah.

Well, hey, Glenn, as we're getting ready to welcome Shana onto the show, I've been wondering about civic life and how we define it.

And I think for a long time, I've thought about civic life as being, you know, my my role as a citizen to to go and to vote, maybe things that I will do in terms of volunteering.

But I oftentimes don't think of the things that I, that people do in their community on everyday basis is really part of civic life.

And that's what I want us to get across today in this episode.

Yeah.

Civic life is something that actually a lot of people do that we don't often hear about all around the communities in our state, in our nation, when people get together, whether it's in church or in a civic group or something like that, that's civic life.

And so a lot of people do that.

But we think more can do that, because if you have people disengaged in not doing something to contribute to their communities more, the burden falls on our leaders, our politicians, our government officials, and they have a role to play.

But it's important that the people play an important role to and have an influence from that direction.

So we really have a lot more power than we might think.

We have sometimes in our in our own communities.

And I actually think Arkansans are already doing this without calling and civic engagement.

Well, they should, because, you know, the founders of our country said one of the things for this to be a successful republic is that people are supposed to get involved, educate themselves, and actually do something to contribute to the greater good and to be involved in that civic life.

So it can be something as simple as as volunteering or helping with a food pantry, or doing some kind of ministry out with your church, or being a part of a neighborhood association.

Showing up to a school board meeting for things that you feel strongly about, or even running for a city council seat.

I think Arkansans are uniquely positioned to do this kind of work.

I see ourselves in this community.

I've lived in Arkansas for many, many years, and I see ourselves in our communities as all being part of wanting to work alongside of each other.

We have good work ethic, and I know that we haven't always done great in all areas in terms of civic engagement.

In fact, there was a recent study which showed that we actually were kind of low in terms of voter turnout, but we actually were really high in developing close relationships and supporting each other in civic kinds of environments.

Yeah.

You know, there is a lot of work being done, but there needs to be more.

We don't hear about the work that is being done, probably because, you know, in media there's that old saying that if it bleeds, it leads, meaning that things are exciting and dangerous, attract attention.

And so a lot of times that's what you hear in the media.

If the media covers something like, you know, the local Rotary Club is talking about taking on this project, most people don't pay much attention to that.

So that's maybe one of the challenges is that people don't realize that this is going on.

It's a legitimate thing we all ought to be doing.

I remember during Covid, one of the things that I really loved hearing was when they would be people that would be doing these unique kinds of things, like they would be telling stories about things that were happening in their neighborhood, because we really couldn't get out necessarily to see those kinds of things.

And it was they were feel good stories.

And I think we have an ability in Arkansas to tell those kinds of stories, which is one of the reasons why we're doing this show in the first place is to highlight stories like that.

Well, Braver Angels has developed a framework that we're going to hear about in another episode.

Not today, but we'll hear a little bit about it today called citizen LED solutions.

And the whole idea is that local citizens actually recognize that there's a need in their community.

They gather together and they figure out a way to to deal with that need.

And they're not concerned about, okay, are you Republican?

Are you at or where do you stand on the political aisle, or are you religious?

Not religious.

It's like we need each other to be able to get this community problem solved in some ways.

And so it's a it's a bottom up model, not not told to us by the politicians.

This is what you need to do.

And those that opportunity for everyday citizens to actually play a part in fixing something in their communities, I think is really attractive.

Yeah, it's you know, it's kind of like, let's say the problems of pothole.

Well, a pothole is a pothole, and it doesn't care if you're a Democrat or Republican.

So we need to have our citizens, regardless of party affiliation, working together on problems where we all have a stake in it, because, you know, those kind of things affect us all, whatever politician we might be advocating for.

So sometimes it's just a matter of saying, what is it that's bugging us in our own community and saying, is there are there people that we can gather around us and try to try to work on on something like that?

I do recognize, as I say that though, that we do have real political divides in Arkansas, and that really, to me shows up most clearly when we have elections and we see people running for office and I get the mailers in the mail, or I get the I see the political commercials and it seems like, oh my gosh, it's like it seems like we're more divided than we have been in the past.

And yet I also see these strong community ties, faith networks, and the kind of small town familiarity that we, you know, it gives bridge building a real chance for us.

In fact, I've heard people recently talk about Arkansas as all being a small town that we can kind of get to know each other.

We know our neighbors in ways that aren't true everywhere, and I think that that's something that we can really build on here in Arkansas.

Yeah, Arkansas is largely a rural state.

So, you know, some people may say, well, in a real estate you don't have many resources.

So how can people contribute?

Well, actually, in my experience, and I started off in a rural setting in my first few years of my life, people in rural communities are aware of their community and the people around them, and they actually wound up helping out each other.

So I think in Arkansas, like another rural areas, there's a need and an awareness that they need to help out everybody in that community.

So I think it can be done.

And in fact, there's a I was just reading I don't know if Shannon may bring this up, but there's a study that was done by Johns Hopkins just this year looking at the impact of engagement in civic activities in rural communities.

And apparently it makes a big difference when people are getting involved somehow, at whatever level and really doing something, it really starts to improve their optimism, their sense of hope and their sense of personal agency that they're doing something to make a difference.

So there are plenty of reasons to to follow this citizen led solutions approach that we're talking about.

I remember on our podcast, Glenn, we had Rebecca Glacier come in and talk about the little Rock congregation study, which had been a several year long study that they had actually gone in, and congregations of all different types and all different kinds of religions to see where those people were actually making a difference in their communities.

And I think churches have a unique kind of place to to play in this.

But even for people who are involved in churches, they can still get involved in in things with their schools, with, with other kinds of things.

I was reading recently, actually, where there's, you know, we've got some issues right now with rural health care and potentially with some, some cut and some funding.

There's we're going to need to be working on keeping our rural hospitals even afloat.

And so some things that we can do in our rural communities that we sometimes don't think about, and the other resources that come to my mind in rural communities is that somewhere before too far away, you usually have a public school because everybody is served by a public school, and sometimes the public schools then have meetings with the community members afterwards are different community groups can meet.

That's one option.

Libraries.

If there's a library anywhere nearby that can be a resource as well.

So it's something that I think we need to encourage everybody.

And that's what we're trying to do today, is encourage folks to get involved at whatever level they can.

I know one of the things that you have been involved that our guest also has been involved with is some work that the Winthrop Rockefeller Center has done in terms of civic Arkansas.

What have you done with that?

Or how do you what do you know about that at this point?

Well, it's the Rockefeller Institute started an initiative and can tell us a lot more about it than I can, but because she's how I started learning about it when she was with the Rockefeller Institute.

But it's it's based on some findings that in state of Arkansas, we have some real deficits in terms of civic involvement by our citizens.

Although people do get together and interact with each other quite a bit.

So so we're going to be seeing Shana here shortly.

She's going to tell us more about that.

I'm pretty curious to know kind of what she has learned in her work with Rural Engagement, about what motivates people to to get involved in their community.

I think it's difficult to get motivated sometimes because you're just so focused on your family and other kinds of things.

So I'm curious also in terms of lessons for encouraging civic engagement that she actually can can share with us.

You know, Charnas is uniquely positioned here for us to have as a guest because she's worked in civic education and community involvement and worked across Arkansas for decades.

So maybe we should go ahead and just introduce her as we get ready to, to move forward.

And so give a little bit of background on Shanna Chaplin.

She has spent 35 years in the public sector with extensive experience in civic engagement and community development.

She's done significant work with the Governor's Commission on National Service and Volunteerism, and, as we mentioned, the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute.

She currently serves with Providence Park, the city center.

And she founded and leads an organization called for Word Central Arkansas, which gets together women of faith to actually talk about what they can be involved in in terms of Arkansas.

She's been recognized as one of Arkansas's 250 most influential leaders by Arkansas business, and she was named the 2024 Public Administrator of the year by UA little Rock.

Now she's working in rural civic engagement at the University of the Ozarks in something called the Town Square Collaborative, which we're going to hear about.

She oversees their community engagement partnerships to build rural, community led civic hubs that move congregations and communities to engage in civic life.

And that work is funded by the Lilly Endowment.

Well, she knows her stuff, and I'm looking forward to hearing what she has to share with us, because I think her her background is a good match for our Citizens Lead Solutions initiative and Braver Angels.

Absolutely.

So we're going to take a break here, and then we're going to bring her on to the show.

I look forward to hearing from her.