Draw a New Picture features five Kansans who aspire for progress in civic life. Click on their names below to view each segment of the documentary:
- A thirty-something exec of a global family business in tiny Kiowa, Miranda Walz-Allen returned home and found a community with no organized daycare. She diagnosed the situation and is maneuvering the landmines.
- Mission City Administrator Mike Scanlon focuses on creating disequilibrium and ‘us vs. them’ dynamics in helping his City Council create a new municipal revenue stream to help fund street improvements.
- Associate Pastor Jeff Prothro of Hutchinson’s Trinity United Methodist Church shares the risk involved with their congregation’s ambitious plan to eliminate poverty in their community.
- Hope and expectation resonate when 25-year old Brandon Johnson of Wichita talks about his role as executive director of a brand new non–profit designed to empower youth and families.
- As administrator of the Chamber’s Leadership Lawrence, former City Commissioner Sue Hack communicates eloquently about ‘organized leadership development’ before and after the KLC philosophies and competencies.
It’s a film about what happens when people who care, take risks to make things better. It’s not a story about political squabbles or policy disagreements, but it does address the environment that leads to them.
And in doing so, the hope is that these five Kansans, who are drawing their own new picture of civic engagement, add some value to the thinking of the rest of us wrestling with similar difficulties.
If they can draw a new picture, so can we.
The film has aired on KPTS, public television in Wichita, and we’re making plans to air it on other public stations across Kansas.
