Honoring & Onward 2020: Refueling for New Possibilities

While it may feel like an entire decade has passed since January 2020, it's been merely a year since The Patterson Foundation launched Honoring & Onward, a celebration of TPF's ten-year impact through people, organizations, and community. As Honoring & Onward initiative manager, it was a bit like turning a cruise ship on a dime, executing plans full steam ahead during the first quarter, then pivoting continually due to COVID-19 for the next three quarters.

If you haven't yet, I encourage you to watch the documentary that heralded a year of celebration, A Universe of New Realities. It gives way to the perfect visual to describe Honoring & Onward for The Patterson Foundation team: a brief landing spot to reflect, refuel, and launch into the next decade of possibilities.

Some highlights from the year of celebration include:

• The very first glimmer of what it means to honor while installing a plinth from Patriot Plaza in Tidewell Hospice
• The Ministry of Surprise honoring TPF possibilitarians who had given of their talents for five- or ten-plus years with a virtual celebration and Pay It Forward Awards 
• Our Sparkle event, presenting more than $450,000 in honorariums to the organizations that make Season of Sharing possible

Honoring & Onward has sparked creativity, generosity, and a renewed sense of direction and hope within The Patterson Foundation.

It was our pleasure and honor to dedicate time and resources to commemorate what has made the first ten years of The Patterson Foundation possible. But with every look back, new aspirations are also taking shape. While brilliant in its own right, Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, A Walk to Respect, written by our own Beth Duda, has taken on new life in response to community demand through virtual screenings, panel discussions, and facilitated discussion groups. Patriot Plaza has also been revisited through a digital lens – adapting beyond its conventional role as a gathering place of peace and observance. Our community engagement team and beyond has reimagined what it means to work in and with community when our world must acknowledge new challenges in COVID-19.

As The Patterson Foundation looks into the next decade, we've certainly learned not to plan in ink, but rather pencil in our aspirations, ready to adapt and innovate as our community and our world responds to ever-changing context.