The Kettering Foundation’s Dayton Democracy Fellowship is a one-year program that supports innovative leaders, changemakers, and dreamers who are building movements for inclusive democracy in their communities and in our wider world. This series of articles about the Dayton Democracy Fellows highlights their robust work and the powerful narratives that drive the advancement and defense of democracy. 

As an artist, activist, and electrical engineering technician, Kettering Foundation Dayton Democracy Fellow Vibes often finds themself immersed in different communities. For Vibes, democracy is about forming connections between them. 

One of their many projects, Heart Connectz, strives to build community bonds and bridge the gaps between Dayton organizations. The group is based upon the idea that important democracy work can happen outside of traditional organizing, Vibes said. 

“For example, a monthly biking group . . . imagine the people that run the library going biking with people that run a music venue and what kind of conversations may happen out of that. It’s a little bit more of an abstract approach to creating momentum so that we’re not really interfering with what’s going on. We’re just creating more possibilities that things will go on.” 

According to Vibes, simply talking about democracy in these casual contexts creates “opportunity and momentum” as well as interactions with the people who are engaged. Indeed, Vibes chose their unusual name out of the recognition that individual identity depends to a certain degree on interaction with others. “We all are affecting the world around us. . . . We are cocreating with other people,” they said. 

Vibes’s focus on community-building is rooted in a metaphor: Democracy is a bridge, and a bridge represents where we are going. But before someone can even get on this bridge, we all have work to do. Their basic needs must be met. 

“The work before you get on the bridge is capacity building, housing work and food pantries, access to health care. For example, people don’t care about voting if they can’t keep the gas on. Why would they participate when they don’t know if they’re going to live?” they asked. “Being on the bridge is the actual shifting of different systems that are either supporting or working against us.” 

Once the systems are most efficient, we can cross the bridge, says Vibes. 

“On the other side of the bridge are the opportunities to work together, opportunities to imagine new systems and live in the kind of society that we want to have. . . . If people are supported, more will be crossing the bridge,” they said. 

Vibes says that the Kettering Dayton Democracy Fellows are a great example of those working to support people, no matter where they fall on the metaphorical bridge. 

“The work that we’re doing is this new paradigm shift of creating the world that we want. We can start building it in a way that is in support of people back at the beginning. And to me that sounds pretty constructive.” 

Vibes also works as a production team member at The Brightside, a Dayton music and event venue. 

“[The venue is] another way we can create opportunities to celebrate Dayton, celebrate art and experience, and what we have to offer to each other. [It also] brings in other people from other cities,” Vibes said. They are also on the production team of Healing Arts Dayton and executive director of Coco Collective Arts. Art, they said, is a critical part of democracy: “It can be a voice for the voiceless.” 

With all of their projects, Vibes’s goal is to bring the city together. 

“The underlying thing between all of these projects is putting Dayton on the map . . . and coming to understand that to put Dayton on the map nationally, we have to put Dayton on the map locally. It has to be on our map. If it doesn’t matter to us, then why would it matter to people in Colorado or Michigan?” asked Vibes. “We have to matter to us. This has to matter to us.” They recited a quote from Mother Teresa, who said, in part, “If you want to change the world, go home.” 

Vibes credited their mother with emphasizing the importance of helping others. “My mom raised me working in the community,” they said. “She is a social worker and a community activist and worked in schools, writing curriculums around nonviolence, communication, and doing community-building activities with kids and adults. I was always helping her with those types of things, and she kind of instilled into me the commitment of being the first to arrive, the last to leave.” 

Those lessons had an impact and have influenced how Vibes lives as an adult. 

“What I’m really trying to create now is a city that is full of people that love the city,” Vibes said. “So when people think, ‘Oh, Dayton. Everyone there loves that place,’ it creates more opportunities for people to get involved and have their voices be heard and express themselves.” 

While threats to democracy loom over the United States, Vibes is optimistic about the future of democracy and the engagement they can see on a local level. 

“All this regression in society to me indicates there’s just as much progression happening. There’s just as much constructive momentum. There seems to be an upward trend toward a more constructive and supportive society. So it seems that hope is and has been outweighing all this fatalism,” says Vibes. 

 

“I’m kind of an absurdist in the sense of like, none of this matters. So like, let’s just be together. It’s likely that we’ll never be able to help everyone or never do enough, never do it all. What we do, or what we can do, does matter to the people who are affected by that,” they said. 

Maura Casey is a former editorial writer for the New York Times and has worked with the Kettering Foundation since 2010.

The Charles F. Kettering Foundation Dayton Democracy Fellowship is a one-year program designed to support innovative leaders, changemakers, and dreamers who are building movements for inclusive democracy in their communities and in our wider world.