Uniting for Change: Wayland Community Comes Together for SPIRIT Workshop

Wayland, MA – In a display of commitment to progress, the Wayland community came together at Wayland High School on Sunday, April 28, 2024, for a community-building workshop. Spearheaded by the Wayland Human Rights, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee (HRDEIC) and Wayland Select Board, the SPIRIT of Community Workshop drew 70 community members and leaders of many ages, backgrounds and affiliations, to collectively identify ways to make Wayland a community where everyone feels they belong. The workshop was open to adults and high school students and to anyone who lives, works, or worships in Wayland or is part of the school community.

Town Manager Michael McCall stated, “As the nation continues to struggle with many complex, polarizing issues, the Town of Wayland is working to address these challenges through open, honest dialogue in which everyone has a voice and every voice is heard.  The workshop was a wonderful event and important step towards making certain that Wayland remains a welcoming community for all people of all colors, religions or ethnicity.”  Conducted in partnership with the Community Relations Service of the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), the workshop aimed to empower participants to identify and prioritize pressing concerns and collaboratively devise solutions.

“Like many communities,” explained Karen Blumenfeld, Chair of the HRDEIC, “we’ve had some high-profile incidents that have torn at the fabric of our community. At the HRDEIC, we believe that what binds us together as a community is greater than what separates us. We wanted to find a way to bring people together, so we reached out to the DOJ Community Relations Service to ask if they could offer a community-building workshop in Wayland, and they agreed. The Select Board was all-in, as was the Town Manager, Michael McCall. And that’s how the Wayland SPIRIT of Community Workshop was born.”The SPIRIT workshop is a signature offering of the DOJ Community Relations Service. SPIRIT stands for Site Problem Identification and Resolution of Issues Together. The Community Relations Service has a rich history of working with communities around the country to tackle local challenges.

During the workshop, participants met in small groups, guided by pairs of volunteer facilitators and notetakers, to identify Wayland’s strengths in fostering inclusivity and to pinpoint barriers to being a safe and welcoming community for everyone. Then, after sharing small groups’ results with the whole group, participants voted to prioritize the top five issues. These issues were: lack of community gathering spaces, the rise of hate and bias incidents and the responses to these incidents, lack of a central news source, the need for affordable housing, and concerns about Town governance. Participants then began another round of small group conversations to propose solutions to the identified issues. 

Eighteen participants pledged to form a SPIRIT Council to champion the identified issues and shepherd the proposed solutions. The Council will meet over the coming 12-24 months, ensuring that the momentum of the workshop is sustained. Anne Brensley, a member of the Select Board, aptly dubbed the volunteers as ‘SPIRIT Keepers.’ “Today is not one and done,” she told participants. “Today is just the beginning, and you will be carrying forward the day’s work as ‘SPIRIT Keepers.”

The SPIRIT workshop demonstrated the transformative power of coming together as a community to work toward shared goals. The workshop was a testament to the Town’s embrace of positive change, and to community members’ willingness to share their valuable time, energy and ideas toward the goal of helping Wayland become a more cohesive, resilient and inclusive community.