The Caravan: A Service & Bridgebuilding Tour

THE CARAVAN

YEAR 2: A HEART FOR HUMANITY

About

We are a group of volunteers, adventuring across the U.S., on a journey to cultivate community, coalitions and compassion through service projects and courageous conversations.

1) COURAGE to step outside our comfort zone, to meet each other where we're at, while welcoming each other just as we are...

2) CURIOSITY to listen first to understand and to be open to perspectives beyond our own...

3) COMPASSION to care for each other's wellbeing and dignity, and help alleviate each other's suffering whenever we can...

To weave together a network of connection, care and belonging, one humanizing interaction at a time, in order to heal the divisiveness of our current moment.

OUR MISSION:

WHO WE ARE

COURAGE. CURIOSITY. COMPASSION.

OUR VALUES:

LEARN MORE

Donate

DONATE

If you'd like to donate toward our cause, we are accepting donations via Paypal and Venmo (click buttons below.)

Everyone involved in this project is a volunteer, and this project is entirely self-funded so we are deeply grateful for any and all donations toward our cause.

Your donations will go toward offsetting the out-of-pocket expenses of our service projects and bridgebuilding work, including making meals to feed people experiencing hunger and homelessness, random acts of kindness and generosity toward people in need, teaching and mentoring youth, and facilitating and producing bridgebuilding events for courageous conversations.

We would be glad to email you road updates along the way (only if you want) so you can see the journey unfold, and you can also follow us on our hashtag #whatisthecaravan to see our shared experience as we update about it.

Thank you!

*Note: Paypal/Venmo charge fees on all donations unless you use a "personal" account, so we are using a dedicated "personal" Paypal/Venmo account for this project, administered by treasurer/founder Benjamin Caron, so all your donations go directly to feeding people and healing our country. All funds sent for this project are catalogued with full financial transparency for anyone who requests it. Please email ConnectWithTheCaravan@gmail.com w/ any questions.

Route

OUR ROUTE:

PARTNER COMMUNITIES

1. St. Ansgar, IA

2. Kenosha, WI

3. Fort Wayne, IN

4. Nashville, TN

5. Washington, DC

6. Gettysburg, PA

7. Banner Elk, NC

8. Santa Fe, NM

9. Grand Junction, CO

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Our journey begins and ends on the West Coast, and travels as far as Washington, D.C., with 29 stops and 9 partner communities.

If we are traveling through your area and you want to arrange a meetup, please contact us!

Events

PUBLIC EVENTS:

Broadway/LA in The Heartland (Performing Arts Program in Collaboration w/ Cedar Summerstock Theater Company)

St. Ansgar, IA

5/31-6/8

Elevation Central Wellness Festival

Mt. Juliet, Nashville

6/21

Banner Elk Weekend of Service & Understanding

Banner Elk, N.C.

7/20-7/22

The Caravan

Pop-Up Connections

On the Road

Ongoing

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Kenosha Summer Shindig: Musical Collaboration & Community Event

Kenosha, WI

6/10-6/12

Washington D.C. Weekend of Service & Understanding

Washington, D.C.

6/29-7/2

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Santa Fe

Weekend of Service & Understanding

Santa Fe, NM

7/27-7/30

Fort Wayne Weekend of Service & Understanding

Fort Wayne, IN

6/16-6/18

Braver Angels National Convention

Gettysburg, PA

7/5-7/8

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Mesa County Weekend of Service & Understanding

Grand Junction, CO

8/3-8/5

Learn More

INSPIRATION & VISION

This project is largely inspired by the bridgebuilding work of two incredible organizations, Braver Angels and The Human Library, as well as the vision of The Beloved Community set forth by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and The King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, and the Dignity Model of Dr. Donna Hicks.

As this project is still in its infancy, we are approaching everything with a sense of humility, curiosity and hope. We are excited to learn and grow together in these efforts.

Our hope is that the experience will be so beneficial for all involved that we will be inspired to continue this project over many years, improving and honing our mission and process each year in order to be of greater service and impact for the healing of our country and humanity.

HOW IT STARTED: A NOTE FROM THE FOUNDER

"I wanted to share a little bit about how this project came to be and why I think it's important...

The idea for this project began during the 2016 election, when I watched as Americans began to speak about our fellow citizens with increasing anger, contempt and distrust.

Living in Los Angeles and traveling internationally, but having grown up in a small, rural Midwestern town, I felt that I existed between many worlds, with a unique understanding of our growing divisions: urban & rural, liberal & conservative, monoculturalism & multiculturalism, nationalism & globalism.

Over the following 6 years, I became passionate about bridge-building, and volunteered and trained with organizations like Braver Angels, The King Center for Nonviolent Social Change, and The Human Library (I now work for the Human Library Organization.)

I also traveled across the country, meeting people, having conversations and producing bridge-building events and projects like the web-series "Home Again: Conversations from The Heartland" and "The Re:United States of America Project," a 6-week Zoom conversation series held during the 2020 election.

After 5 years in the work, at the end of 2021, I began to dream of what it might mean to create an experience where we could get out of our bubbles, be of service, and try to have courageous conversations. Based on existing relationships and local partnerships, a national service and bridge-building tour was created, called The Caravan.

I invited trusted friends and colleagues to join me, hoping that over the next 5 years we could develop a philanthropic travel experience that would be so rewarding that it would be something that people would want to return to again and again, inviting their friends and family to join, and growing the impact and the scope of the project until it became not only a highly-effective means for personal and societal healing, but also a symbol of hope and possibility in a time of hopelessness and helplessness.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and consider the potential of this project."

-Ben Caron

YEAR 1 RECAP

Las Vegas Launch: We began our adventure in hot and sunny Las Vegas, NV, where the team excitedly assembled for the first time on May 25th...

I'd left Los Angeles earlier that morning in our first "mini-Caravan," followed by my friend Radiance and her 14-year-old daughter Sylvin, who had journeyed all the way from Fort Wayne, Indiana to meetup in LA the night before. Radiance is on a mission to facilitate conversations about mental health, and Sylvin is a radical being blossoming into her own great power and purpose.

We weaved through LA mid-day traffic that Wednesday, making our way across the desert, with Radiance and Sylvin in their red pickup truck, packed with art (more on that later), while I cruised in Carrie Reinagel's Chevy Volt hybrid. (Gratitude moment- Carrie generously donated her vehicle, to use without her, for 8 weeks, which served us all immensely by cutting down our gas costs and giving us a way to get around locally. Thank you Carrie!)

We arrived late in the afternoon into Vegas to greet our big-hearted, hilarious, and wildly creative chef, Dennis Starks (pictured above.) Dennis was the head of our food service project, and he had flown in from Houston, TX earlier that week to shack up with our friends Nia and TJ (thanks T.J. and Nia!) and prepare all the food supplies for our trip.

Our small and mighty team sprung immediately into action, assembling racks and organizing supplies, and when all was gathered and organized, we'd packed five massive Home Depot tubs of spices, cookingware, servingware and accoutrements, ready to feed new friends around the country (thank you to our generous donors who allowed us to buy our supplies! Below is a pic of our kitchen gear packup job in motion.)

Soon, through the door, arriving from a long drive from Chicago, came our brother and teammate David "Kasper" Krich, pulling up in his brand-new, 32-ft R.V., M.J. (pictured above) named after his father. Kasper generously offered to transport our kitchen gear and our bodies for the journey, and we all were super excited to get to explore M.J. for the first time. (Gratitude moment- this project wouldn't have been possible without Kasper's beautiful R.V., which became all of our second home. It was invaluable to our journey --thank you Kasper!)

After we loaded up, we met the rest of our friends at our hosts Greg Sample and Jim Harenberg's home for our launch event, intended to bring everyone together to celebrate the launch of our endeavor. The setting was gorgeous (thank you Greg and Jim!) and the energy was bright and hopeful, with many people meeting for the first time, or reuniting for the first time in years.

In a toast, I shared how much of a leap of a faith this whole project felt like to me, and how grateful I was to be lifted in that leap by our community of friends.

After much laughter and many stories, we turned in for the night and prepared to head out on our grand adventure the next morning...

Zion/Bryce Canyon: Before arriving at our first community partnership in Grand Junction, we stopped off at Zion and Bryce Canyon National Parks for a weekend of team and community building in nature. The views were stunning, we created incredible, life-long memories, deep connections, and the weekend imbued the perfect energy we needed to supercharge the service-work that lied ahead (thank you Paul Grasshoff and T.J. for setting up this retreat!)

ur last day of driving before Grand Junction brought us to Moab, Utah, where we visited Arches National Park and the home of our new friend Richard Cooke of Freenotes.

Richard is a visionary inventor and musician who creates musical instruments for public parks and spaces. Richard shared with us his story and philosophy, and showed us his many beautiful instruments, as well as his expansive property in Moab. We were excited to see him again in a few weeks at his home in Durango.

Grand Junction, Colorado: The first official community partnership on our tour, Grand Junction, Colorado has become very special to me because not only is it where one of my life-long best friends, Becky Levin, lives with her family but it also was a community partner for our Re:United States of America Project in 2016, and has borne many beloved friendships and collaborative partnerships in the years since.

Building off the trust and friendship that we cultivated in 2016, this year we collaborated with local community leaders and the mayor of Grand Junction, Anna Stout, to co-create a week of "Service and Understanding."

Grand Junction Week of Service & Understanding

During the week our group joined with local community members for a vast array of bridge-building and service events ranging from a very-fun history pub crawl, to a river clean-up, a Human Library, Neighbor's Night at the local library with a Drag Queen/King Story Hour, a facilitated 2nd Amendment conversation and visit to a local gun range, Courageous Conversations across differences, a mutual aid event with Mutual Aid Partners feeding people experiencing hunger and homelessness and many more. We were inspired by the leadership and initiative of our Grand Junction friends, and it was especially fun to be hosted by our local friends Bill & Karen Wade, who fed us at their home and took amazing care of us while we were in town (thanks Bill & Karen!)

Durango, CO: After a busy and impactful week in Grand Junction, our team was ready to rest for a bit, and we were very lucky to be hosted again by Richard Cooke (thank you Richard!) at his glorious mountain property in Durango, CO.

Together our team enjoyed playing Richard's many outdoor percussion and tonal instruments, taking in the view, learning silks in his attic, and having rich discussions over home-made dinner at his kitchen table. We also got to welcome two new team members (thank you Matthew and Ashley for all the love and service you brought to our team!) and meet some very cool new local friends in Durango, Rayne and Alyssa, who we can't wait to collaborate with next year (thanks Rayne and Alyssa for being such gracious hosts!)

Taos, New Mexico: We were lucky to have a day and night in magical, mystical Taos, New Mexico. Our teammate Samira shared with us Taos's iconic Earthships, which are self-sufficient, autonomous buildings designed to utilize local and recycled materials.

Samira also brought us to The Lama Foundation, a mountainside spiritual community, educational facility, and retreat center (with gorgeous buildings and grounds) founded in 1967. There we shared a meal with members of the community, toured the grounds and learned about the Lama Foundations' way of life and philosophy. It was inspiring to hear about the incredible legacy of the center and the ways that they facilitate community and communal living.

That night, after driving around belting Celine Dion and Mariah Carey at the top of our lungs, we walked over the Rio Grande Gorge Bridge and danced our way through a Sonic Drive-thru at closing time.

The next day we visited Samira's friend Alessandra, at the Peñasco Theater Collective, a powerful leader of a community theater space in Peñasco, NM "dedicated to fostering community building, collective empowerment and social transformation through the arts." She shared with us how she's spent the last 2o years learning about and serving the local community through the arts. Speaking with her inspired all of us toward a greater vision of how the Caravan could contribute in the future.

It was really cool to get to see Taos, NM and the surrounding area through Samira's curation, based on her past experiences there (thank you Samira for guiding us on that beautiful 24-hour visit!)

Santa Fe, New Mexico: Santa Fe is the home of our powerhouse teammate Celeste Verduzco, who shared with us two spectacular sites: Stardreaming and Meowolf's House of Eternal Return.

Stardreaming is an extraordinary sacred site where a mystical man named James Jereb has built 17 temples that you can journey through, meditating, praying and exploring. Our group reverently visited many temples including "The Temple of Dreams," "The Sanctuary of Ancestors" and the "Temple of Magic," taking in each temples' unique intention and ritual.

We also visited Meowolf's House of Eternal Return, which is an immersive art experience, created and curated by the world-famous art collective Meowolf, where each room is a different, encompassing aesthetic that you get to explore and play in. We had such a good time galavanting around the grounds, getting lost in each world, playing like kids on a multiversal playground.

Weatherford, Oklahoma: Weatherford, Oklahoma is a small city of 10,000 people, about an hour outside of Oklahoma City, where we hosted our first bridge-building dinner on our journey, generously hosted by Dennis's lifelong friend, designer Kelly Amen (thank you Kelly!)

This was really the place where our Chef, Dennis, got to shine in his full creative glory. He prepared a GORGEOUS, five-star, 3-course meal, that we hosted for the community for free, from the Stafford Air & Space Museum (THANK YOU DENNIS!) Dennis was assisted by a badass kitchen team of Radiance and Paul, who helped prepare the food all day, and then served the food in fabulous dress attire that night (thank you Radiance and Paul!)

The Stafford Air & Space Museum is a world-class museum with a fantastic staff (thank you Theresa!) The museum celebrates the history of aviation and space travel, as well as the life and work of Thomas P. Stafford, a Weatherford-born astronaut who symbolically ended the space race with Russia in 1975 through an act of good will and eventual life-long friendship. His story is a useful example of bridge-building at work, and the museum was a perfect setting for this elegant event that brought people together across differences of culture, ethnicity, lifestyle and ideology for courageous conversations.

The event was incredibly successful, with a lot of positive feedback, not only on the delicious food and its presentation, but also in that it was a great opportunity to understand one another's differences as well as our many similarities through civil conversation (the crux of our project.)

The dinner was attended by the Mayor and his staff, including city staff member Todd who helped me later that evening when I got a flat tire driving the RV. Todd and I had great conversations while he gave me a place to stay over night until we could replace the tire the next morning (thank you Todd!)

Weatherford felt like another big win, with heartfelt connection. It was a fantastic high to ride into our next set of adventures in Oklahoma City, Tulsa, and Memphis, where we dropped into the racial history of our country and gained new teammates including my 18-year old nephew and his girlfriend...

Oklahoma City: After our impactful and rewarding bridge-building dinner in Weatherford, OK, our crew headed to Oklahoma City where we had a day/night off hosted by our dear friend Julian Mitchell (thanks Julian!) Julian had returned home to Oklahoma City from Los Angeles during the pandemic, and was a huge help in finding us a place to stay, as well as taking us out to see the city. It was great to catch up with him and to see the city through his eyes. We're excited to get to co-create with Julian again next year in OKC.

We also gained 2 members to our ongoing party-- our LA pal Craig Stoa and our mainstay Kasper (who had left The Caravan for a week of work, and was returning) Below you'll see our expanded crew, getting ready for our next haul from Tulsa to Nashville. You can also see more pics from Kasper's return and experience in Tulsa here.

Tulsa, OK: In Tulsa, Oklahoma, we started our day at "The Gathering Place," a beautiful 66.5-acre park along the Arkansas River, where we met up with my nephew Dakoda and his girlfriend Adrianna. Dakoda had just graduated from high school in Missouri, and I'd invited them both to join us on the adventure as they made their way to visit his father, my brother Michael, in Georgia. Dakoda and Adrianna are smart, sweet and inquisitive young people, and it was fun to connect with them in this new context, as well as have family be a part of this project.

That afternoon, we all went to Greenwood, an area of Tulsa commonly known as "Black Wall Street," to go on The Real Black Wall Street Tour, a walking tour lead by a knowledgeable and passionate Greenwood descendant, Chief Amusan (pictured below.)

Chief shared with us that, leading up to the 192os, Greenwood was a thriving Black community where Black people were experiencing incredible financial and cultural success (which was difficult to achieve in a time with severe racial oppression.) In 1921, racial resentment in Tulsa was high, and white Tulsans were wary of the power and success their Black neighbors were gaining. On May 31st and June 1st, in an act of racial terrorism, a mob of White Tulsans burned and destroyed more than 35 square blocks of Greenwood, and murdered 26 Black Tulsans, while leaving nearly 10,000 people homeless. This horrific event was known as the "Tulsa Race Massacre" and has been largely covered up until recent history.

Chief took us through the neighborhood, showing us photographs of Greenwood before the massacre, inviting us to imagine it as it was. He walked us through the events leading up to and following the massacre. It was a solemn and powerful experience, one that we were all very moved by, and I won't ever forget.

We're grateful for Chief (thanks Chief!) and the professionalism and passion with which he lead our tour.

Memphis, TN: We arrived into Memphis after camping in Arkansas the night before to visit The National Civil Rights Museum at The Lorraine Hotel, the site of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s assassination. It felt heavy and meaningful to stand at the site where Dr. King was shot. The balcony he was standing at was marked by a white wreath, and two classic cars were parked below it to transport the viewer back in time to the moment it happened. It was a powerful reminder of the price Dr. King paid to lead us all forward.

The museum within the hotel physically travels the historic journey from the Transatlantic Slave Trade through to Jim Crow and the Civil Rights Movement, all the way to modern day issues of civil rights we still face today (including immigration reform, the prison-industrial complex, and police brutality.) The detailed and immersive exhibition really drives home how long and arduous the road to progress has been on our way toward justice and equality. It also made it clear how far we still have to go on this journey. The museum highlights so many heroic Black Americans (Marcus Garvey, Ida B. Wells, Malcolm X, James Baldwin, Sojourner Truth, Bayard Rustin, Harriet Tubman) over hundreds of years who gave their energy, time, bodily safety, and oftentimes lives, in the fight for equality.

Leaving the museum, I thought to myself, "Every Black person that I meet is a miracle. Their ancestors survived the deadly cruelty of slave ships, slavery, Jim Crow terrorism, the war on drugs, economic injustice, and so many other forms of racial oppression for them to be here, in this time." It gave me an even deeper respect and reverence for the incredible resilience of Black families and Black communities.

Nashville, TN: Our week in Nashville began with a pivot. Initially, we'd planned for a bridge-building community faire in collaboration with my friend Christy Lynn Hicks, but due to COVID complications (which were bound to happen at some point as we traveled across the country in a pandemic), we got to create new plans on the fly.

We unfortunately had to cancel the community faire, and instead we began the week with a few days of self-care, service work and sight-seeing, as we welcomed one of my nearest and dearest, Daniel Hartman, to the crew.

One of our first nights included a backyard yoga class and sound healing with my local friend, the multi-talented Christi Anne Bela (thank you Christi Anne!) whose podcast I appeared on earlier this year.

The next day, Dennis lead our food service team in making and handing out chicken salad wraps and cold water on what was an incredibly hot day in June, in Downtown Nashville (pictured above.)

(**A short note on our aprons: the yellow aprons with our logo were generously custom-made and donated by Dennis's friend Father Tommy Goodwin, who is a costume-designer in Corpus Christi, TX. They are beautiful and became the visual representation and welcoming image of our food service project. THANK YOU FATHER TOMMY!)

That early evening, we traveled to a shelter near City Winery, and walked around the neighborhood, connecting with groupings of local people in need, who were grateful for the cool drink and delicious food. They shared stories, laughter and smiles with Matthew, Ashley, Craig, Daniel, Dennis and me, and when we'd run out of food and water to share, we departed for a night out in Nashville.

We first explored East Nashville, a trendy neighborhood known for restaurants and nightlife, before we made our way to the legendary Santa's Pub, a year-round-Christmas-themed bar with nightly karaoke. There, Kasper, Daniel, Craig and I belted "Walkin' In Memphis," quickly changing the lyrics to "Walkin' in Nashville" after we intuited that Nashville residents were not entirely fond of Memphis (I still need to investigate that perceived rivalry.)

The second half of our Nashville journey took place about 20 minutes outside of Nashville, in a suburb called Mount Juliet, where we were finally united with one of my favorite humans and collaborators on the p