The Connecting Point

(creation of this page is still in progress) Welcome to The Connecting Point. A non-profit organization, The Connecting Point is also physical space, a place where ideas are made manifest. Specifically, it is a small business incubator. Using grants from local foundations and the contributions of individuals, The Connecting Point provides a safe start for fledgling businesses, receiving from them in return a commitment to participate in sustained community-building over the course of their existence.

The Connecting Point will provide:

management support
a place in which to do business at lower-than-average market costs
access to computer hardware and business management software at no cost
a philosophical direction.

In return, the businesses chosen to participate will agree to help build the Charleston community in specific ways over the course of their existence.

(Please come in)

An Idea Thanks to CNN and NPR and cable TV, Americans have access to facts and statistics and images from all over the world. And yet, even with all of that extra information, the sense is that we as a people do not necessarily feel more informed than we did ten to twenty years ago; if anything, we feel less knowledgable, more isolated from each other. We don't lack facts. What's harder to come by is a sense of community, of connectedness, of understanding. Ultimately, to be full formed citizens, we need both news about what is happening and news about what brings us together, where our connecting points lie. That is the mission of The Connecting Point: to advance the feeling of community by providing a place where gathering and participation in community activities can take place on a day-to-day basis.

In order to find our connecting points, we have to be able to communicate, we have to have a common language. Consider this: when we hear an artist muse via her craft about the nature of being and the importance of living fully-connected lives, don't we come closer to being able to articulate the importance of these things to ourselves, personally? Can a political speach do that, can a newcast do that? Art can, and does. It can help to bring a community closer together. As one artist shares her joy or sadness with another human being, a true sense of community grows. To paraphrase John Updike, art teaches us a language whereby we can talk to one another about what matters most. The Connecting Point will foster the teaching and learning of this language, and will provide a place for the discussion and participation to take place, in an easy, comfortable atmosphere that can be made part of our daily routines.

Community Building Currently, there is a great need to rebuild geographic communities dedicated to the need of people from different walks of life, ethnic groups, and socioeconomic groups to understand each other's positions. This enterprise will provide a place and a reason for diverse groups to gather. Upper King Street is an ideal location for such a dynamic enterprise, as it is currently undergoing its own rebuilding effort.

You can link to other sites associated with The Connecting Point. Click here to travel there.

Our goal is to create a self-sustaining community reinvestment engine, one that will provide members of the Charleston Community with an in-road to their own creativity.

If you have comments or suggestions, email us at casspeg@charleston.net

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