Give It Up for Possibility City

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Everyone <3 Louisville
There are many reasons Louisville’s an exceptional place — a terrific quality of life, affordable housing, brilliant logistics, a genuine sense of can-do-it-iveness, an awesome park system, a commitment to education, and a host of others too numerous to list (although you can be sure we will sooner or later).

But the thing that brings it all together . . . that people and outside businesses leave here marveling at . . . is our openness to helping folks out coupled with our boundless capacity for hospitality.

Big City, Big Hearts, Big Shout Out
Because Louisville is such a giving place, it’s no surprise there are umpteen different ways to give. From the Arts Council of Louisville to Youth Build Louisville, Metro United Way to the Home of the Innocents, there’s a group out there in our community in need. Here’s your chance to be their biggest fan. Click here to share your favorite cause and a story of how that group has made a positive impact in making more things possible here.

“Frankly, My Dear, I Do Give a Day”
Beginning on October 17, Louisville is going to experience its first ever “Give A Day” week.

Over thirty non-profit agencies, faith-based institutions, and other organizations are getting together to make a difference. And whether you wield a paint brush or a rake, help serve meals to kids or the elderly, or sort clothing for needy families, you too can join in this community initiative to make our city a better place.

Individuals, companies, and groups can volunteer online for the Give A Day service projects by clicking here. If you can’t volunteer you can still make a difference by donating new or gently used clothing, shoes, or non-perishable canned goods: items can be dropped off at any of nine Metro Parks’ golf course clubhouses between 7:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m., Oct. 17–23. For golf course locations, click here. And for those more social media inclined, the fine folks at Louisville Digital Association will be doing their part. Check out their Web site for upcoming details or follow @PossibilityCity on Twitter.

Give Today. Give Tomorrow. Give Everyday
Think about it: By harnessing Possibility City’s natural resources of generosity, hospitality, compassion, and industriousness we can make our great city even greater.

Louisville Turns Up the Heat on Education

55,000 Degrees: The ultimate display of brain and brawn
In May, 2010, a public-private partnership was formed to increase the number of Louisville residents with college degrees. Not only did it bring all the community’s major players to the table — including the business community through GLI and the city through Metro Government — it involved primary, secondary, and post-secondary education leaders from public and private schools too.

Its aim? To increase the number of people with bachelor’s degrees by 40,000 and the number with associate degrees by 15,000. (So if you studied math, logic, and rhetoric, you’ll appreciate why the program is titled “55,000 Degrees.”)

As deep as a Doctor of Philosophy and as diverse as a 400-level course on Multicultural Cat-Herding
55,000 Degrees has a clear and compelling agenda — to increase education attainment, prosperity, and the quality of life — but it draws its necessity and support from a broad spectrum of needs, goals, and criteria:

• To attract new and develop local business, we need to provide access to a readily available pool of educated, talented, and capable workers.
• People with college degrees make considerably more than those with high school diplomas. The U.S. Census Bureau puts the average lifetime earnings of a person with a bachelor’s degree at $2.7 million compared to just $1.5 million for someone with a high school diploma.
• More college graduates translates into more community wealth through more tax revenues, retail purchases, and contributions to charities.
• So far over $1 million has been raised from local foundations over the start-up three years, including support from the James Graham Brown Foundation, the Humana Foundation, the C.E.&S Foundation, the Community Foundation of Louisville, and the JPMorgan Chase Foundation.
• In addition, one partner, Greater Louisville Inc, recently received an $800,000 grant from the Indianapolis-based Lumina Foundation to address one of the key objectives of the partnership — which is to support businesses helping working-age adults finish their degrees.

Continuing Education
To learn more about this important community initiative, you can go to www.55000degrees.com; or, if you’re the sort of student who’d rather read the Cliff Notes, you can watch the video above.

And the Winners Are . . . Louisvillians

My Fair Lady
Louisvillian Jennifer Lawrence starred in Winter’s Bone and now stands on the edge of Oscars greatness, being nominated for best actress in a motion picture. The nomination caps an incredible year for Lawrence, who also earned best actress nominations from the Golden Globes, the Screen Actors Guild, and the Film Independent Spirit Awards.

As a determined adolescent looking for her meth-making, bail-jumping daddy on the lam from a clan of murderous ne’er-do-wells in the Ozark mountains, Ree Dolly’s lifestyle couldn’t be further away from Lawrence’s Indian Hills upbringing in a “normal house, in a normal city.” Before heading to New York, Lawrence also trod the boards at Walden Theatre, at one point playing Desdemona in Othello.

Here’s wishing a big-time Possibilitator the very best luck this weekend!

Cavalcade
You probably already know D.W. Griffith hailed from Louisville, but there are many well-respected directors and filmmakers who can also call Possibility City home; here are just a few of them — and starring in alphabetical order:

— Todd Browning: Dracula
— Peter Byck: Carbon Nation
— Gill Holland: Hurricane Streets; Inside / Out; Sweet Land; Dear Jesse; Spring Forward
— Les Holland and Devon Wallace: Damon the Hafling
— Jen Edwards: Weekend at 3′s
— Evan Peters: The Poster
— Angela Shoemaker: A Place to Call Home
— Kathryn Spivey: Backwards Compatible; Poor Fortunates, Act 1
— Chad Stockfleth: Lauren Argo-21C
— Gus Van Sant: Drugstore Cowboy; Good Will Hunting; Milk

Did You Know…

• Louisville and Kentucky were made more attractive to filmmakers when State incentives were approved in 2009.
• State incentives will offer communities and small businesses economic opportunities when it comes to film production.
• The Kentucky Film Office Web site offers a handy-dandy production directory for everything from crew to talent to casting.
• The film Secretariart was the first film to recieve state incentives — portions of which were shot at Churchill Downs.