Posted on June 30, 2023
On June 4, 2023, Pangea members and friends gathered at the Mt Baker Community Club to celebrate Pangea’s 20th anniversary. Below is an excerpt from the presentation made at the event by Janet Pearson, Board President.
When I look around the room….my heart is filled with joy. Because we are finally able to come together as a community. The last time we gathered for an annual meeting was in 2019. That seemed like a long time ago! For such a people-oriented group – it’s fair to say that these last few years have been a challenging time.
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Posted on June 30, 2023
By Allan Paulson, June 4, 2023
At our 20th year anniversary celebration, Allan Paulson, a founding Pangea member, shared his recollection of the early days that formed our giving circle.
In November, 2001, I received an email out of the blue inviting me to come to a discussion about how we could promote better understanding across cultures and countries. This was a few months after the 9/11 attack. One of the disconcerting back stories that emerged focused how much dislike and hatred there was toward Americans, and America in many parts of the world. I decided to go, and found myself in a large conference room high up in the Columbia Tower with 40-50 other people.
The meeting was convened by Martin King, a successful, serial tech entrepreneur who had a deep passion for social justice. “There must be something we can do to promote international understanding and peace, other than bombing brown people,” he said, referring to the start of the war in Afghanistan. It was a very eclectic group of academics, NGO leaders, and philanthropists that Martin and his facilitator Peter Blomquist had scraped from their rolodexes. I learned later that my name came off the registration list of a conference on international giving that Martin and I had recently attended.
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Posted on June 30, 2023
By Susan Sola, June 15, 2023
Left to right: Sharon Bissell, Lorraine Toly, Paul Silver, Susan Sola, and Christina Marra
Pangea’s Latin America Pod recently hosted a meeting with Sharon Bissell, former executive director of the MacArthur Foundation in Mexico. Sharon is now co-chair of Acento (www.acento.org), the MacArthur Foundation’s social justice and human rights legacy in Mexico.
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