On this past Tuesday, the 3rd annual celebration of Johnstown's Vision 2025 was held at Ace's in Cambria City. My wife and I proudly were a part of that celebration. In a room of hundreds, we listened and learned. The Vision 2025 initiative is full of buzz words and phrases - "capture teams", "life sustaining landscapes", and "youth engagement", to name a few, but it all comes down to community members coming together. That is how you capture, sustain, and engage.
So, we are the buzz and that is empowering. In that celebratory room and around Johnstown, you can see positive change. As a volunteer for the Bikes and Trails capture team, I have had the honor to chuck wood, sling mud, and dig dirt with a bunch of guys I never met until trail work began. Breaking new ground is never easy, especially when you are standing on a precarious hillside. Chainsaws have a buzz too.
On Saturday, I teamed up with a band of brothers to continue to build the Inclined Plane Trail. The end result is going to be an adventurous track for mountain bikers, hikers, runners, and nature lovers. Saturday's trail work was intense, ambitious, and unified. It was certainly manual labor, but it felt more like maniacal love - for outdoor adventure, for creating something new, and building a path for the future. A shout out to the guys I dug beside on Saturday - it was fun to dig deep and dream big.
I'm not sure what Johnstown will look like in 2025, but I know what Ace's looked like on Tuesday. I know what the trail looked like on Saturday. I like what I see.
Feel empowered. Capture. Sustain. Engage.
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