Serena Galleshaw at TEDxDirigo Generate
buwick it's my hometown it's one of those small main towns with two stop lights old abandoned farms and way too many used car dealerships it's not a place I pictured myself coming back to after college I figured I would ride the flow of millennial brain drain out of the state to find opportuni where opportunities seem to exist and it was on one of those very Adventures that I discovered a new perspective of community it affected me so much that when I did come back to Berwick I saw the town with a new set of eyes the town hall was not just the town hall it was the product of real people's sweat I thought about this as I sat in that town hall for a Downtown Vision committee meeting it was my first ever Civic meeting I had so much fun within two hours I was the vice chair of the committee it was great I became hooked on this project it was everything I studied in school I started scheming night and day and enter my mother Serena this is great you caring about the community and all but when are you moving out of this house you can't live here forever I'm working on it Mom but the truth was I didn't want to work on it and I wasn't alone a group of us Millennials decided enough with the nagging naysaying parents let's find a place to be brilliant together and then I had an idea my idea is The Graduate house it's collaborative housing for 20s somethings that's replicable it's not just about people getting together to split rent and chores it's about connecting like-minded people with diverse skill sets into a house to work on a self-directed mission it's like a startup it replaces The Internship internships suck they suck you're working on someone else's project The Graduate house allows you to work on what you're passionate about and when we work on what we're passionate about magic happens we've seen this to be true over the past few months we've started this experiment and it has not only benefited us as individuals but for the entire Community as well in just the past few months we've been able to open a beer and bread house create a 100 member Art Association start a sustainability committee host an entrepreneurial showcase and run for Town Council yeah yeah so we created our own reason to stay and that's how you fight brain drain thank you