In a world saturated with urgency and noise, pausing long enough to co-create can feel like a radical act. That’s what happened at Together, We Grow, the Alliance for Collective Action’s final community gathering of 2025. People came to unwind, reconnect, and get their hands messy with a collaborative art experience designed to spark imagination, quiet the pressure of the everyday, and remind us what’s possible when we build together. What unfolded was exactly what Alliance events are designed to create: an immersive space of connection, curiosity, and collective vision.
What We Created—and What Created Us
The evening centered on a hands-on creative experience: low pressure, simple structures, shared materials, and wide-open possibilities. The result was a beautifully chaotic mosaic of color, texture, and individual expression—proof that even within shared guidelines, each of us brings something uniquely our own. For some, the experience was meditative. For others, it was energizing, freeing, or unexpectedly cathartic. Many described the same feeling: “I didn’t realize how much noise I’d been carrying until it got quiet.”
By slowing down, focusing on the craft in front of us, and letting perfection fall away, participants discovered clarity and connection that’s hard to access in our daily pace. Structure didn’t limit creativity—it unlocked it. And in that unlocking, a powerful theme surfaced again and again.
And we saw a lot of the realities of our real world experience reflected in the final piece. Much like the natural world, our creativity did not recognize the borders we created; the work flowed naturally across the boundaries of the circle, much like our air, water and ideas do not care about zip codes or municipal boundaries. And while everything was created separately, these individual pieces came together into a large cohesive piece greater than the sum of its parts, illustrating what we all know to be true—while we all bring incredible vision and skills to the table, we are even more together. The finished piece was a celebration of what we love, what we want to see, and what we want to build together!
When we create together, we get to focus on what we’re for, not what we’re against.
Why This Gathering Matters Now
As 2025 draws to a close, many people in our community are carrying exhaustion and uncertainty. Together, We Grow offered a counterbalance: a moment to breathe, reconnect, and remember that transformation begins with imagination, and imagination grows through practice. In a year when we’ve mapped fears and values (Where Do We Go From Here?), elevated lived experience through storytelling (Stories as Seeds), and explored creativity as civic strategy (this gathering), a throughline has emerged: Community is not a backdrop. It is infrastructure.
And every time we gather, we strengthen it.
Enjoy this short video sharing highlights from the event.
What’s Next
We’d love to keep growing with you. Join us on Colorado Gives Day for an evening of community and celebration with our partners at the Sonoran Institute at the Colorado Sake Company, another chance to deepen ties and fuel collective action. Tickets are free; RSVP here.
And as always, the Alliance for Collective Action will continue designing immersive, relational experiences in 2026 — spaces where creativity, story, and community power shape a regenerative future we build together.
Until then, thank you. Thank you for showing up for yourselves, for one another, and for what we’re growing, together.