The MAPE Circle Project offering more dates

The MAPE Circle Project launched earlier this year and are now adding more meeting dates. The next meeting will be Wednesday, March 31. Sign up in the Portal.

Connection is at the center of Circles. Circles are a formal and ancient form of meeting that fosters conditions for healthy community and respectful conversation where one person speaks and the rest listen. The Circle process has been practiced by many cultures for thousands of years. Across Minnesota today, Circles are practiced in classrooms, correctional facilities, neighborhoods, churches, workplaces, court systems and other community locations. 

The idea for the MAPE Circle Project came about this past spring after the pandemic forced most state employees to work from home instead of their agency offices. Check-in calls to members showed many were feeling alone in the new COVID-19 reality.

“There was some discussion on ways to help people to connect to each other. We’d been trying to bring Circles to MAPE for some time. We’ve been so disconnected through COVID-19. We really wanted to give folks a place to come and make a connection with other people and start to rebuild a sense of community, even if it was virtual,” Region 19 Director Lynn Butcher said.