Rowan Hotchkiss, 16, of Port Townsend, is headed to Moray, Scotland, as an ambassador for Jefferson County at the Findhorn Foundation's New Story Summit, Sept. 27-Oct. 3.

About 70-80 intergenerational participants are expected to attend the workshop, which features community leaders coming together to talk about sustainable solutions.

Hotchkiss has been interviewing Jefferson County residents, gathering their perspectives on what needs to change in the world and ideas for how to improve sustainable practices. She plans to put together a video documentary about her experiences at the workshop, with help from local filmmaker Jane Champion, with the aim of helping communities find solutions to social and economic problems by improving communication and collaboration. "The Story Summit is a great opportunity for Jefferson County to help young people learn from their elders ... and be inspired by the rest of the world," Hotchkiss said. "Part of my goal is to create pathways."

Hotchkiss is currently attending Peninsula College online, earning both high school and college credit toward her associate's degree. The video is to be part of her senior project.

She has interviewed people from Fort Worden, the Jefferson Land Trust, and other organizations in preparation for her role as an ambassador. She'll take local stories to the Summit, learn there about possible pathways to solutions, and bring those ideas back. In doing so, she wants to help the community be more supportive of local farmers and farmers markets, local entrepreneurs and local youth.

She said she's "excited to learn ... about sharing a new story for our future that's not focused so much on war and money."

"When we're able to communicate and have a collaboration," we can support our farmers and others more than a large corporation does, she said.

Hotchkiss' parents were part of the Ojai Foundation, bringing groups together in councils and facilitating communication, so she knows about councils: people sitting in a circle with a set intention to be open to everything everyone says. Her parents are going to be traveling in Europe while she's in Scotland, and she'll go with them to Vienna, Austria, after the Story Summit because her father is facilitating a young professionals' leadership conference there.

Hotchkiss has been working as an intern with local event planner Danny Milholland, a powerhouse in the local world of community-building and facilitating fun, creative events for all ages. She did a lot of work with the Cake Picnic during the Rhododendron Festival and the All-County Picnic, she said.

About 15 people attended a fundraiser and celebration at RoseWind Common House on Sept. 16, where Hotchkiss invited the group to share their stories with her.

One attendee praised the mentoring relationship of Milholland and Hotchkiss, and mentioned the fact that Native Americans from our area had a different kind of economy than our current capitalist system; they had a "potlatch" economy based on abundance, where status was gained by sharing.

John Hamilton said to Hotchkiss, "It's so refreshing to see you and hear you talk about the changes you want to make in the world, because they're the same changes I want to make ... I'm very proud of you, Rowan."

Another, who identified himself as a former engineer, gave Hotchkiss a precautionary tale.

"Complex social-economic systems are critically damped, and if you kick them ... strange things can happen ... unintended consequences," he said. He explained about how engineers gauge a system before they tweak it, and said, "try to apply that kind of analysis and see if you can predict unintended consequences, good and bad, of trying to tweak a complex socio-economic system."

Jefferson County Sheriff candidate Wendy Davis spoke about the need for solutions to the social problems that lead to the same people being arrested over and over for the same crimes.

Douglas Milholland mentioned nuclear power and the problem of what to do with depleted uranium. "None of us want the nuclear thing, but we're sort of stuck with it," he said.

Hotchkiss heard everyone's story.