Greetings from the beautiful Brainerd Lakes area of Minnesota! Our names are Rachel Jurtisch and Erica Bjelland. We are two millennial women living and working in the Brainerd Lakes area. We have the great honor of serving on the 100 Rural Women board and are coordinating the first ever 100 Rural Women Leadership Exchange, which is a program that connects women across generations. Not only do we work together at the Rural Renewable Energy Alliance (RREAL), a nonprofit in Backus, MN, but we are amazing friends! *GASP*
What does this 100 Rural Women Leadership Exchange entail? Well, hold on to the edge of your seats, folks! We’ll tell you. Each quarter, we meet up with a group of about 25 super women in the area that gather at a woman owned or operated business in the area. The quarterly meetings consist of an area woman speaking about her experience as a rural woman in leadership, a shared meal supporting a locally woman owned restaurant, and leadership growth opportunities. Our group consists of women working in a variety of sectors and Generation Z, Generation X, Millennial, and Boomer generations. Especially as young women in our 20’s, we saw a need to be more intentional about creating space to connect with women from a variety of backgrounds. So we did it!
In January, we had our first meeting at Sprout, a nonprofit food hub in Little Falls. Thanks to our good friend (shout out to Fallon!) and employee at Sprout, we got a tour of Sprout, ate delicious soup from Jordie’s in Bowlus, and we each got to tell a story about ourselves through three objects we brought. It was really fun to hear each person talk about themselves and to give each person the chance to talk. Whether they were super shy or extremely outgoing, this activity provided an opportunity for people to talk about more than the typical intro statements like, “Hi, I’m Rachel. I work at RREAL, and I’m from Pennsylvania.” Instead, we learned that Rachel is a Minnesota grandma at heart that loves to crochet and would do anything for her family and friends (summarized lovingly by Erica).
At the end of the meeting, each person was paired with a partner from a different generation, and the partner pairs meet one-on-one about once a month. The exchange is different than a mentorship program because it acknowledges that there is wisdom and experience from all generations to learn from one another (even the lazy Millennials ;)), not just a mentor pouring knowledge on a mentee (hence the name, Leadership Exchange!).
Our favorite part of this whole initiative has been all the incredible women that agreed to be part of it. There are several women in the group that we personally look up to that graciously have given their time to guide us and be part of this. We still get goosebumps thinking about all the incredible, accomplished women that are committed to this! We think the turnout is a testament to the value of being intentional about creating space for intergenerational connections.
Shoutout to everyone in the Leadership Exchange for making this so fun for us! And huge props to Teresa for seeing potential in us and asking us to be part of creating this! We are so grateful for all the amazing women in our lives.
If you are interested in learning more about this initiative or starting one in your community, feel free to send us an email: erica.bjelland@gmail.com
Listen to us speak about the Leadership Exchange on KAXE’s Strong Women podcast!
Thank you!
Erica & Rachel | Rachel & Erica
P.S. We had a lot of fun giggling and writing this. Hopefully you liked reading it. Keep your eyes peeled for our next post!
