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The Together Project launched in 2025 to catalyze a movement to vitalize community in America. A community where Americans have relationships they can rely on; one where we see the value of service in our lives; and one that offers purpose and meaning to act as a compass in a world that can make us feel unmoored. Ultimately, The Together Project seeks to help Americans make a key choice for their health and fulfillment: to choose community.The Together Project鈥檚 Chair, Dr. Vivek Murthy, focused on these issues throughout his term as 21st U.S. Surgeon General, which culminated with the release of his Parting Prescription for America. The Together Project represents an opportunity to build on that impact and help mobilize a coordinated movement to vitalize community in America.In 2025, Dr. Murthy and The Together Project will embark on a national listening tour and series of community engagements, with the support of the Knight Foundation and working with their community partners. These engagements will aim to lift up solutions that foster connection, reduce isolation and build social cohesion, and spotlight replicable and scalable models that help communities thrive and promote their replication across the country. -
About our Speaker: Alex Shephard is senior editor of The New Republic, where he has covered politics and culture since 2015. His work has also appeared in New York, GQ, The Atlantic, The Nation, and other publications.About the Program: Sports gambling is everywhere. After the Supreme Court struck down a federal law prohibiting it in 2018, states across the country quickly struck down their own bans. Today, 38 states not only allow residents to gamble on sports, they have opened up app-based betting that allows residents to wager on sports from their phones. It is now nearly impossible to watch any sporting event or sports coverage and not be awash with betting advertisements, punditry about odds, and constant nudges that remind viewers that they could be staking money on the outcome鈥攐r something as banal or trivial as whether or not the next pitch is a ball or a strike.For cash-strapped states, sports gambling has been a boon: It has opened up a new source of revenue that doesn鈥檛 involve levies or tax increases. But in less than a decade, there are alarming signs that the rush to legalize sports gambling has already led to steep increases in bankruptcy, domestic violence, drug and alcohol abuse, and suicides. But the societal cost of sports gambling goes well beyond the individual and the family: It鈥檚 also straining social resources and fraying community bonds.
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Charles Marohn, founder and president of Strong Towns, speaks about housing policy. This presentation offers a serious, yet accessible, history of housing policy in the United States and explains how it led us to this point in time where we face a market that is rigged against people. Only local change, on a neighborhood or city-wide scale, can begin to restore balance to the housing market. -
Jon Husted began serving Ohioans in the U.S. Senate in January 2025. For more than two decades, the people of Ohio have trusted him to fight for their jobs, values, and families. -
Dr. Cathy Faye is the Margaret Clark Morgan Executive Director of the Drs. Nicholas and Dorothy Cummings Center for the History of Psychology at The University of Akron. She is Center鈥檚 third Director and the first woman to hold this role. She is also an Associate Professor of Research in The University of Akron鈥檚 Department of Psychology. -
Join us at the Akron Roundtable to hear from Akron leaders about the city after the Innerbelt. -
During the Mayor Shammas Malik's first year in office, he has worked hard on a unifying vision for our city鈥檚 future, rooted in safe neighborhoods, good schools, affordable homes, equitable economic opportunity, and environmental sustainability. Through all of these initiatives, Mayor Malik remains dedicated to collaboration with the community he serves. -
Maribel P茅rez Wadsworth, President and CEO of Knight Foundation, asserts that the true power to effect change resides within our local communities. -
In conversation with scholar & journalist Steven T. Savides. -
As Superintendent, Lisa Petit's top priorities are to build strong, interdependent relationships between the park and the surrounding communities, protect and restore the natural and cultural heritage of the Cuyahoga Valley, and fulfill the purpose of CVNP as a 鈥淣ational Park to the People鈥� by making CVNP more accessible and relevant to the full diversity of residents in northeast Ohio and the American public. -
In her address to the Akron Roundtable, Feeding America President & COO Linda Nageotte will focus on food insecurity in America, sharing insights into why this problem exists so consistently 鈥� and pervasively 鈥� in every community across this nation. She鈥檒l talk about hungers鈥� disparate impact on people and communities, and she鈥檒l talk about how we can come together to end hunger in America. -
As the founder and artistic director of APOLLO鈥橲 FIRE, Jeanette Sorrell has led the renowned period ensemble in sold-out concerts at Carnegie Hall, the Madrid Royal Theatre, London鈥檚 BBC Proms, St Martin-in-the-Fields, and many other venues in North America and Europe. At home in Cleveland, she and Apollo鈥檚 Fire have built one of the largest audiences of any baroque orchestra in North America. -
On the last day of Akron's 199th year, historian Dave Lieberth looks back at the legacies that have provided the foundation for the city's growth. -
Dr. Tonya Matthews will share the rich history behind the planning and opening of the International African American Museum and some of the lessons learned along the way.
