STAY Project Community Mapping Scavenger Hunt

You are about to embark on the STAY Project’s community mapping scavenger hunt! If we want to make our communities places where we can and want to STAY we have to know our communities. This scavenger hunt is adapted from the Highlander Center’s Mapping our Futures curriculum and is a way for you to get familiar with your community and share it with us.

Instructions 

1. Gather a crew or go solo

2. Look through the questions and decide which ones you want to tackle 

3. When you arrive at your destination you can:

   1. Take a picture/video of you/your crew there 

   2. Draw a picture 

   3. choose one of the discussion topics to talk about/journal about 

4. Upload your photos/drawings/thoughts to the STAY Project Scavenger Hunt Google Form and/or post your scavenger hunt pictures and videos to instagram/twitter/facebook/tiktok and tag @stayproject 

5. Have fun! There is no wrong way to do the scavenger hunt so be creative! 

Scavenger Hunt 

1. Find two places in your community where decisions that affect are being made?

   1. Who are the people making those decisions? 

2. Who are the directly impacted people who should be leading the work of transformation? Where do they live, work, and gather?   

3. Where are the places that make our community unwell? 

4. Find two major employers/places of work in your community

   • Discussion Questions:

     • Who does the work and who profits?

     • what kinds of jobs are there?

     • What do labor conditions look like?

     • Are there workplaces that are more equitable? Why are they?

     • What other forms of labor are there beyond wage-labor?

5. Find a place where people in your community go to school/learn

6. Find one place where people in your community where people go to gather

7. Find two places where we go to celebrate our culture, where we root in, where we go to heal. 

8. Where are the healthy bodies of water and accessible parks and nature in your community? Where are natural resources that are polluted or inaccessible?

9. Find three places people go to access resources and support? 

10. Find two places where wealth is held in your community

    • Who holds wealth? How did they get that wealth? 

11. Find up to three places where power is held in your community? 

    • One place where power is used in a negative way 

    • One place where power is being used in a positive way 

12. What is the name of your mayor? Do you know any city council members?

13. Where is the government and public services? Examples: Health department, VA, court, police, social services

14. What institutions and actors hold a lot of power?

15. Find one place where people are practicing a different approach to labor/ownership?

16. Find a Historical site in your community that has had a lasting impact on the way resources and power are held in your community

    • How does our knowledge of history help us form new community stories about our past, present, and future?

Bonus Journal/Discussion Questions 

1. What do you like about your community and what do you want to see changed?

2. What and where are the groups, places and institutions that are standing up and resisting?

3. Who is creating alternatives and what are some of these?

4. What do you need to survive & thrive in your community