Purpose Prize

The Latest from CoGenerate

Got a Digital Illustration that Shows Generations Working Together?

Got a Digital Illustration that Shows Generations Working Together?

CoGenerate recently teamed up with Fine Acts, a global creative studio for social impact, to launch an open call for illustrations showing generations working together for change.  We’re looking for illustrations that show older and younger people coming together to...

A New Conversation About Service That Crosses Generations

A New Conversation About Service That Crosses Generations

Can a single meal begin to bridge divides? Back in January, two major partners in CoGenerate’s work teamed up to find out. On the MLK Day of Service, Generations Over Dinner and AmeriCorps joined with senior living communities across the country to host more than 100...

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Shirley Caldwell-Patterson

Cumberland River Compact
Purpose Prize Fellow 2006

Enhancing the future of the Cumberland River watershed

In 1997, at age 79, Shirley Caldwell-Patterson attended a presentation by Victor Scoggins who showed a film of his swim down the Cumberland River in Tennessee and Kentucky. A long-time conservationist, Patterson was appalled at the condition of the Cumberland River Basin, which consists of 14 watersheds and provides water to 2 million people. Recognizing that, in effect, we all live downstream, Patterson created the Cumberland River Compact with a mission to improve the water quality of the Cumberland River and its tributaries. Today the Compact is one of Tennessee’s leading environmental education organizations. Its goal of creating a Watershed Outreach Program in each of the 14 watersheds is halfway to completion. More than 300 elected officials have been educated about their community’s water resources and officials in the states of Kentucky and Tennessee have signed a Principles of Agreement to work jointly to improve the water supply in the future.