On December 10, 2025 at the Vita Brevis Club in San Francisco, 200 members of the Access Institute community came together to mark a historic moment in the life of the organization. The evening was organized to recognize my efforts to develop and steward the Institute over the past two decades. My retirement from my role as Executive Director created a moment for us to celebrate our collective achievement and embark together on the next chapter of Access Institute.

Standing in a room filled with people who have shaped Access Institute over the past 23 years, I felt something deeper than gratitude. I felt awe. I wished I could have thanked every person individually, because so many have contributed, often in more than one role, to what Access Institute has become. Friends and family, board members, donors, volunteers, artists, faculty, supervisors, community partners, staff, trainees, alumni: none of these contributions stand alone. Each effort has been multiplied through the collective. That is the power of community, and it is the real secret behind Access Institute’s success.

“Community” is a word that gets used so often that it can lose its meaning. For me, community is not a vague abstraction. It is a real experience of fellowship, created through shared values, common goals, and collaborative work. It is the experience of thinking together, creating together, and making meaning together. Working at the community level is driven not by one’s individual needs but by the desire to have an impact on the world beyond the self, a generative and social drive. We do find personal satisfaction and growth through those efforts, but the real meaning is experienced in relationship to others and to the social world.