UNITED BRIDGES HONOREES. Winners of the inaugural United Bridges Diversity Awards include Pa Thao, left, and David Carlson, right.

So it finally looks like we’re gonna have a real summer. One of those honest-to-goodness, jam-packed, can’t-get-enough Chippewa Valley summers that we all know and love so much. And wow, at this point... we all deserve it. With that in mind we put together the Best of Summer issue you have in your very hands, previewing all the amazing opportunities before you to once again live life like it’s meant to be lived. So be safe, and soak up this summer in the best way you know how. But, this issue has even more than just that.

Featured on page 72 you’ll also find three wonderful articles by Volume One’s Rebecca Mennecke, profiling the recipients of the first ever Uniting Bridges Diversity Awards. The partnership to create these awards was formed when Dr. Selika Ducksworth-Lawton and her nonprofit, Uniting Bridges – which combines the forces of many local organizations advocating on behalf of under-represented groups in the Chippewa Valley – came to Volume One to help launch this program. We were thrilled at the opportunity to shed light on the work of these individuals and groups and are excited to publish the profiles just in time for them each to be honored at Juneteenth, the holiday marking the emancipation of those who had been enslaved in the United States. Juneteenth will be celebrated at the Pine Pavillion in Carson Park at 2pm on Saturday, June 19, in an event open to the entire community. Learn more about the honorees and the awards – presented by the Pablo Group – at VolumeOne.org/DiversityAwards.