New Orleans as Our Classroom: C8’s National Retreat

The national trip to New Orleans wasn’t a break from the work of our C8 Innovation Space fellows. It was “the work.”

This year, New Orleans became our classroom. Not like a workshop where you sit quietly and take notes, but the kind where you have to stay alert, stay honest, and confront what you don’t yet understand. New Orleans has a way of pulling that out of people.

The city shows how change actually happens when people stay rooted in community, values, and courage. The national trip has always been part of the Moonshot fellowship, but this year it felt different. Not only were we in the Big Easy while back home Colorado was experiencing freezing temperatures, but the learning felt more immediate and less abstract. With National Guard troops visible on the streets and fear of federal agents present in the background, the learning was embodied despite what our eyes were seeing and our hearts were feeling. Fellows weren’t just introduced to ideas on this trip; they lived them.

Throughout the weekend, fellows participated in site visits, workshops, and peer feedback sessions. They refined their Signature Learning Experiences, strengthened their thinking, and pushed one another to lead with courage. What stayed with us were the moments that shifted how fellows understand leadership and what they are willing to do next.

These moments are what made New Orleans our classroom:

Studio Be and Eternal Seeds: Inspiring, Educating, and Empowering

Our visit to Studio Be and Eternal Seeds set the tone for the entire trip. The space is filled with large-scale portraits and stories that honor Black life, history, and resistance while also equipping emerging artists with the tools to become leaders and visionaries for a more equitable and creative world. It is impossible to rush through it, and impossible not to feel the impact Studio Be and Eternal Seeds have had on their community. Sarahi spoke about the throughline from a youth cohort of participants to them becoming staff, and Janei considered how even well-meaning creators can over intellectualize what co-creation is. Art in this space inspired us to organize for, and with, our communities from our values, not our hurt. 

Kim Brazile (C8) at Studio Be in New Orleans

Café Reconcile: Clarity, Proximity, and Purpose

Lunch at Café Reconcile didn’t feel like a break, it felt like another lesson, just supported by amazing southern food and young people. Over this lunch, we learned how the organization supports young people through youth development that supports career exploration and job readiness opportunities of young people 16-24 years old. Their model is strong and the food was delicious, but what landed most was the clarity of purpose. Though it seemed like simply a lunch, the location of the cafe, which was on the same block as other youth-serving non-profits, a boxing gym, and an alternative school, helped us to see that strategic partnerships and location are possible. You could feel fellows recalibrating and considering; one fellow even struck up a conversation with the boxing coach and left with an open invitation and a place to stay if he ever brings his young boxers to New Orleans.

ALAS: Risk, Responsibility, and Courage in Action

Our visit to ALAS sharpened the conversation around risk and responsibility. Working alongside youth and educators, they push for change across education, immigration, and the criminal legal system. Their team welcomed us warmly and spoke plainly about what it takes to protect immigrant communities while navigating real legal and political consequences. Pame reflected on space, “What is the difference between making and taking space?... I’m done shrinking” 

The passion and truth of Studio Be and Eternal Seeds, the practicality of Café Reconcile, and the honesty and familiarity of ALAS stayed with us. Throughout the trip, fellows applied what they saw and felt to refine their personal and solution values. They developed their Mission, Vision, and Values with greater honesty and specificity, offered one another direct feedback, asked better questions, and began planning Pilot 2 from a place that felt grounded rather than performative. 

Later, Patience, a C8 fellow from Colorado Springs, named it simply: “You don’t exemplify what you’re afraid to do. You exemplify what you have the courage to do.” That line stuck. It led us back, again and again, to the same question. What do you have the courage to do?

Throughout the trip, fellows kept pulling the work back to their own leadership. One fellow reflected on how often leadership is framed as reaching more people, faster. That reflection opened a harder and simpler conversation at the same time. Who are you actually serving? Who do you trust? Who is feeding you? What happens if you stop trying to reach everyone and go deeper with a few?

Those questions stayed with the group for the rest of the trip.

And yes, we had fun. We caught the start of Mardi Gras. We watched a parade hosted by the Intergalactic Krewe of Chewbacchus, aptly themed “Rebellions Are Built on Hope,” roll by. We followed Pame as she navigated corners, knowing exactly where to get the best drink. We ate king cake and beignets. We laughed late into the night. Community doesn’t only form in serious moments. It forms in shared wonder, hope, and brief relief from needing to be courageous all the time. 

New Orleans taught us what it looks like when people stay rooted in place, in values, in each other.

Overall, this trip was about realizing that our Innovation Space fellows are courageous. We at Moonshot already knew that. Now, they know it too.