To raise one’s body up on a surfboard and glide with and on a wave is to understand something about water and nature itself, it is an “intimate dance,” or so says Ken Cole, a Shorewood psychologist. That relationship requires a certain reciprocity and respect, he adds, noting that riding boards made of petroleum-based materials is bailing on the Earth and out of sync with a wave-loving lifestyle. So Ken, who surfs Lake Michigan all year, including in the dead of winter, started a company called Greenhouse Surfboards to make sustainable boards. He handcrafts boards from local materials such wood scraps and coffee bags. 

The company is just one way in which Ken, whose day job is fundamentally about helping people to feel heard, is trying to inspire others in the midst of a challenging political moment. He’s been more politically active generally since the 2016 election, he says. Starting with a small group of friends, he helped organize Shorewood Walks Together, to protest the Trump administration’s Muslim ban and to support Muslim residents and families in Shorewood. About 200 people turned up for the quickly-put-together event, an effort that led to the creation of the Shorewood Solidarity Network, which has organized other marches, hosted lectures and worked to get residents to vote. In some ways, the work he’s been doing in these last few years, shaping boards and shaping conversations, has been therapy for Ken. That wasn’t the goal, of course, he says, but it has been a welcome byproduct. He has proved to himself, through action, that small clusters of humans can inspire a bit of change.