Manatee Millennial Movement

Shaping the future of Manatee County

Organized by the Manatee Millennial Movement, the first annual Millennial Con was designed to actively engage young professionals throughout Manatee and Sarasota Counties and empower them with tools to voice their opinions. The goal was to get feedback and get area millennials invested in the future of their community.

From the organizers of MillennialCon

“We want our local decision makers and leaders to stop talking ABOUT us and to start talking TO us. And it all begins with Millennial Con!”

Below are excerpts from a number of the attendees who we interviewed but were not able to get into the video.

Taylor Toro

Realize Bradenton

You know as a latina, getting involved and just being out there and making sure that people hear me and people hear my voice and people hear the voice of people like it, it’s so important, it is so important as someone who’s a future policy maker, someone that’s going to be a leader in a community.

Keith Pandeloglou

Cowork LWR

There is power in numbers!

To me, my favorite events are when all the young professionals get together because there’s over 100 people and that’s what gives me hope that I’m in a good area and I don’t need to leave to get the type of life I want.

Karen Stewart

Manatee County Neighborhood Services/Economic Development

It’s been awesome. I work in the neighborhood services department, and I’m in economic development.

So, its really exciting to me to see young people joining together to make the community a better place to live, have better quality of life, because that’s what brings jobs here.

And then also thinking about the future of the community and the workforce and the companies that might locate here, we want to make sure that we have the young workforce.

Also in county government, we’re an old organization that’s filled with a lot of baby boomers who are gonna be retiring soon, they’ve put their time in. And so, were looking at bringing up the workforce and having more energy in our government.

It has been so exciting over the past year to work with this group, Ani and Ogden and Simone are all in our department and you know we work together so well with them and its just so refreshing after, I mean…

I’ve been in my career more than 40 years and I’ve really never seen the kind of energy and collegiasm you know, joining together to get something done. its really inspiring for me

Well you want to be a part of planning the future right? You don’t want something to happen to you, you want to be able to be a part of what’s going to be planned, be a part of the vision for the community and make sure that the things happen here are the things that you want to be a part of in the future.

I think we’re gonna gather a lot of data here today, you know we’ve got people talking about parks, and housing and workforce and all kinds of issues, so putting that all together and then coming up with a strategy to address whatever issues or planning needs come up today.

Kenny Slezak

Willis Smith Construction

We’re talking mostly about living green and lean, sustainability, different ways that Manatee County is promoting sustainability to its residents in the community. Then we’re going to show municipal level, corporate level then personal level, ways you can actually start living a more sustainable lifestyle.

In order for manatee county to really become you know a true, sustainable environment, we need all the different entities. I mean from construction to gardening to finance to advertising, everyone kind of needs to understand what it takes to be a more sustainable community.

We’re all interconnected, yes we all have our separate goals and you know future achievements that we want to attain, but were all interconnected together, so it’s important to get here, meet the different groups, different organizations who influence politicians and decision makers, and be able to incorporate and work together with them.

Michelle Grimseley

Manatee Black Chamber of Commerce

I’m a millennial myself, so of course I see the importance of being here… and we have been trying to develop a relationship so that we can get millennials in Manatee County to understand the importance of being involved and getting our voices heard.

Because we complain a lot, but if were not involved people theres no way that people are going to know that we actually do have a voice and hear our opinions.

You need to be here just to meet people, to see what is offered to our generation and our demographic, and to simply know what’s going on around us. If we’re not out, and we don’t know, then we don’t know what we should be looking for and keeping your ears open.

So I just believe that it’s important to be here if you missed it this year, you definitely have to make it next year, and you know increase awareness, that’s really what it’s all about.

Wade Hamilton

Independent Jones

Why are we here?

We are here because uh, we’ve been a part of this movement since before it even had a name… we’ve been working with the people that are involved, Morgan, my partner at Independent Jones helped get this movement started through Realize Bradenton, who both her and I have worked with on and off for the past 5 years. We’re just happy that it’s gotten to this point and we can get in front of more people and talk to them about what bradenton has to offer and where we’re going.

Independent Jones is a live music entertainment company, with the ultimate goal of opening our own brick and mortar music venue in the near future, close to downtown bradenton.

They are talking with the right people, getting the ears that they need for our generation and the generations around it. you know it is all about millennials but there is also a lot of surrounding generations that are involved and supportive, of not just the M3 movement, but also things like Independent Jones and Realize Bradenton.

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Why Millennials (Including Me) Are Staying in Sarasota - Sarasota Underground says:
08/26/2016 at 11:40 pm
[…] ignored the Manatee Millennial Movement which hosted a conference earlier this year to help Millennials plug into local governments and […]
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Manatee Millennial Movement

From the organizers of MillennialCon

Below are excerpts from a number of the attendees who we interviewed but were not able to get into the video.

Taylor Toro

Keith Pandeloglou

Karen Stewart

Kenny Slezak

Michelle Grimseley

Wade Hamilton

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