This month, Many Hands launched a new bimonthly, 90-minute format designed to give us more room to go deep and talk with one another, not just listen. The topic was a hard one — the explosive growth of data centers across Virginia — guided by founder Becky Lakin alongside two local experts: Sarah Ahmed, Deputy Director of Advocacy and Campaigns for the Virginia League of Conservation Voters, and Tim Cywinski of Sierra Club Virginia.

Virginia hosts more data centers than any other place in the world — more than China, the next-closest competitor — and hundreds more are proposed. These facilities are consuming an enormous and growing share of the state's electricity, driving up bills, straining local water supplies, and reshaping communities, often with little transparency.

Listen to learn more. And then...take action. 

#ManyHandsMakeLifeWork

For this Many Hands, March 2026, the topic was A Changing Climate. Words chosen to validate the experience of all in our Richmond, Virginia Region as we endure the iciest winters, violent storms, and hottest summers on record. How has our climate actually changed? How will it? How can we cope – emotionally and practically? And how do we change what sometimes feels like fate? Our guest and our guides, Nicole Keller, resilience planner at Plan RVA and Daniel Hart, Associate Director of Sustainability and Environmental Justice and Adjunct Professor at the University of Richmond.

Ellie Burke, meditation teacher and life coach opened our conversation through a meditation. Reminding us that "fear is taught and learned, but courage is found in an open heart.” The perfect invitation to listen to our speaker, Shannon McKay, Executive Director of He She Ze and We. A nonprofit organization in the Richmond Region that supports Transgender and Nonbinary people by empowering their families, communities, and allies to create life-saving, inclusive environments.

For this Many Hands, April 2026, the topic was Affordable Housing. A theme chosen because of the urgency and complexity of what anyone in the know, and in the work, calls a “housing crisis.” What do we mean by the word affordable? What myths act as barriers to progress? What data tells us truths? And what do we do about it? 

Our guest and our guide, Jovan Burton, Executive Director of the Partnership For Housing Affordability (PHA). An organization dedicated to transforming housing in the Richmond region through community support and transformative policy.

Last month we talked about how important it is to be near and in discomfort, as we work to change this moment and our world. This month we explored how to do that being. Our guest and our guide, Amanda Mbata, LCSW and the Clinical Director for Safe Harbor — a 25-year old nonprofit in the Richmond region serving survivors of domestic violence, abuse, and human trafficking shares with us how. 

For this Many Hands, September 2025, the topic was Helping. A word meant to provoke a conversation about what the word means, and what it asks us to do. And whether or not it’s the right verb needed in this moment, or…do we actually need to serve, not help. In the new world we’re living in, wherein meaningless words shared from the powerful few can shift hoards of humans toward divisive actions that damage democracy, semantics matter. What we mean by one word – and what that word means to the many, matters. To help or to serve. Breanne Armbrust, the Executive Director of the Neighborhood Resource Center – a nonprofit that serves the Greater Fulton Community in Richmond, Virginia helps us to decide.  www.manyhandslive.org

Every first-Friday Many Hands gathering begins with a shared purpose: to bring people together in real time to understand the challenges of our moment and move – collectively – toward action. Our August 2025 topic has been top of mind and news cycle for months: healthcare in America.

Many Hand's host, Becky Lakin, sat down with Jennifer McClellan, United States Congresswoman representing Virginia’s 4th District, mom to two, wife, daughter, and University of Richmond and University of Virginia grad to discuss how the One Big Beautiful Bill ACT (OBBBA) impacts our community through dramatic changes three key programs that support human health and economic potential: Medicaid, SNAP, and Planned Parenthood. And Congresswoman McClellan shared her commitment to finding joy, holding onto joy, and never letting anyone take it from her – no matter what. Along the way, we learned staggering truths and calls into action.

On Friday morning, June 6th, at around 8:30 a.m., we opened the doors on our first-Friday forum Many Hands wherein we discussed the attacks on, and important of, public media with Jayme Swain — President and CEO of VPM, Virginia's homes for public broadcasting. This is a recording of that live forum held in the Richmond region of Virginia at St. Joseph's Villa, the oldest nonprofit serving children in the United States. 

Eight years ago, we started a monthly speaker series called Mindful Mornings in the Richmond region of Virginia that quickly grew to 11 cities and hosted thousands of folks and went on a 40-month run before Covid caused it to halt. And now, five years after the last gathering, in this extraordinary, exigent time, it's back as Many Hands. This first return on Friday, May 2, was refreshing and heart-filling and smart — a packed room, together to talk about what is going on with non-profits and community-based organizations during this time of tremendous disruption, and how community members can act in support.