Spotlight: Courtney Kendrick

by AMY HACKWORTH

Courtney Kendrick (C. Jane Kendrick) is a writer, blogger, columnist, speaker and community advocate. For twelve years she has cultivated her award-winning blog CJaneKendrick.com where she writes personal essay on a wide range of topics. As a lifetime resident of Provo, Utah, she co-founded, produced, and hosted downtown Provo's Rooftop Concert Series, as well as the annual celebration of Provo Women’s Day. She's a former columnist for the Deseret News, and has recently been featured on NY Magazine's The Cut and Scott's Simon's Weekend Edition on NPR. After three years as the Civic Outreach Advisor for the Provo City Mayor's Office, Courtney left to pursue campaign strategy and communications consultancy. She lives in Provo's Tree Street community with her husband Christopher and four children.

Let's get to know Courtney.

The Utah Bee: How did you become politically active?

Courtney Kendrick: My parents have been politically active my whole life and I watched them and helped on campaigns. I felt their passion and it just soaked straight into me. Not all nine kids in my family are politically active or aware, but for some reason, it hit me. That’s where I landed.

UB: How have you been engaged locally?

CK: Really my community engagement began when I was asked to be on a committee to revitalize downtown Provo, and that eventually led to the Rooftop Concert Series and that led to revitalization. I learned how important public outreach is, which lead to my job in the mayor’s office job studying public outreach, or how to engage citizens in what’s happening in government.

I have spent the last three years studying different ways the community engages with the government and with each other. I have tried to use what I’ve learned in community outreach strategies to change our community.

UB: Tell us more about the concept of public outreach.

CK: It’s partly providing the public with information and partly marketing, giving people information that sells an idea. So many people feel like the government works in this secret way, but that’s not really true in my experience. The problem is nobody’s interested in how the government works, so you have to sell it in a sexy way. If you’re successful in getting people informed and interested, then you’ve got civic engagement, people taking initiatives to make community better.

Initially, I wasn’t very policy-driven, but more PR driven. I was interested in communicating important ideas until the 2016 election and then all of a sudden, I needed to be more aware of policy, so this past year I have spent a crazy amount of time reading policy.

When I worked on John’s campaign I did so much research; I can tell you a lot about public lands. Learning about BLM land expanded my world because I learned about both sides of a complicated issue.

UB: Interesting! The more you learned about an issue, the bigger your world became?

CK: Learning about policy really changed a lot for me. Working on a congressional campaign stretched my horizons and helped me see a broader view. As I’ve learned more about policy, I’ve developed greater compassion because I can see two sides rather than one.

UB: Compassion seems largely missing from current political discussions. What an interesting point that learning more about policy increased your compassion.

What are the issues you care most about?

CK: Revitalizing the city really mattered to me. It was important to me that the city where I was going to raise my children had a spirit that was more inclusive and robust than the one I grew up with. Seeing the changes in downtown Provo and the general feeling about Provo and it’s possibilities has been really rewarding.

The thing that gets me out of bed in the morning, though, is women’s issues. Sometimes I feel embarrassed that it’s everything to me. Maybe I should care more about the environment, healthcare, immigration. But I feel passionately that if we had more women leaders, we’d have successful, compassionate solutions in those areas.

Marching in the women’s march last year was really significant for me because I saw that I wasn’t alone. You look around and see there are all these people with you in person, and then all the people in DC, Brazil, Africa. Realizing it’s a shared passion was so exciting for me.

UB: How has social media influenced your political involvement?

CK: A lot of the work I do is on social. It’s accessible to anyone. The best work gets done when you speak out and speak up, engage people and have important discussions. It’s something I can do while I’m doing other things in my life, like being a mother and an employee.

UB: How do you suggest people get involved politically?

CK: It sounds cliché, but the easiest way for people to get involved is to start locally. There are a million needs in your own community. We need people who take initiative.

There are sexy issues, topics that get a lot of attention. Refugees are sexy right now in Utah. We have so many other needs, too. Homelessness, poverty, immigration—these need as much attention as other sexy issues.

When I worked in the mayor’s office, everybody in Utah County wanted to do something for refugees. We had a refugee information night with a packed audience. So many people showed up to with a huge willingness to help, and we shared what was happening in our community. Our big issues were poverty and homelessness, but talking about refugees is what got people to attend this information night. It’s important to be aware of what your community really needs. If the goal is to help people who need help, there are so many ways to go about that.