Photo Description: Staff member Emily Cho loads up boxes at the Food Bank of Alaska’s 2025 Thanksgiving Blessing.

A few years ago, through Alaska Family Council, I was introduced to the Dignity Index, a bipartisan group focused on how we talk with each other when we disagree. Recently, they published the first Dignity Barometer. It’s sobering and hopeful. As their co-founder, Tim Shriver, writes: “We want dignity, but we’re not practicing it.”

I keep coming back to his words. At the Foundation, we say helping others is an Alaska tradition. That’s what Elmer Rasmuson taught us. That is Alaska. We help each other. We demonstrate dignity.

Shriver also writes, “It’s not our disagreements that cause our division; it’s treating others with contempt when we disagree.”

Contempt rises from not being able to see each other as human. Dignity, on the other hand, is expressed when we look for common ground — when we aren’t focused on changing minds but on honoring each other’s humanity, no matter what.

Alaska is vast. It’s also a diverse place, not just in terms of ethnicity and race but in politics, religion, background, and cultural practices. Ask any roomful of Alaskans their opinion on an issue, and you’ll get a roomful of viewpoints. There is ample room for disagreement, and we often differ on many of the challenges our state and communities face.

Still, anyone who lives here will tell you that we’re all just one degree of separation from each other. Despite the distance between cities and villages, we live in close proximity — so when a community is hurting in Western, Interior, Southeast, or 1,200 miles away in Adak, we all feel it. When an Alaskan is stuck in a snow berm, we stop and help.

What does dignity look like in Alaska? I think it looks like neighbors donating moose meat and seal oil so people they’ve never met can have a taste of home, even when they are displaced by disaster. I think it looks like local organizations joining forces with tribes to create shelters for survivors of domestic violence. It looks like community food banks, or an offer to drive an elderly neighbor to a doctor’s appointment, or clearing the last of the snow from someone’s yard.

These actions are rooted in treating each other with dignity. When we remember who we are, as Alaskans, we can build on our tradition of helping each other. We can actively listen to each other with open minds and open hearts, bringing the dignity embedded in our actions into our conversations. We can treat each other with dignity, even when we disagree.

Thank you for all you do,

Gretchen Guess 
President and CEO