Through Gravitate Coworking’s participation in the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program, our founder Geoff Wood was invited to speak on 1/22/2021 with Rep. Cindy Axne, who represents Iowa’s 3rd congressional district (including the Des Moines-metro) in the US House of Representatives. We thank Congresswoman Axne for her time and work on behalf of Iowan’s in Washington, DC. This post represents the remarks that Geoff shared on the call.

I’m generally not the type of person that cheers for the new year as if it is some sort of magical end point to everything that we’ve been experiencing. That said, 2020 was a doozy for our company and this seems like a grand time for some reflection.

I'm excited to share that we are officially opening our first rural coworking space next month (woot!) in Jefferson.

Gravitate Coworking—Jefferson will be at retail-level in the “City View on State” building at 202 E. State St. It’s just off the town square northeast of the Greene County Courthouse and immediately adjacent to Accenture's Rural Forge project. The local community’s ability to rally together and execute on unconventional and forward-thinking projects like Rural Forge are a big reason that we decided to start our own rural initiative in Jefferson.

As of today, the coworking community that we’ve always known as as “Gravitate Valley Junction” is now called “Gravitate Midtown” and on Sept 1, it’ll be moving to a new location at 6500 University Avenue in Windsor Heights!

I don’t have the right words to describe the situation in Des Moines and across our country after the murder of George Floyd—I certainly don’t have any answers. Like many of you I’m angry, sad and fearful all at the same time. I love being a part of our community and our community is hurting in a way that I’ve never experienced in my lifetime.

I’ve struggled a lot with what to say or if I should say anything at all. I don’t know—as a white man—if I should be commenting on anything right now.

Our business is built on the value of bringing people together in one place so social distancing has been hard on us emotionally, mentally and financially. That said, even though we can’t wait to jump back in with both feet, we won’t do that until we feel that it is safe for our members and our team to do so.