Benjamin Melançon

Justice, liberty, and the self-organization we need for both drive me to get involved in sundry projects. I promote and support several nonprofit organizations, especially public interest news sources, including the Fund for Authentic Journalism, Art For Change in Spanish Harlem New York, Gringoyo Productions, the late, great NewStandard, and COA News.

I attended the the University of Massachusetts – Amherst as a Commonwealth Scholar studying journalism, economics, political science and information technology and am working on an honors thesis called “Economics for a Better World”. In my hometown of Natick, Massachusetts, I served as a town meeting representative, bike everywhere, and oppose fluoridation but drink tap water anyway. I helped found and was elected to the board of directors of Amazing Things Arts Center, which seeks to build community through the arts, and run the center’s annual fundraising auction web site (now in Drupal).

I’ve worked in media, retail, and consulting. Now, as co-founder of Agaric Design Collective, I develop and maintain web sites for companies, organizations, and individuals, using (and creating) open source free software— mostly Drupal. I am helping form a nonprofit organization called, and for, People Who Give a Damn.