Columbus Foundation Fellowship Programs

I had one of the busiest weeks of my fellowship this past week. We are gearing up for the Weeding Out Hunger workshop on food insecurity taking place this Wednesday and the amount of detail and reflection needed to make sure an event goes smoothly is tremendous. There must be a concrete purpose to an event with a desired outcome and everything in between should relate to each other and transition smoothly from one topic to the next. This becomes even more challenging in such a limited time frame of an hour and a half especially when tackling the topic of food insecurity. We had to keep reminding ourselves of the purpose and the constraints we were working under but after several brainstorming sessions and meetings going through every last minute of the workshop, I feel so much more prepared and focused. The planning of this workshop has been a huge learning experience. If anyone has ever planned an event for a large non-profit or corporation you know the intensity and the importance of making the details count. There is no room for the awkward transitions or loose agendas. There are techniques, facilitating, presentations, questions posed, notes and theme gathering. I am so excited to see how it plays out on Wednesday.On Thursday of last week I also attending the Columbus Public Health Farmers Market for people who receive food assistance from federal programs such as WIC and SNAP benefits. They receive vouchers that can be used like money at the markets to purchase local produce from surrounding areas. I have seen other farmers markets take SNAP benefits (food stamps) as well. It is truly where I think the gap of quality food and low-income can be breached and met head on. Many times the markets have a system where if you withdraw $10 of SNAP, you receive a $20 voucher worth of money to use at the farmers market. This allows for the usual deterrence of higher prices for farmers market goods to be mitigated and actually brings the price below most of the grocery store’s for the same products. The among the Foodbank, there were booths and stations set up with assistance services pertaining to new mothers, vaccinations, dental examinations, and the OSU extension program that offers free nutrition classes. Our table had cups of sliced radishes for people to try and I added some raw beets in there too. The best part of the market was when the kids would come up to our table and try the obscure vegetables without hesitation. Some weren’t too pleased with the radishes bitter finish but others grabbed more. I was really surprised. We also had computers set up with a mapping software that allows you to type in your zip code and view where produce markets are in relation to your residence. The produce markets are some of the fastest growing and in demand events the Foodbank facilitates.
Here are some photos I took of the Farmers Market

My supervisors Kerry and Bridget setting up the tablets for the map of Produce Markets

With a week left, I shouldn’t be writing about the end of summer quite yet, but the truth is, I smell fall. Friday Aug. 1 was the last day for most of our summer lunch sites, and that was a sad, rude awakening for me.

Before heading to the office that morning, I went to a site to drop off equipment for the kids to watch a movie. I got to know this particular site pretty well over the summer and I was saddened by watching the kids wrestle and play and talk and joke with each other, all together, already at the site at 9am.

Each site is very, very different. At some sites the kids just come for lunch and leave when they’re finished. At some sites, like this one, the site director took on 200% more responsibility than they are paid for and transformed the site into a sort of summer camp, encouraging the kids to come each and every day, all day long

Now that the program is over, I know the kids won’t have a place where they can meet up with all of their summertime friends. The kids played in as much harmony as kids can with each other, different ages, races, genders, and it pains me to know that for the next few weeks they won’t be playing and learning together anymore. In a few short weeks, they’ll be returning to school where the invisible borders that school age children draw around themselves and their friends will once again separate them from one another, and this giant group of eclectic children who have turned into a family of friends will cease to exist…

The children, though, had an exciting last day. They watched a movie projected onto the wall of the gym and had a pizza party, a reward from CHA and The Collective Genius for completing program-evaluation surveys. All summer, the group had been nurturing two tomato plants, and on the last day, the site director gave them to me, along with a giant Thank-You poster the kids made.

As summer ends, my fellowship concludes, and school starts, I’m thankful that I can take a little bit of the community that was created by the great kids and staff at this site…My job is so rewarding!

The Tri-Village Lions Club approached Children’s Hunger Alliance in June about having a book give-away called “Christmas in July” for children at our sites. As most of our sites are in areas with low parent participation, I didn’t know how warmly the children would receive this gesture, but it was a huge success and I was completely moved by how enthusiastic children were to receive books.

The Club visited four sites total, one site every Friday for the last four weeks. They brought heaps of children and chapter books and allowed children to pick one book for themselves and another to give as a gift, which was then wrapped and adorned with a candy cane.

The children were wildly excited about this whole idea! They nearly emptied the book collection each week. At one site, there were less kids than anticipated, so the children were allowed to take as many books as they would like, and they took full advantage! I was overwhelmed to see them excited to read.

At this site, the children were predominantly Muslim, so the event was called an “Unbirthday Party”- they loved it!

I can’t thank the wonderful people of the Tri-Village Lions Club enough for bringing these smiles and enduring gifts to children I have gotten to know this summer. The members are very giving people, and I hope to be in contact with them in the future!

                We often hear of places where the water is unsafe to drink, or there simply is no water, or there are just not adequate water treatment facilities. In fact Sudan, Ethiopia, and Afghanistan come to mind when I think of places with no water. Los Angeles and the American southwest come to mind as well, but then I tend to think that those places just mismanage their water-too many pools, and watered lawns for a semi-arid climate. But today there is a water crisis not in some far off place, but in Ohio’s fourth largest city. Toledo’s water system supplies drinking water to between 4-500,000 people. It is one of America’s crossroads, the home to Jeep, Tony Packos, and Owens Corning. If you were to stop in the glass city today for a fresh coffee you would not be allowed to order it. Drinking the water, or even cleaning or cooking with it would risk giving you diarrhea, or cause vomiting.  The cause is a toxin called microsystin which is produced by the Western Basin’s algal bloom. Algae has become an annual concern for communities that draw their water from that part of the lake, but has never caused this much of an alarm. It is unclear how long the drinking water advisory will be in effect as well as how long it will take to clear the “toxic” water from the system.

                The reason for these blooms is complicated as there are multiple issues that confound the problem. Geologically the western basin is the shallowest part of all the Great Lakes. This means that the water temperature is also the warmest and when combined with the nutrient run off from the Maumee and Sandusky Rivers creates ideal conditions for the blooms to occur. Added to this is the complexity of global climate change.  According to both models and data, the western basin continues to grow warmer each year. Increasing with temperature are large or more severe rain events that when combined with impervious surfaces, and efficiently drained fields lead to more nutrients flushing into the lake.

                However actions and goals like the ones being undertaken by organizations such as FLOW can aid in the reduction of water quality events like algal blooms. Planting more trees, and establishing no-mow buffer zones around ditches and streams can drastically reduce the rapid flow of agricultural nutrients into our rivers and streams. Projects such as the City of Columbus’s green infrastructure program that lines sewer laterals can help reduce the number of combined overflow events that dump nutrient rich effluent into our lakes, rivers and streams. Pervious concrete and pavers in place of impervious asphalt and concrete can slow down the flow of nutrients as well.

                That the largest freshwater resource in the world is suffering a water crisis is both a shame and a warning. It is in our best interest to take the problems of water more seriously if we want to continue to hold ourselves up to first world standards. Proactive steps need to be taken that will first reduce the amount of nutrient dumped into our waters and on a larger level slow down the effect of climate change. The problem may seem large and complex but the solution is as simple as planting a tree or riding your bike. Advocate for smarter policy, call your representatives to pass legislation that protects the Midwest’s greatest asset. Today should make you realize that we take our water resources for granted, and it about time we learn to take care of them.

This week has been jam packed full of activities and responsibilities. After the Columbus Foundation learning session, I went to my first WIC appointment at their clinic/office on Indianola close to Morse Rd. WIC stands for Women Infants and Children and is a supplemental nutrition program for mothers and families who are low income and need additional support to feed their infants or younger children with good, nutritional food. I went with two young Iraqi mothers and their three little children to register for the WIC coupons. The nurses weighed the children, measured their heights and tested their blood for healthy iron levels. Afterwords, we went to Meijer in Dublin and picked out their WIC approved foods for the month of July. The process was… challenging mostly because I forgot to bring in the booklet that had all of the WIC approved items in it and so unless they explicitly said “WIC approved” it was guess and check with multiple runs from the register back to the merchandise to find the right food items.

On Wednesday I conducted a one person cultural orientation for an Iranian client along with fellow coworker Parisa who speaks Persian/Farsi. Yalda Moghaddem resettled in Columbus after fleeing Iran with her 7 year old son to Turkey due to religious persecution. She is a Baha’i and Parisa told me there is a growing community of Iranian Baha’i in Columbus (they even have a cultural/religious center on Sunbury Road!). The orientation was extremely informal, I brought my laptop to her brother’s house where she is staying and we drank tea and ate chocolate sweets while I, via Parisa’s translations, explained American culture. Yalda is very humble and is ready to start working so she can support her son, but said she wanted to get back to her old career if possible. She had a Master’s in Biology and worked in a biomedical engineering lab before leaving Iran, (talk about credentials!). I explained to her that the process of getting her Iranian degree accredited in the US takes a long time, but she didn’t seem to mind as long as she could work and live in peace with her son. I continue to meet amazing people with incredible life stories and am sad to know I only have 1 week left to work with CRIS’s resettlement staff!

At the intimate cultural orientation with Parisa (far left), Yalda (2nd from left), and Yalda’s sister-in-law’s cousin Saed.

So this week, after weeks of preparation, observation, and concentration…I’m in charge!  I’ve been helping with lots of things at camp, and taking over a lot of responsibilities, but this and next week the whole camp is on my shoulders.  That means that I am in charge of making sure each teacher has the supplies they need, helping switch materials between classrooms, making sure the volunteers are where they need to be and doing that they need to do, wrangling the campers, giving the morning and afternoon announcements and directions, preparing the art show, conducting the graduation program and art show, doing teacher contracts and payments, and supervising the whole camp operation in general.  My supervisor has stepped aside and left me in charge while she prepares for fall programs and other administrative duties that sometimes get lost in the shuffle.  Luckily, she is still a HUGE help with getting things organized, showing me tips and tricks to keep things running smoothly, and acting as a safety net in case I need extra help.

The theme of camp this week is “Go Figure!” to correspond the the current exhibit, called “Figure It: Forms of Human Expression,” at the museum. We have been making various types of human and animal figures and and exploring the range of expression and movement. We’ve been making animal heads, robot creatures, plaster “action” figures, masks, and “blockheads” to display in our gardens and homes.

The campers made foil armatures of figures doing actions, like dancing, jumping, kicking, and running, and then covered them in plaster bandages, like sculptures by the artist George Segal.

George Segal made life-size sculptures by making plaster casts of real people and assembling the figures together. This piece is his 1971 work, “The Dancers.”

We used our imaginations to create fanciful fauna figures!

I kept saying, “You blockhead!” like Lucy in the Peanuts comic strips, but none of the kids got it…I guess the younger generation doesn’t read the funny pages!

These last two weeks of camp are a great opportunity for me to prove that I can take what I learned by observation and put it into practice.  Running a camp is definitely hard work, and I can see why teachers are tired all the time! As happy as I will be at the end of next week, I know I’ll miss the kids I’ve gotten to know this summer.  The end will be bittersweet, but…8 days until vacation! 🙂

American health care remains a very complex and heavily divided subject. I’ve been wanting to make this post for a while and have been trying to gather my thoughts enough to write it concisely and accessibly, so please bear with me.

As a transgender man focusing on health care and social work, most people that I’ve spoken to that know I’m trans expect that I’ll work specifically on trans health issues (there are plenty, after all). While that’s an interest of mine, I have no desire to be pigeonholed and there’s also this: I sought out a career in social work because there are millions of people in this country from all kinds of backgrounds and identities who lack adequate health care. In the United States, health care is an extremely lucrative business, with health expenditures making up 16.9% of our GDP in 2011 according to World Health Organization statistics – nearly double the median of other industralized nations (8.7%). We spend a lot more per capita, too. But we rank 17th or 16th (depending on whether you’re looking at males or females) on life expectancy compared to those other nations. Generally what the data says is that we spend a lot more and get less.

I have my own story. I was 22 and I lived in Detroit and I was temp-to-hire, without health insurance for a couple of months but healthy enough. I don’t get sick very often, I reasoned, and I’m a careful driver and I take good care of myself. I had lower back pain but it could wait. Then a couple of days before Christmas the pain suddenly worsened, the backs of my thighs and my pelvic area started to go numb – the only way I can describe it is that my skin and muscle was so numb that I could feel my bones, and I felt like they were floating on sacs of fluid when I sat down. It was terrifying. I went to the ER that night, but the doctor was convinced that I had a pinched nerve – and I’m sure the fact that I couldn’t afford to pay for an MRI out of pocket didn’t help, either. She sent me home. Two days later on Christmas morning I couldn’t walk or go to the bathroom and so we went back to the ER.

The short version of this story is that my illness is very rare and serious and required a surgical operation the next morning. I remained in the hospital for a week and the bill was exorbitant, close to a hundred thousand dollars. The hospital’s charity wrote off two-thirds. There was no physical therapy (I couldn’t afford it and my insurance didn’t cover it) and payment for the medical equipment I now required would have to come out of pocket. Acquiring Social Security Disability is a lengthy process since frequently the applicant has to appeal at least once, and my prognosis was uncertain. I would be in recovery for at least a month, so the temp-to-hire position I was in simply let me go.

I declared bankruptcy and I recovered as best I could. I found work at a McDonald’s in Detroit and boiled my catheters over and over again to sanitize them because at $90 a box, thirty were all I could afford. I worked with food service workers who coughed and sniffled through their shifts when they were sick because they couldn’t afford the time off and didn’t get sick days, and people who snuck out to smoke weed on breaks because it was cheaper than their pain medication or anti-anxiety meds. This is American health care.

This was over six years ago now, and I’ve had health care and had my needs seen to for the past four or so. Still, throughout my graduate social work experience I keep seeing ghosts – patients with catastrophic illnesses who put off seeing a doctor as long as they could because they couldn’t afford it, patients who work through their illness or injury because they can’t afford to be sick, and patients in chronic pain from fractures because they can see physicians at a free clinic but can’t afford the X-rays or MRI or corrective surgery. I’ve also met countless patients who are using social services because they were bankrupted following an illness of themselves or a family member.

The reason the loan closet at the ALS Association is an important service is that there are gaps in Medicare coverage, and there are a lot of assistive devices Medicare and Medicaid simply don’t cover. If you end up requiring a power wheelchair after Medicare has already paid for a manual wheelchair, you’ll be paying out of pocket. For someone who can no longer work, this is an incredible burden, and for someone who might have been previously uninsured or underinsured waiting over the months for their paperwork to process, it’s almost untenable.

When we consider the prevalence of ALS (or any disease), we must also consider those who can’t afford to visit doctors for the initial diagnosis. This happens.

I suspect the Affordable Care Act and Ohio’s Medicaid expansion will have a palliative effect on a lot of these issues, though to what extent remains to be seen – and even then, there are still a lot of gaps. Based on the coursework and research I’ve done I’ve become convinced that a universal single-payer health care system is the way to go, but getting there is tricky – and if it happens, it’s a long way off. So what do we do in the meantime?

Well, there’s cost-containment, for one, and rebuilding the system. The Affordable Care Act brought coverage to millions and on a local level, Columbus Public Health has a good outreach program – though it could always be expanded further. But I think one of the best things we can do as citizens is to be aware of the data, and help others learn more. There are a lot of people who remain convinced that we have the “best health care in the world,” when the data points to that not being the case – and we can only hope that greater public awareness can help us bring change.

For those interested, you can find the actual reports at the WHO’s website.

This past week at the food pantry was probably my busiest yet! We had one day of in-pantry demos where clients could learn more about battling hypertension on a pantry diet, a farm market with additional demos on diversifying eating habits along with another kid’s tent, and, finally, a cooking class where clients took part in practicing resourceful cooking techniques to make two delicious casseroles with an unlikely combination of ingredients.

A volunteers plays a game with clients to learn about when certain fruits and vegetables are in season.

I am happy to say that our “pilot” week went very well. Clients responded enthusiastically, and quite a few commented that the new nutrition education program addresses some prevalent needs in their community.  Lesson facilitators took smoothly to the new roles, and a couple volunteers mentioned that the experience made them feel like their individual skills and knowledge were acknowledged and valued. Sounds, pretty perfect, right? Well, it didn’t start out that way…

Flashback to the two weeks ago when we initially tried to pilot the farm market demos. Due to lack of communication, the time I had allotted for the activities was about an hour past the ideal time. Not that it mattered, considering I had neglected to firmly implement a new registering system that would allow clients to visit the demos without losing their spot in line. As I began to set up the demos in vain any way, I realized that the volunteers assigned to the demos were nowhere to be found. Nor were their back-ups. The only thing messier than the whole ordeal were the chocolate chips I was attempting to help kids put in their trail mix that had (shock!) melted in the 90 degree weather. In other words, the afternoon had gone from test drive to train wreck in less than 5 minutes.

The reason I tell this story is because I did do one thing right that day; I didn’t panic. I didn’t shut down, I didn’t point fingers, and I didn’t berate myself for dropping the ball. Instead, I decided to try out what every wise person has advised me to do my entire life: learn from my mistakes. I gathered up demo supplies and talked with my boss about scheduling a day to try them out “in-pantry” first. I started brainstorming how to bring more intrinsic value to the facilitator role so that volunteers felt a more personal commitment to the position. I contacted local pantries to gather advice on implementing a less chaotic registration system. I made a note to buy M&Ms next time we made trail mix.

If this had happened at the beginning of the summer, I probably would have broken down and saw myself as unfit for my new job. This is not because I’m lazy; it’s because I am guilty of being a perfectionist. So, let this be a lesson to me and my fellow perfectionists: Flawlessness is simultaneously an impossible and unintimidating goal, because it doesn’t allow for humility or learning. Movers and shakers are not great at what they do because they are perfect. They’re great because they’re adaptable and resilient. You learn very quickly in the non-profit sector that you are not going to do everything right, and some days, you’ll feel like you aren’t doing anything right. Mistakes will happen. Events will spiral out of control. Chocolate chips will melt, and that’s ok. What matters is finding the best possible way to meet your client’s needs, and sometimes the best thing you can do is admit that you’re current method isn’t cutting it. When you are providing essential services for other people, there is no time to get wrapped up in bruised pride or disappointment in yourself. Perfectionism isn’t going to help anyone.

With Week 8 having come and gone I’m left wondering where the heck my summer went! I began the summer looking forward to 10 weeks of great non-profit experience and exposure to important people in the Columbus non-profit sector.  I am now finishing my summer trying to wrap my head around what this summer has meant for me and preparing for what comes next.

As I began to outline my final presentation about my summer experience I started making a list of everything I have learned.  What seemed like a simple task, turned into an endless list that touched so many different experiences.  As a recent college graduate who lacked a firm sense of direction upon graduation, my summer was supposed to provide me with further insight on where I want end up.  While I have learned a lot about myself and the different paths available to me, I find myself with too many options in front of me even less sure of which path to choose.  One of the most useful and reassuring things I have heard this summer is that there really is no such thing as a “non-profit career path.”  During one of the earlier learning sessions we heard from young professionals with hugely varying backgrounds.  Each of these young professionals and almost every non-profit employee I have met through my work at Homeport tells a different story of how he/she ended up in his/her position.  I don’t know what my path will be, but really who does until it’s already happened?

Another valuable theme of my summer has been learning that non-profits are not called non-profits because they are profit-averse, or somehow anti-business; non-profits are only named so because their primary mission is not profit.  Any organization needs profit and any successful organization must run like a business.  Homeport is the largest non-profit I have worked for with over 60 full-time staff members.  Homeport is what Mike Schmidt of Cramer & Associates, who we heard from during this week’s learning session, refers to as a more mature non-profit organization.  It has different departments and specific policies and procedures that help it run efficiently.  My work on Business Process Management is the first step in the organizations push toward documenting and streamlining its processes.  It’s exciting to be part of this first step at Homeport and to know my work will have an impact.

The skills I have learned this summer are ones I can take with me to any job.  I have learned how to organize and plan events, how to interact with volunteers and clients, and how to communicate processes in a way that anyone can understand.  I have been involved in both high level process writing and daily essential organizational tasks that are necessary in any organization.  I have learned that not all non-profit work is the glamorous, constant client interaction we often imagine.  There are so many behind the scenes tasks that are essential to the success and fulfillment of the organization’s mission.  I have learned so much this summer about so many different aspects of the non-profit sector, and about being a young professional.  I’m not sure this has quite been the goal-clarifying experience imagined, but I at least know where I am headed next.

In three weeks I will be moving to Mexico to spend a year working for a non-profit organization called La Jugarreta.  The organization fights for the right of every child to have a safe space to play where they do not have to worry about taking care of their family or selling things on the street.  I just found out my position this past week and the city in which I will be spending a year; I will be in the beautiful town of Tepoztlán in the state of Morelos just south of Mexico City.  I can’t wait to carry the things I have learned from my summer with Homeport into my next journey in Mexico.  Even though I don’t know my final destination, I am continuing to build my own path and discovering my journey.

The magical city of Tepoztlan, Mexico, where I will be spending the next year.