Columbus Foundation Fellowship Programs

Two weeks has just FLOWN by.  Projects, volunteer days, and meetings.  Research, writing, and diagraming.  It feels like I have done just about everything in the past two weeks that could possibly be done at one job in an entire summer and yet every day I am discovering something new.  During my second week at Homeport I have really dived into Standard Operating Procedures project.  The first portion of my project is documenting everything that goes into putting on monthly Produce Fair in three of our largest rental communities.  Each month the MidOhio Foodbank drops off up to 12,000 pounds of produce and perishable food items to be distributed for free to families in the area.   Through these donations we are able to provide healthy food options for hundreds of low-income families in our communities each month.  In order to write about how these produce fairs run I had to experience them first hand, so this past week I got to participate in my first produce fair.  It was a lot of fun working with other volunteers and serving over 400 people.  One of the coolest parts of the day was meeting Isaac, a 14 year old boy who lives in the Homeport community and first came through the line to receive food for his family.  After he finished helping his mom carry the food back to their apartment he came back and asked if he could help.  The minute he threw on a green Homeport T-shirt he was in work mode and was busy helping as many people as he could carry their items back to their cars or apartments.  It was really inspiring to see how excited and willing he was to help.  This produce distribution was a lot of fun and it really opened my eyes beyond everything I have been writing about and researching in the office.  It was great to be in the communities and put faces to names and real life stories to the numbers.

Hard at work at the Homeport Produce Fair

We distributed almost 12,000 pounds of fresh produce!

Our lovely volunteer ladies

I had my first little accomplishment last week! I was able to set up a meeting with one of our potential partners for the plot against hunger, Momentive. Today I am on-boarding them into the program and orienting them to what the initiative is about. Essentially, we are trying to incorporate the corporate and other organizations in the Columbus area into the plot against hunger through their adopting of a plot that consists of two beds. One bed will be planted by them and the other by the Mid-Ohio Foodbank. The produce from plot planted by us will go to our food pantry and their plot will be theirs to keep or donate. The idea is that a garden is an environment in which those involved are connected via the similar and the grounding nature of the work they do. No matter what your background. everyone is pulling weeds and fostering growth for the same outcome. This breeds a perfect environment to begin the conversation about food insecurity and our food system through social change and cohesion among community members. The hope is that this conversation will spark interest in furthering the Foodbank’s goal of “ending the line” and alleviating food insecurity.

It is important however to make note that we are not interested in promoting the creation of community gardens in food insecure areas. This has proven to only put the burden on an already heavily burdened population to not only continue with their daily tasks but to add on another huge and time consuming task of growing their own food. The idea is that for those who are unfamiliar with the food insecurity in Columbus, working in a garden can serve as a platform for a dialogue that gets people interested in the topic and hopefully called to action against it. There are many already existing, well connected and integrated community gardens and urban farms in Columbus that are providing fresh food at farmers markets and for those involved in the gardening and upkeep. There are also a few co-ops and Community Supported Agriculture systems in place that buy in bulk from local and regional growers of the best produce to help support the smaller farmers and industries as well as create a network of food security within their communities.

Finally, the Foodbank has an endless number of opportunities for volunteering and donations that will help further the cause. The issue is not that we do not have enough food, it is getting the food we do produce in excess to the hungry mouths before it goes bad. We throw a lot of food away and the Foodbank works very hard to efficiently gather the food that would be discarded and distribute it to the over 600 hundred agencies that can use it to feed their communities. Gardens are a luxury. They require spare time and they teach valuable often forgotten knowledge about how to “grow” literally and figuratively. Therefore, for those of us with spare time, I encourage us to use the garden as a way to bring a community together and begin a conversation about the injustice of food insecurity in our own backyards. Let’s work to distribute the food we produce in an equitable way. There should not be winners and losers when it comes to food access especially when there is such a surplus.

Its the end of my second week as a full-time Fellow, and as cliche as it sounds, I don’t know where the time went! My main task at Children’s Hunger Alliance is to assign volunteers to appropriate sites, which was hella-intimidating a week and a half ago when I literally knew nothing about these people or places.

To place one volunteer, I need to track down the site’s director to inquire about their needs; double-check with the site’s sponsor; solidify the volunteer’s availability and expectations, and get their approval for a suggested location; inform and remind the site’s “educator” and data collector about their added help; educate the volunteer on the particulars of a site; meet the volunteer on their first day of a site to make introductions; and then finally, send emails the next day to all parties to get a feel for how the session went.

…

The keystone, I’ve learned, to this and all endeavors is- communication! Literally, my job is just communicating, all day long. Making sure everyone knows what they’re supposed to know is a fulltime job. If everyone in the world knew everything there is to know, I can’t imagine what humankind could accomplish…

It’s ironic that it took me this long to realize the value and importance of communication, as I’m going to graduate with a B.A. in it next December, but of course experience is real learning. I’m glad I’ve learned this lesson so early in my career and life. I know realize the role software and systems that are designed to streamline communication, but more importantly, this experience has forced me to evaluate my own communication skills. Am I doing the best I can to clearly transfer relevant information to everyone around me, including my future self?

As budding professionals, we should all work to make this answer “yes.” If we start now, I foresee a smoother road ahead for everyone 🙂

This week did not have a central theme or specific project that I worked on. The fact that I am able to work on multiple projects at once is not a bad thing but an attribute to the work of the Boys and Girls Club of Columbus. Since I will be facilitating many summer learning activities throughout the Summer Brain Gain program I wanted to spend as much time with theclub members as possible.  I spent some time at all of the clubs this week but spent the most time at Westside and Southside.

Westside is currently participating in a Robotics program sponsored by NASA! Earlier in the week I went shopping for all of the supplies and it was awesome to see the raw materials turn into mini rockets made from pop bottles!

When I was at Southside on Thursday I was able to participate in one of the Brain Gain modules focusing on interacting with peers. The club members had to go around and interview “celebrities” and ask them about their clothing. I was a guest “celebrity”. Of course I was wearing an Ohio State shirt and the conversation eventually turned to the one time I met Braxton Miller in person (the students were quite excited).

On Friday I spent some time at the R.I.S.E site in Weinland Park. We made flags to represent ourselves in honor of Flag Day! Pictured below is my flag! Speaking of Flag Day. ..I was fortunate enough to accompany more than 60 club members from all of clubs in Columbus to the Flag Day ceremony at City Hall.  The club members played an integral part of the program holding several flags and a few members had speaking roles. I learned a lot of new information. For example Hawaii joined the union in 1959! I expected it to be earlier than that for some reason.  Well this was just a glimpse into the MANY different activities I partake in at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Columbus on a daily basis!  Next week I begin the pre-assessment surveys for the Summer Brain Gain so stay tuned!

Where I work everyday!

In honor of Flag Day and the World Cup!

My favorite Muppet – Beaker – demonstrating what my face will probably look like when the campers get here!

This is the last workday before our campers arrive!  It’s pretty quiet in the museum and office today, so I’m relishing the quiet and enjoying the chance to sit down and have a moment of peace, especially after the wild (and wet!) weekend at the Columbus Arts Festival, where we ended up making art with over 600 children and their families.  It’s nice to have a little bit of a break between the two busy events. Teen Summer workshops begin next week with classes what experiment with metals, draw cartoons, and create their own Muppets. I’m especially excited about the Muppets – I hope I can sneak into a few classes and make my own!  Campers sign up for half-day or whole-day classes, and there is room for 12 campers in each class, which means there be 36 tweens and teens invading the museum next week.

Although any teen can take these classes, they are a great opportunity for the artistically inclined to really dig into their interests, work with talented craftspeople who make their living creating and teaching, and get exposure to new techniques and hone the skills they already have.  And especially with these older students, it’s a great chance to show them that the arts can be a meaningful career choice, whether as a practicing artist or in an arts and culture non-profit organization, not just a hobby.  In the United States, the arts support 4.1 million jobs and create $135.2 billion in economic activity each year (Americans for the Arts).  Additionally, research has shown that participation in the arts and arts education in schools makes a measurable difference in student performance and learning, including higher SAT scores, better attendance and retention rates, and stronger reasoning and problem-solving skills.  I am the Vice-President of Central Ohio Student Advocates for the Arts (COSAA) at Ohio State, and this winter I had the chance to go to Washington, DC to participate in National Arts Advocacy Day and speak to Ohio legislators on Capitol Hill about the value of the arts and ask them to support funding for arts education and the National Endowment for the Arts. I feel passionately about my role as an arts advocate, and what is even more important than talking about the arts is doing them, and supporting other artists…especially young artists!  That’s why I love the classes and camps at the Ohio Craft Museum and am so honored to be a part of the important work they do.

This week, we finished prepping our 3 classroom spaces with all the supplies the teachers and classes will need for the week, putting up all the necessary signs and directions, and finalizing the schedules. But, I also got to work on my own art skills as well!  Loyal blog-readers will see all my projects in the weeks to come, but here’s a quick preview of some of the projects I am testing – punched tin, several (failed) attempts at making tie-dye with Sharpie markers and rubbing alcohol, and painted picture frames.

Samples of punched tin wall art (left), a punched tin lantern (middle), and a punched tin mobile (right)

When you spray rubbing alcohol on Sharpie markers, it makes a cool tie-dye effect…supposedly. Foil test fail (left), paper test fail (middle), fabric test SUCCESS (right)!

Painted picture frame for pet-project week. I chose my pet hedgehog as my model 🙂

It is hard to believe that it has now been two weeks working with FLOW and being a Columbus Foundation Fellow! I spent most of this week biking to the Clintonville office from my place near Ohio Dominican on the east side. This has given me the chance to see many of the Olentangy’s tributaries like Glen Echo and I even found some wild cherry trees to stop and chow down. I’ve also biked down the Olentangy bike trail, which is like the I-71 or 315 of Columbus bikeways. Many spots along that trail have noticeable projects that FLOW or friends of FLOW have worked on or improved. On one of my journeys home I was met by a FLOW volunteer who showed me the location of approximately 2000 trees have been planted in the last 7 years. Many of these trees are now over ten feet tall in some cases and absolutely thriving. I also got to explore various types of rain gardens and butterfly gardens that have been planted in Clinton-Como Park as well as a nice patch of wild black raspberries for my hungry days. Also in that park was a restoration made by AEP after the company buried a gas pipeline despite the wishes of the community. To AEP’s credit, the area they have replanted appears to be doing well and has brought back many amphibian species that previously were not to be found. Just down the trail from this park is a private community called Olentangy Village who have planted over 1000 trees in about 5 years and have made future plans for ecological restoration including signage that explains some of the areas they have restored. From this point to Ohio State you will come across the OSU Wetlands, which is a masterpiece of biological diversity. One day I nearly biked into a deer crossing the path and another I was distracted by an Oriole who was flying above. Nearly this whole stretch of the bike path has a low hanging mulberry tree which is great for a periodic snack. I encourage many of you if possible to bike commute, and if not at least get out and enjoy this beautiful trail and river!   Here are some wildflower pictures from this week,

Flax

Hemp Dogbane

I’ve never been much of a diagram guy.  My Public Health master’s program spends a good bit of time on program planning and teaching us to create things like logic models, but as someone who tends to be more narrative-focused, writing out my goals in little boxes seemed like an unnecessary step to me.

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