Week Four: Red, White, and Blues!

Posted on July 12, 2011 by janellesfellowship

At the end of my fourth week at Jazz Arts Group,  the Columbus Jazz Orchestra performed their first JazZoo! concert of the season at Water’s Edge Events Park at The Columbus Zoo and Aquarium.  The patriotic sounds of the orchestra filled the air – and the spirit of jazz was in full swing!

A patriotic Uncle Sam on stilts entertains the crowd before the show!

I left the office around 2:00 to head over to the zoo.  There, I helped distribute JAG promotional materials to all of the tables and made sure our guest artist, Kevin McGuire, was comfortable and ready to go for rehearsal.  At the venue, I helped with everything from passing out programs, to collecting comment cards and surveys; from finding emergency water jugs, to learning about musician compensation backstage at the show.

Musician Dwight Adams looks on from the stage.

 It was great to finally meet Gordy Haggard, JAG’s main zoo contact – and someone I have been e-mailing very frequently, face-to-face.  It was even more rewarding to be the first one to welcome our special guest Ralph Lewis, a decorated WWII veteran, and his companion Charlene Pfingstag at the backstage gate before the show.

Artistic Director Byron Stripling talks with honored guest Ralph Lewis from the stage.

During the concert, animal handlers from the zoo always bring a few zoo animals onto the stage for the crowd to see.  This week, the zoo brought out an arctic fox, a baby bearcat, and a three-month-old clouded leopard.  While backstage, I had the incredible opportunity to interact with these animals, and I even had the baby bearcat crawling up my right arm, around the front of my neck, and back down the other arm!  I also interacted with patrons about our contact cards/questionnaires which served as a raffle ticket to win a zoo membership.  Even more exciting, I got to go on stage to hold the fishbowl while honored guest Ralph Lewis picked a winner!

Byron, Ralph, and myself on stage getting ready the raffle.

I had an absolute blast at the first JazZoo! concert and can’t wait for our next concert THIS Friday!

Check out The Columbus Dispatch review of “Red, White, and Blues!” by Gary Budza!

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One Step Closer

Posted on July 11, 2011 by sarahp2011

This week I began receiving survey results from both clinicians and volunteers at the Columbus Speech & Hearing Center (CSHC). What I have loved most about this process is being able to see from both perspectives how people feel about the current volunteer program in place at the CSHC. Both employees and people from the outside (volunteers) were honest about what they love and do not love. So far, they’ve provided detailed answers that will enable us to address these key areas.

It has also been great to see a vision of mine come to life. I knew a survey would be a great way to see how people felt about the program but to actually see them taking to it is amazing! Clinician after clinician has thanked me for my efforts to improve the program and I think they enjoy it as well because they are able to let their voices be heard. All in all, this process has impacted a lot more people than I thought it would and that makes me even happier to be a part of it:-)

This upcoming week, I’ll begin filming some things to put into a power point. I am not too familiar with the whole filming process but I am here to learn so I will take a stab at it! I have a month to get it right so we will see what happens, lol…I’ll tell you about it next week:)

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Change, CHANge, CHANGE!!!

Posted on July 9, 2011 by warrent42

This blog is coming from a totally new spot then the previous ones!! I am here on site, at my desk with my computer!!! Who knew, I’d move up eventually. I am now considered an education and partnership coordinator intern.  I am no longer a camp counselor, although I do help with camp activities from time to time.  My new objectives include creating and carrying out a new summer jobs program that will help connect the urban youth within a five-mile radius of the Audubon center with a summer job with which they can take what they have learned from the Audubon center and secure a paying summer job. I have to develop a mission, meet with constituents, and interview youth who could qualify to be in this program.

I now have a goal and space to do it! I am so excited!! Yesterday my supervisor and I sat down to figure out a timeline for when my work is to be complete and I already have  survey due MONDAY!! So I will be rolling up my sleeves and getting to work.  Monday’s task is to complete a survey that I will administer to potentially qualified youth and check they have the eligibility, need, and desire to take what they’ve learned here back to their communities.  We will have three projects for them to do in the upcoming summers, rain barrels, rain gardens, and catch basin labeling.  All student will come to the Audubon center in order to train and they will then take their task to their community where they will complete the work.  Although this is an imaginary project that I will not actually pitch, I will be doing all the work up to that point and hopefully making sure its worth the time of the people I meet with.  Who knows? Maybe I’ll do a great job and someone else will pick it up and actually institute it.

HAPPY WEEKEND!!

Shelley

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Wine, 3 Babes, and a Baker

Posted on July 8, 2011 by annmulvany

Like many nonprofits in Columbus, National Center for Law and Adoption Policy (NCALP) hosts a fundraiser every year to raise money for its projects and initiatives. While wine, three babes, and a baker may sound like the beginning of an epically bad joke, these are actually the main components of NCALP’s annual fundraiser, which is one of my big projects this summer.

The Autumn Wine Celebration is a huge undertaking that requires the coordination of numerous diverse elements ranging from invitations to wine vendors to catering choices. In addition to coordinating the details of the wine tasting, which serves as the main event, hors d’oeuvres and deserts must also be organized. A local cupcake cart, 3 Babes and a Baker, is providing hundreds of cupcakes for the event, which makes for quite an overwhelming visual image and an even more overwhelming scenario. 

When you have so many different people and organizations working together on separate components of a single event, things can get pretty messy. Every little detail has to be worked out in advance or else the entire thing could go up in flames. And although spontaneous combustion would certainly make headlines, I am aiming for perfection.

-Ann, NCALP

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Pink Lemonade on 2nd Ave.

Posted on July 7, 2011 by urbs_614

As Eva and I explored the canyons of Sam’s Club searching for lemonade mix (not Crystal Light), bagged cookies, bagged pretzels, and ice, she gave me a rundown of the Sam’s layout and some of her favorite items to purchase there. When we located the lemonade mix, we were faced with the dire choice–regular or pink? All my gallivanting around the store influenced my risky decision to go for pink. Admittedly, another shopper also influenced my decision when (unsolicited) she told Eva and I to get the kind we wanted and not to think about those who will be drinking it. That kind of self-satisfaction is questionable, but we went with it.

Walking out onto the steaming asphalt to load up the car, Eva realized we had forgotten to buy ice. We stood there debating whether or not to go back in or to stop at a gas station on the way back to the office. She decided just to go back inside since we were already there. Only two cashiers were open. And standing in line at both of them were people stocking up for a post-apocolyptic world full of young children craving solely Oreos and Twizzlers. Rather than waiting in line for these consumers to purchase hundreds of high-sugar snack items, Eva and I decided to stop at a gas station for the ice that would come to cool our wild and raucous pink lemonade.

Another immense task was the preparation of the pink lemonade. Standing in the kitchen with co-workers on their lunch breaks, I scooped 32 carefully/liberally measured cups of pink lemonade mix into an orange water cooler. Luckily my co-workers were skilled enough at differential calculus to ensure that my measurements were correct in order to concoct the appropriate amount of refreshing pink lemonade.

This morning adventure was necessary to supply light refreshments for our first Habitat homeowner meeting in Milo-Grogan. The meeting was intended to introduce our partner families in Milo-Grogan to the Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative (NRI) that Habitat has committed to for at least 3 years. I sent an invitation to every Habitat homeowner in Milo-Grogan. I called every homeowner in Milo-Grogan to remind them and invite them with a friendly phone-voice. I waited for RSVPs. Then I waited on Wednesday for them to show up.

Three did. Three very friendly and willing homeowners came to our meeting to learn about NRI. We talked to them about the program, listened to their concerns and learned from their experiences.

The lack of attendance isn’t as discouraging as you may think. I had been warned that very few people (if any) would come. Gathering people from low-income neighborhoods can be daunting and difficult due to a multitude of factors. But, as they say, quality is more important than quantity. People have vision for Milo-Grogan, they see its potential and are willing to work towards a more positive future. 

On a separate and more disheartening note, I went to the OSU library today to pick up a reserve: Milo-Grogan Area Plan 35. In the 1970s the planning division of the Department of Development of the City of Columbus (of the, of the, of the) undertook a series of neighborhood plans for the city. Milo-Grogan (plan 35) was one of 38 studies completed by the planning division that outlined the neighborhood’s deficiencies and proposed solutions. Aside from some outdated racial langauge, this 1973 document is surprisingly progressive and optimistic regarding the challenges facing Milo-Grogan. It noted the negative effect of I-71’s construction in the early 1960s and acknowledged the isolation of the neighborhood from goods and services. In addition, it discusses environmental health concerns, lack of parks and open space, “incompatible” land use, and housing opportunities.

The publication made 10 recommendations for positive change in Milo-Grogan. In 1973, the issues facing Milo-Grogan were nearly identical to the issues facing Milo-Grogan in 2011. In 1973, the goals for improving Milo, the recommended actions for bettering the neighborhood, and the vision for a more prosperous Milo were nearly the same as they are in 2011. At least we’re consistent, right?

This realization alerts us to the true forgotten nature of the once-thriving urban core. Milo-Grogan, a former working class mixed-used light industrial and residential neighborhood, is stuck in 1973 at the pinnacle of white flight and the great urban exodus.

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Interesting Week

Posted on July 6, 2011 by sarahp2011

This past week I got to know a little more about the people I work with. On Tuesday (6/28) we had an all staff meeting at 7:30 in the morning! :-(…but we were served breakfast! 🙂 (yay!). Our CEO was there as well and it was a very nice experience. Years of service awards were given away and for the annual staff fund where employees contribute money, there was 98% participation (I believe, it was well over 90% for sure)  throughout the CSHC! It was great to see how dedicated the staff is to what they do. They really believe in the work that they do!

For my project, I finally distributed the surveys to both volunteers and the clinicians. It took a lot of tweaking but we came up with some really great questions that were short and easy to answer. Once we get feedback from both parties, we’ll be able to move forward in pinpointing key areas of improvement within the current volunteer program.

I can’t wait to see what type of feedback we’ll get…see you next week!

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One Year and Seventeen Minutes Later: An Update from a 2010 Fellow

Posted on July 5, 2011 by ashackleford

For a year now, my Summer Fellowship supervisor, Don Bashaw, has joked that as a fellow, I failed miserably.

Last summer, I was paired with Add (formerly an acronym for the Association for the Developmentally Disabled) to produce a 10-15 minute film about the rights of individuals with developmental disabilities. Considering I had no real knowledge of the field or of film production, the task was pretty intimidating. When I left Add at the end of last summer, I had created a packet of all the potential steps, of everything I had thought about and everyone I had talked to. But there was no film.

Flash-forward to two weeks ago.

Ten months have passed, during which time I’ve had the pleasure of being part of a workgroup for the film and meeting our filmmakers: students from the Upper Arlington High School’s broadcast television program, led by their inimitable teacher Amanda Fountain and student director Ronald Copley. (The collaboration with UAHS was one of the best – and not initially expected – developments of the project.)

And then at Add’s annual board meeting two weeks ago (held at the Franklin Park Conservatory, where I notice one of this year’s fellows is working,) the film finally premiered: a whopping 17 minutes of footage culled from 3 days of shooting, 4 locations, and at least 24 hours of footage.

Of course, the film isn’t perfect – our work never is. But in certain ways, I know the film is already a success. I saw that in the absolute excitement of the actors with disabilities present at the premiere – in their smiles, the little bows to the audience, the open pride of some and deep modesty of others. I heard it when the Add board member sitting beside me, also a superintendent for a county board of developmental disabilities, said, “We’re starting up a self-advocacy group in my county, and I want to use this.”

With that, I want to say that the Summer Fellowship program is not simply 11 interns and 10 weeks: it is the opportunity for sustained partnerships, the opportunity to finally develop projects long held on the backburner, the opportunity – to loosely paraphrase Add’s slogan – to make something happen.

For Add, the Summer Fellowship allowed them to jumpstart a project that may otherwise never have happened during a year of extreme changes and upheaval (wonderful changes—expansion, rebranding, and redefinition). It proves that Add is the kind of organization that is not simply interested in service but in innovation and new ideas. And for me, the Summer Fellowship program gave me likely the most valuable piece of professional development in my very young career, as well as incredible gratitude toward those I worked with and for.

As a recent college graduate, it is easy for me to view this all as the long-awaited end. Yet, even as I move on – literally, as I move to Providence, RI, in a month where I’ll be working as an Americorps*VISTA for a year in a nonprofit providing free community arts programming – I know that it isn’t really an ending. The ultimate success of the film, of course, will not be in the fact that there is a simple product but what happens now – that it gets into the right hands and homes, that conversations are started among individuals with developmental disabilities, their families and service providers. As the film is copied and distributed to the 900 people that Add supports and is eventually made available for purchase statewide and nationally through an established self-advocacy group, it will be what is said around it, what is done about it, that matters.  I know too that it doesn’t really end for me – I take with me all that I learned at Add, including a better understanding and respect for the individuals around me.

So I wish all of this year’s fellows good luck. I sincerely encourage them to take advantage of (and create) opportunities around them and see their time for what it is – a wonderful beginning.

– Anne Shackleford, Add, 2010

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Week of Learning

Posted on July 5, 2011 by hatcfsf2011

My main activity for the 3rd week in The Columbus Foundation
Summer Fellowship Program at Tech Corps is Learning.

After my presentation about Brand Identity set proposal on Monday,
there came a request for me to have these stuffs well-designed. At the
beginning, I planned to have a professional designer to help me with this work.
Unfortunately, this time is summer break for many design students. Because I
need some of these designs to use for my next projects, I decide to learn
Photoshop to work on logos first. It took me one day to learn the basic
functions of Photoshop and another day struggling with the black-white and
duotone setting on the Tech Corps logo. Finally I did it! I have more
confidence in myself to continue my work on other Tech Corps logos (Techie
Camp, Techie Club) next week. However, I also realize that this job is not my
strength and I would spend a lot more time to accomplish, needless to say about
quality of work, with a more sophisticated design. Now I start to seek for help
from a professional designer but from this experience, I have learned a new
skill: Photoshop.

During this week, our fellows joint a learning session at The
Columbus Foundation site. The session was about building different careers in
the non-profit sector. We met three senior executives of program development
& management, communications & marketing, donor services &
development at The Columbus Foundation. From their sharing and from my work
experience, I could see many similarities in job qualifications of the
non-profit and the for-profit workers, except one thing: passion of serving
community beyond any cost-profit goal. Working for a non-profit organization
will require more collaboration skill to engage with many different
stakeholders but people in this sector will enjoy better balance of the four domains of their life: work, home, community, and self. This advantage
will be a key driver to bring many people into the non-profit sector and make
it a very competitive employment area. The session was quite short but the
learning was powerful in shedding light on non-profit sector career perception.

Long weekend with national holiday is waiting. I plan to turn some
of my learning this week in producing quality result work next week.

Happy Independence Day!

Ha Dang

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New Tasks and New Ideas

Posted on July 5, 2011 by bcfcfsf2011

Greetings fellows and friends! It’s been another excellent week here at MORPC! As my internship here progresses, I’ve found myself taking on new and exciting tasks. In addition to my regular work of researching and recruiting potential EcoSummit vendors, I have begun working on an upcoming luncheon that MORPC is holding at the end of the month for the local engineering community. Because it is a much, MUCH smaller event than EcoSummit I get to be involved on a larger scale. Thus far I’ve created an invitation that will be going out this week, drawn up follow-up plans and am currently in the process of hiring a caterer. It is exciting to see this event come together so quickly and I’m looking forward to seeing the finished product!

The staff here at MORPC as well as the other organizations partnering on EcoSummit continue to be an invaluable resource in my work on EcoSummit. Lynn McCready of the Olentangy River Research Wetland’s Park has been a constant source of help in my research. I honestly don’t know where I would be without all the leads and contacts she has provided me with! Last week my boss Jerry and I sat down and he requested that I create goals for the rest of the summer now that I have been working here for three weeks and can make more reasonable and educated assessments of what needs to be done and what I should hope to accomplish in the time I have left here. It was so refreshing to have a supervisor look to me to create my own goals, and ask me for ideas and input rather than simply be expected to follow orders.

Well that’s all for now! Hope you have wonderful week!

Bailey-Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission

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Another Week at Green Columbus!

Posted on July 5, 2011 by alexandriaingley

Hello!

Week three at Green Columbus was all about the nuts and bolts of our Green Schools Initiative Program. I spent most of my time continuing to gather data for the school systems around Central Ohio we are inviting to participate in the network. Eventually, our goal is to invite all of the schools in Central Ohio to join our initiative but we are starting with those districts who have already shown an interest in green schools. As of today, every principal in every public school in Columbus, Dublin, Delaware, Pickerington, Worthington, Upper Arlington and Grandview has been emailed! It was pretty exciting to complete the first round but emailing was just the first stage-when I began calling the schools to leave direct message/have conversations with the administration, I realized that as it is summer, most of the schools will be closed to outside callers. In order to reach the administration, we needed to find a different way. That way became calling the school district administration and working with its staff to get in touch with the principals directly and avoid the automated answering machine of the school phone number. This coming week, I will continue working with the administration of the districts to facilitate dialogue with the principals.

This past week Erin and I have also been working on the Resource Guide and How To Start a Green Team handout that will be provided to the members of the network. I developed a rough draft of the How To and am now waiting on feedback. This coming week, I will turn my attention to creating the Resource Guide for schools that want to become greener.

Exciting Update! We have decided on the venue for July’s Green Drinks event. It will be July 21st at Woodlands Tavern in Grandview from 6-8pm. It will be a great opportunity to socialize and  learn about the green community! The website for Woodlands  is http://www.thethirstyear.com/ and directions are available on the site. It tavern looks like a really awesome place to spend an evening so definitely check it out!

-Alex

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