Columbus Foundation Fellowship Programs

My transportation feasibility study continues! This week, I’ve been working to collect more information on all of the various transportation options that should be considered. In doing this work, I am constantly reminded that our children are very precious cargo! Unfortunately, many transportation vendors simply don’t have the expertise and/or the appropriate vehicles to transport children safely.

In my (hypothetical) search to purchase vehicles, I drove to Canal Winchester and also met with a sales rep from a company near Toledo. The search is on for safe vehicles with competitive (low) pricing!

I’m also investigating the option of outsourcing some transportation, meaning that (at least to some degree) the Homeless Families Foundation may not need to worry about hiring drivers or purchasing vehicles. I’ve gone to several local companies to learn more about their offerings, capabilities, experiences, prices, etc. It has been an interesting search, as there is a wide variety of options to consider.

This week has also included so many more great experiences…

• I attended the joint Grant Professionals (GPA) / Fundraising Professionals (AFP) meeting, which was a great opportunity to learn from many area professionals, including Dorothy Bastian who works here at HFF.
• I spoke with David Norris at OSU’s Kirwan Institute, who was incredibly helpful and encouraging of the approach I am taking on the transportation study.
• Sue Phillips gave me a warm welcome at Directions for Youth & Families where I was able to tour the wonderful Ohio Avenue Youth Center (very impressive!)
• The executive director of Leadership Columbus, Laurie Marsh, gave an engaging and interactive presentation at the Columbus Foundation this morning.

I’m very thankful for all of these experiences. And I’m working hard to deliver a meaningful transportation study for the Dowd Education Center!

Yesterday I went on my first site visit to Alliance City Schools, as they are my ‘feeding’ focused mission organization that I am conducting a case study on. You see, I had 40 VISTA Summer Associate sponsors to choose from, and in order to have a credible research study, I couldn’t just choose five a random, so I developed a system for choosing, with the most basic criteria being the mission theme. I divided the sponsors based on their mission into five groups: faith-based, youth development and services, poverty alleviation, community development and services and feeding.

As my ‘feeding’ organization, Alliance City Schools Child Nutrition Services is dedicated to feeding area children year round. I woke up yesterday at 5 AM to drive to Alliance, near Canton, and make it there in time to sit down with the School Food Service Supervisor, meet the VISTAs and conduct an interview and focus group session. My first interview went great! I gathered a lot of information and am starting to visualize ways to incorporate it into a report and briefing document that will be meaningful. I was able to visit the Summer Food Service Program sites where the VISTAs organized activities with the kids and observe the kids getting their lunch (pretzels and cheese, fruit, veggies, milk, and sunflower seeds!), and playing dodge ball. It was awesome to see a huge crowd of 15 to 20 kids walking to the school to get lunch and lining up outside waiting. I couldn’t believe how fast they ate their food, rushing off to go play with their friends and the VISTAs.

After all of the kids left after the last snack being served at one of the VISTAs’ sites, I was able to sit down with the group of six and talk about their experiences as an AmeriCorps VISTA Summer Associate and the impact they have on their community. They were all from the Alliance area originally and therefore had a strong connection to the community and the kids with whom they are building relationships.Another conversation I had with the VISTAs talked about how attendance at the locations depended a lot on what was being served that day for a lot of the kids, but some of the kids who were brought by their parents everyday most likely came to receive a free meal. The VISTAs expressed their frustration with the program’s federal government restrictions that do not allow parents to also eat, or for a lactose-intolerant child not being able to have a juice option, because then all children would have to be offered juice. I completely sympathize and understand their frustrations, but it is often hard to make a choice between giving into an observed want or need for one person (potentially jeopardizing subsidized reimbursement for the whole program) and ignoring the wants and needs of the community. That’s why advocating for better policy and transparent decision making is so important.

This video below is a little off topic, but my visit yesterday reminded me of it, and I think anytime you have a TedTalk to share you should. So here is Ann Cooper, she,”has a frontline view of the daily battle to keep kids healthy — and of the enemy, the processed-foods industries that, it sometimes seems, want to wrap every single thing that children eat in a fried coating and then a plastic bag. As the director of nutrition services for the Berkeley (California) Unified School District, she’s an outspoken activist for serving fresh, sustainable food to kids.”

I wish she was my lunch lady growing up!

I really enjoyed my first case study site visit and I’m looking forward to another three I have scheduled for next week.

Until next time,

Melissa

Little did I know as I dashed out of my apartment this morning and sprinted for the bus stop that the next bus wouldn’t make its way through the area for another 50 minutes. As humorously described in TCF Summer Fellow Stephanie Parker’s blog post, the derailed train happened near a COTA hub and nearly half of their fleet is inaccessible. Luckily I did manage to find one buckeye awake at the wee hours of 8am to give me a ride to work. Owe that chica a meal.

While I did miss Harambee, my morning improved incredibly. I attended the press conference with Mayor Michael Coleman announcing the $24 million dedicated to revitalizing the South Side. It’s an exciting comprehensive partnership between the city, nonprofit, and private sectors. The multiple projects examine ways to increase the quality of health, education, and housing for South Side residents, tackling this endeavor from multiple approaches.

Press Conference with Mayor Coleman outside of Reeb Elementary School.

Throughout his address, Mayor Coleman kept using interesting language to describe those community members who stepped up to initiate the revitalization plans as South Side Champions.  I really liked that term and will be using #southsidechampions for any future tweets in reference to news/ updates on that project or for anyone interested to carry conversations about the proposed projects. Some individuals that compose the private partnership component of the South Side Champions are the Grote family (the people behind Donatos Pizza) and Don & Nancy Kelly (Mrs. Kelly was also CD4AP’s Read Aloud guest, click here to read about it). My Executive Director, Reverend John Edgar ended his address stressing that it was not enough to salvage social service programs in the community and proclaimed that this is an era of renaissance in the South Side for sustainable development.

It is a very exciting time in this area and I’m so incredibly fortunate to have my summer fellowship at an organization so extensively involved in the community it serves.

Best. Job. Ever.

Amber

Last week, my supervisors checked in with me about my goals for the Fellowship. Although my largest goal is to see the co-op succeed, one of the reasons I applied to this Fellowship was to learn more about non-profit organizations in general.  As a result, we decided that I would spend my remaining Tuesday mornings at the Food Hub packing bags for the Veggie Van.

The Veggie Van is a program that delivers low-cost, pre-packed bags of fresh produce to sites around Columbus that have limited access to grocery stores or other sources of fresh food. The bags contain 14 pounds of produce intended to provide kitchen staples for a week. At each site, Local Matters staff and volunteers conduct cooking demonstrations using contents of that week’s bag.  This initiative is one of Local Matters’ most successful programs, and fulfills the mission of expanding food access.

When I got to the Food Hub this morning, the place was buzzing with energy. There were about 15 people running around, with music playing in the background, cornmeal spilling all over the floor, and shouts of “we need more tomatoes over here!” and “where did the blueberries go?” echoing around the room. I jumped in on the action and started man-handling cabbages into grocery bags.

We had to pack over 500 bags this morning, and as is the case with any large operation, there were a couple roadblocks. About halfway through packing, we realized that we were short 41 heads of cabbage. Annie, the woman in charge, let out a little cry of panic and pulled out her phone. After a brief call to her distributor, she announced that the cabbages were on their way. I couldn’t believe that such a seemingly large problem had just been solved in a matter of ten seconds. At another point, we ran out of crates to pack the bags in. People mumbled and grumbled for a moment, but everyone quickly assembled some of the produce boxes to act as crates and the operation continued.

By the end of my shift at the Food Hub, I realized that there is oftentimes order within chaos. Walking into the space, it’s loud, there’s food strewn everywhere, and people are working a mile a minute. However, the operation is streamlined and a tremendous amount of work gets done in a very short time. I like to think that’s what the co-op project is like; from an outsider’s perspective, we still don’t have a space secured, our business plan isn’t finalized, and we haven’t put together our marketing material. Even so, we are working tirelessly and there are plans in place to get everything done. I simply have to do my part and trust that there’s direction within the larger, messy scheme of things.

New Start-Ups

I read a recent article in the New York Times about high school students that created an entrepreneurial club focusing on technology start-ups.  The students discuss how new start-ups can be risky and fail.  They explained the process about how they need to brainstorm ideas, fundraise, and understand the markets.  They also talked to guest speakers about the specific details of how to run a new start-up.  This helped me realize the difficulties of starting a new business and how it does not happen overnight.  I will continue to talk to representatives of social enterprises in Columbus and see how they evolved.  From this fellowship I hope to understand the social enterprises better and lay the foundation for one.

Existing Social Enterprise, Greenworks

I met with an individual from Capital Crossroads, which is an organization that works with different businesses downtown to help Columbus thrive.  He gave me contacts of restaurant and condominium owners who may be interested in partnering with our recycling program Greenworks.  I learned that it may be a tough market to get into because people may think it’s too much work to recycle and not worth their time.  Therefore, I will set up a meeting to speak with them about our program and its benefits of helping the homeless at a low rate.  If I get a good feel about their desire to be in the program I will follow-up and explain more of the finances and logistics.  Good relationships take time to build and I don’t want to rush them.

Streetcard

Considering I get many individuals calling the Coalition looking for shelter I decided to go to a Faith Mission to get a tour and ask questions that callers ask.  I was impressed by the number of services offered at the shelter including: case management, employment resources, free dental and eye care.  Many of the callers were concerned about safety in the shelter.  I found out that each person gets a locker with a lock to keep their belongings.

Being a Researcher

An intern and I found it necessary to make a needs assessment survey to find out what programs the vendors need.  During Week 2, I put on a personal budgeting workshop and found out that budgeting is not the main thing that these vendors need.  I saw that multiple systemic issues (education, housing, food access) are occurring that affect their ability to move on from the Street Speech program.  While we have not done every interview, I have found three things that the vendors need: GED training, job skills for today’s market, and access to food.

David

After an uneventful week without power until Thursday and internet until this past weekend, DSACO is again running on all cylinders and busier than ever! In addition to finalizing details for our Golf Outing Fundraiser in collaboration with Buffalo Wild Wings and Dr. Kvitko, picking back up our Golf Academy after taking the holiday off, beginning planning meetings for the Annual Adult Mini-Conference exploring health, advocacy, and employment, moving forward with our marketing campaign and committee meetings for our annual Buddy Walk fundraiser ($48,000 and counting!) on September 23rd, updating our database, and saying goodbye to our wonderful executive director Nancy Whetstone (phew, that’s a lot!), we just finished day one of our Summer Learning Academy; and it was FANTASTIC!

So basically, I already love my job. The office is fun, the work is great, I look forward to each day, and have never been so bummed to miss work as I was last week for the power outages. But it is days like today that get me fired up about DSACO and what we do.

We have eight absolutely adorable and excitable elementary students spending five weeks with us to continue their learning, foster growth, and avoid falling back in school during the break. Each one of them wants to learn and show off what they know, so it’s a high-energy morning from start to finish, and full of high-fives and laughter. With parents so appreciative and children so full of love, it’s hard not to really enjoy every interaction I have with our Down syndrome buddies and their families. And I am already rooting so hard for out Summer Learning Academy students to show improvement and continue to be excited about what they know.

Lastly, I would just like to thank the Columbus Foundation for this amazing opportunity and DSACO for a Summer that’s second to none. I’ve learned as much as I’ve enjoyed, I’ve been blown away by the support shown for the Down syndrome community by the parents, and I’ve laughed every day at the office with a wonderful staff!