Columbus Foundation Fellowship Programs

I learned the stages of the policy process numerous times throughout my undergraduate degree. In the public sector, the process proceeds as follows: problem identification, policy formulation, adoption, implementation, and evaluation. Without realizing it, my process for creating the operations manual for Local Matters has followed a very similar pattern. I spent a few weeks observing and learning the organization to identify what the current operating procedures were and what may need improvement. I then worked with the programs team to put the ideal processes and procedures into writing. With those steps complete, I turned my attention this week to how the manual can be implemented in the coming months. 

I will no longer be an employee of Local Matters during the implementation process. Thus, the agency I have in this process is to share how I see it best occurring based on my work this summer. Without building constant awareness of the document and referencing it continuously, it will become just another document uploaded to the cloud. My team members have expressed that this will not happen, as all have been enthusiastic about it becoming a core piece of the day-to-day operations at local matters. I nonetheless documented my ideas on how to ensure that the manual remains a critical piece overtime. As employees utilize the manual, they will undoubtedly notice room for improvement. I also shared my ideas for how to review the manual overtime. Finally, I listed some changes that must occur before the document can be integrated into the workplace, namely restructuring certain technology systems used by the organization.

It is really exciting thinking about how my work could lead to a change. While it may have sometimes felt disconnected from the service of the organization, increasing efficiency and productivity will better allow the organization to serve the community. This means more people learning about healthy food and more people accessing the nutrients they need to live a healthy life.

This week, I had the opportunity to visit the final site of ARC, the Bixby location. As I have stated in previous posts, every site that I have visited is full of hard working and dedicated staff. Everyone I have encountered so far at ARC truly care about the people that they are serving, and this is true for all of the locations. However, the staff at Bixby were on another level. In every single room I visited, staff were actively engaged with all participants and ensured that every single person was doing something to help them reach their goals.

The first room I had the chance to visit had 2 staff members who decided to split their morning activities. One staff member led a Zumba dance session, where participants were encouraged to move their bodies and even use weights if they chose to. Every single person who decided to participate was smiling! Obviously, participation looked different for everyone, but that was sort of the beauty of it. On the other side of the room, the other staff member was helping everyone else make a craft. On paper, this might not seem like that much. However, based on my past observations, it can be difficult and overwhelming for some staff to serve multiple participants at once. Yet, these staff were incredible.

While that was only one example, this trend held true through all of the rooms I visited. Moreover, there was one particular room, the “Blue Suite”, that is comprised of individuals who require a higher level of care. The staff in this room provide services such as feeding and personal care as well as engagement. When I walked into Blue, they were making an art project. They laid canvases on the ground and tied a cup of paint over them, hanging from the ceiling. Then, they would swing the paint around, making a splatter paint effect on the canvases below. Most of the participants in this room have physical limitations, yet the staff ensured that every person was involved in the art. (I have included a picture of their art project below!)

This is an incredibly hard job, and I truly believe that there are only certain people who can do it. After visiting Bixby, I can confidently say that these people are a wonderful example of who should be in this field. Their actions and interactions were inspiring, and I hope to work with them again in the future.

Additionally, this week the Columbus Foundation kindly provided the interns with tickets to a Columbus Crew game! Though I have absolutely no idea how soccer works, I decided to go. One of the participants in the ASPIRE program works at the Crew stadium, and I made it a little mission to find him… and I did! We chatted for a while and even took a selfie! So, I want to express my gratitude to the Columbus Foundation for providing those tickets, so I could spend time with a participant and surprise him to put a smile on his face.

This week is our last week going into summer camps and engaging kids in our Kindness Corps program.

This week’s lesson was about our unhoused and hungry neighbors here in Columbus. The kids decorated snack bags and filled them with non-perishable snacks for food pantries around Columbus. The bags were decorated with fun sayings like “made with love” and “you shine bright” and drawn on by the kids. We also showed a video from last week of us giving our donations to Nationwide Children’s as well as a video we took in one of the food pantries we donate to show them who they will be donating to next.

At the end of each camp this week, we gave the kids surveys to fill out. This was to see what they learned and to gather data on Kindness Corps, as well as what changes need to be made or what we be improved upon in the program. We’ve also been inputting this data this week and it’s been interesting to see what kids have to say about our programs. I feel that the surveys are beneficial for us and the kids so that we can see what the program has done for the kids, as well as the kids can reflect on what they have learned throughout their time with us.

On Monday, I co-worked with our executive director in the afternoon. We talked about the book I read in these last few weeks, and I had many questions for her about the book and how the practices mentioned in the book were implemented into Seeds of Caring and the work we do. We had great conversations on the future of Seeds of Caring! We also discussed my presentation to The Columbus Foundation next week, where she will also be in attendance. She gave me some feedback on what I should include, and how I can apply what I have learned during my time into the presentation as well.

I have been putting together my photos for my Pecha Kucha presentation, as well as taking some more photos during my time at camp this week. It has been a bit difficult to take photos since I work mostly with kids and we can’t take photos of them, but myself and my coworkers have gotten very good at strategically taking photos where the kids are turned around or no faces/things to identify the children are in the photos! (see below)

I’m a bit nervous going into next week, concerning the presentation. I’ve gained more confidence this summer speaking to groups, and since kids truly are the hardest audience, I feel that I can overcome my nervousness and focus on having fun and celebrating my summer & the other fellows’ summers as well!

This past week I worked on taking more photos for the magazine story I am writing as well as making edits to it. On Tuesday I worked from our Columbus location so that I could take pictures of tutoring in progress. It was nice to meet the students and also their tutors! Some of the tutors are also Marburn Academy teachers for the regular school year. One student was telling us that he got to meet some Columbus Crew soccer players during the season ticket holder event last week. He also got his hair cut by the team’s official barber which he was super excited about. I also found out that this student is an amazing artist and he drew a picture of a soccer player, Pedro Santos, on the whiteboard for his tutor and I. He also told us that he wants to be a professional soccer player when he grows up! 

This past week I worked on some more project items for our MEC Community Celebration that is happening on Thursday, August 4th. We have been holding meetings to brainstorm ideas and ways to make this celebration fun and meaningful. We are also having this celebration to show our appreciation and gratitude to the donors who have supported Marburn Academy and its second location in Columbus. Our donors have made it possible for Marburn to impact students who learn differently in more school districts, cities, counties, and more. I am excited to work the event and meet these wonderful people.

This week has been incredibly hectic as my lease ends August first. I have spent most of my time packing and getting ready to move out. I am couch surfing for the next 2 and a half weeks as my fall lease doesn’t start until the 18th. So Friday I was packing and getting ready for the move. Saturday I spent driving a uhaul on the highway which was not enjoyable at all.

On to the general rant. This week a clip of Josh Hawley running from the January 6th insurrectionists surfaced and it became a thing for Democrats to post it making fun of him. Politicians I really respect like Nina Turner posted the video mocking Hawley for riling up the crowd and then running away. The mocking just felt so out of place. January 6th was an actual orchestrated coup attempt and it feels so odd to be making fun of Josh Hawley for his roll in this. It feels as though it is being trivialized and not being treated with the true weight of the moment. It feels so chronically online and devoid of humanity. What he did was reprehensible so why are we trivializing it?

My time at Equality taught me a lot about how to interact with people online and in person and when we trivialize people that are part of an issue, whether they are the victims or the perpetrator we are reducing the true gravity of the situation and this feels exactly like that.

Its the same with televising the trial of Alex Jones and the families of the Sandy Hook victims, this is not a spectator sport these are peoples real lives. If you find something wrong treat it with the weight it deserves, and go out and do something.

As part of my time at Cultivate this week I visited a meetup hosted by the Columbus Safety Collective. The Columbus safety collective is a group pushing for the City of Columbus to adopt a non-police emergency response program. Because the police commonly escalate crises and harm and kill people, learning of the group and event excited me. The police system is not anti-racist and does not center the health and care of individuals calling for help. The group wants the City to allocate money to this response team in its 2023 budget. As part of the outline in this policy, community members will be hired as crisis responders. They will come from the neighborhoods who have high needs and work with the people who are in the crisis situations. This is a true community care program, with members being hired and trained directly in the communities that need the service. For accountability, there will be a community oversight board and payment to outside evaluators to assess the impact of the program. This event had people affected by police violence share their stories. They were not new stories for me, but they all resonated and hurt to hear. It is always an honor when people share their vulnerable stories. The event lit a spark in me to continue advocating for this kind of change that we desperately need. We were reminded of the meaning of first responder, and I formed a new perspective. I am a first responder. When my sister was having a seizure, I was the first person to respond. When I saw a man who appeared to be dead in the alley, I was the one who responded first. I have been in other crisis situations, and they all mean being a first responder. It has been 7 years since I last called 911 and I’ll never do it again if it means a police presence. The lack of care and the disdain officers have has always disgusted me. I’ve never had a positive experience with police. They are not here to help us. They are used to segregate and to punish. Columbus needs an alternative now. See below to get informed and to get involved.

https://www.facebook.com/cbussafetycollective

https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/2022/07/28/columbus-group-proposes-no-police-in-mental-health-crisis-responses/10180038002/

https://www.nbc4i.com/news/local-news/columbus/group-calls-on-columbus-for-alternative-police-response-program/

COLUMBUS POLICE ACCOUNTABILITY PROJECT: https://c-pap.info/

Columbus Can’t Wait episode on non-police response: https://anchor.fm/columbus-cant-wait/episodes/S2E7-Jasmine-Ayres–Steve-David-e10p9ls

Columbus Can’t Wait also has a whole season dedicated to victims and survivors of police violence.

This week, I had the opportunity to sit in on an OPRA Leadership meeting. During this meeting, I had the chance to listen to leaders speak about their past experiences and their views on leadership. Each of these people shared what values they thought to be most important when you are in a leadership role. While I thought all of them were helpful, the common theme that I found most interesting was, “It’s a good thing to have conflict”. At first, when someone mentioned it, I thought, “That’s terrible advice, conflict is bad”. However, as they continued to discuss, they brought up how important it was for employees and employers to trust and respect each other enough to be able to express their true thoughts, in order to pursue positive changes. Having a staff with differing opinions and ideas can be an extremely positive thing. Additionally, one other common idea that I found to be interesting was, “Choose to be vulnerable”. They discussed how helpful it can be, as a leader, to be able to share parts of who you are as a person, not just a boss. This led me to think about our conversations from our Wednesday meeting where we heard powerful leaders emphasize to us that their job is to make sure that everyone has exactly what they need in order to get things done– in other words, it isn’t about gaining personal power, but doing everything in your personal power to help your staff and business.

Additionally, during this meeting, I got to see a presentation on the social and political history of people with developmental disabilities. This presentation was incredibly powerful. Throughout history, these people have been shamed, mocked, and mistreated. It was incredible to see how much progress has been made in the field throughout history, but also a little disheartening to see how long it took these changes to take place. It does however, give me hope that more positive changes are to come.

Moreover, this week I worked on another edition of our blog, Through Our Lens” as well as my typical Tuesday outing with my ASPIRE group.

This has been a challenging week for My Project USA. On Saturday, we lost one of our soccer players Issa Jeylani to gun violence. This traumatic event affected the whole center and the community around it. It brought reality to the center that there needs to be a change and we need to be at the front fighting for it. At that moment, I mourned for him, as it brought back many memories of members of my community that were victims of this crime. Although I am from the north side of Columbus, we are facing the same problems as the west side. As a community, we need to unite and change the dynamics and expectations of our community members. The most impactful people are those who live in the neighborhoods. They are people who need the community to grow on a different path. If we find these individuals and help them understand their power, we can show others that a change will come.

This also helped me realize how important it is to practice self-care. I took the time to speak to pillars in my life. They helped me understand the impact something like this can have when you do not process it in a healthy matter. If we keep looking back at the past, we cannot see the future. This does not mean we cannot learn from the past. I hope that My Project USA can serve as a pillar for these students. We can teach the students to take the past and use it to help mold the future. Together we can help guide the students on a path of healing and forgiveness. These students are resilient with a bright future ahead of them, they simply deserve someone who will support them to fight against the odds.