Columbus Foundation Fellowship Programs

… And I have just about put in a 12 hour work day. Oh, and it’s my birthday!

This past week has been crazy busy; I totaled my car, had my school laptop sent in for repairs and come back still not fixed, and started a lease on an apartment in Pennsylvania where I don’t even live yet — all while being in the final weeks of ETSS’s Summer Enrichment Camp and the final stages of planning and preparation for their Youth Summit. Mercury is quite literally in retrograde right now, and I feel it deeply.

Despite my personal life being a mess, I am starting to feel more than ever part of the ETSS family. I feel comfortable talking to people, sharing my opinion, asking questions, and taking the initiative to do certain tasks. This has led me to pick up many different side jobs throughout my fellowship such as helping manage the Youth Department interns, running the Summer Enrichment Camp’s overarching nutrition program, managing all purchases for the Youth Department, and undertaking some large scale organization projects.

I also feel like people at ETSS are warming up to me, too — Bire, one of the older women at the office, was deeply upset when she found out that I was only here until August 10, and she invited me back to work again next summer. Meberat, the secretary, has started to include me on her afternoon rounds when she serves coffee. I have even started to accumulate my own stashes and storage areas in the office where only I know where things are. (Various office employees having “stashes” of random supplies and materials is a thing at ETSS. Next week, once the Youth Summit is over, I plan to inventory and organize everything so it can be useful for others.)

I started this summer worrying about how I would fit in at an office run and led by people who on the outside are not like me. I asked myself, “Where is my place as a white United States citizen within this organization?” I constantly reflected on my intentions, my assumptions, my positionality, and I felt doubtful and fretful about my relative worth at ETSS. After working with and learning from others at ETSS, I have come to understand that ETSS works to build bridges and work collaboratively with all races, nationalities, and backgrounds like no other organization I have encountered before. At ETSS, if you are a kind person who works hard and is willing to learn, you will quickly become part of their family.

It’s hard to believe that I’m about to enter my last week at Cartoon Crossroads Columbus. The past few days have been an absolute whirlwind as I tie up loose ends and prepare to transition my projects over to the executive committee of Cartoon Crossroads. I have taken on more responsibility as the summer progressed, and it feels rewarding to see my work being turned over to other workers who will make further legitimate progress with it. My main focus has been getting data into our new CRM technology, Salesforce for Nonprofits. There was much to learn, as the service uses unique terminology and a coding language that I was not familiar with prior to this fellowship, but that makes the end result all the more valuable.

My plan from here on out is fairly simple: upload as much cleaned data as possible and spend significant time teaching my supervisor and others on the executive committee how to continue to upload and edit the data. This week I put together an intensive list of the different Salesforce learning platforms for anyone who may need them in the future. I catered the programs I selected to fit the needs of Cartoon Crossroads as much as possible. I want to ensure that when I leave, I’m not leaving them without a clear path that allows them to continue my work and grow with the festival.

I feel as though I’ve learned so much about the importance of nonprofit financials since stepping into my new role here. In order to purchase Salesforce to begin with there had to be a meeting weighing the costs and benefits of the program. I’ve come to understand how every penny counts here and needs to be allocated correctly, which is why I am so focused on cleaning the data before importing. I want to leave CXC with a strong CRM tool that’s worth the money.

This week I held my fundraising event with Equality Ohio in Worthington. Our goal was to connect with community members and let them know the work that we are doing around the fight for equality. We held the event at House Wine where we were able to taste different wines, bid on auction items that I collected from local businesses, and ultimately raise awareness for the Ohio Fairness Act (HB 160).

Organizations such as Planned Parenthood Advocates of Ohio and Feminist Flag Corps were more than willing to donate items, which we are so appreciative of. Seeing non-profit organizations show up for each other is really important, and I think we forget that sometimes. I’m currently planning another fundraising event next week in Reynoldsburg, an area that we are hoping to connect with more. One of my goals for the summer was to hold two fundraising events (which take longer to put together than you would think) but we’re almost there.

A huge takeaway from doing this fellowship is that I do not think I’ll ever be able to separate myself from the reproductive healthcare fight. I know that I can be committed to several different issues at once, but at the end of the day I connect everything I do back to the repro rights movement. I think it is also important to recognize that safe, accessible abortion is heavily under attack in this current political climate. While I recognize we need anti-discrimination laws and better protections in Ohio for LGBTQ+ individuals, reproductive healthcare is also an LGBTQ+ issue. 

Long term, I could absolutely see myself starting my own non-profit dedicated to LGBTQ+ access to reproductive healthcare (abortion services, prenatal care, adoption services, STD testing, birth control, etc). Reproductive healthcare is often written off as a women’s issue and LGBTQ+ reproductive healthcare is written off as strictly an issue of equality – there is never a crossover. If we were able to overlap the lines of organizing then we would be able to create a stronger movement so that everyone could have safe, affordable and dignified access to reproductive healthcare.

I spent my eighth week at Equality Ohio doing a lot of self-reflection as the program begins to close. In the office, I’ve been working on a lot of data management and fundraising planning. It’s been really fun being able to plan an event exactly as I want it to be with hopes of raising support for House Bill 160 (Ohio Fairness Act).

With all of these things coming together, I continue to wonder if my future career will be in the non-profit world. Lately, I have been reading The Revolution will Not Be Funded which gives an interesting perspective into the non-profit industrial complex (NPIC). If you don’t know, this is the idea that enables those of us doing work to feel good about what we do – which is important. It also means that we need to make sure as activists that we are not straying too far from our mission by getting caught up in the demands of work and disconnected from the political struggles that our work originally grew out of.

We often forget that many social justice movements were organized from the outside. There weren’t donors, supporter cards, power-points, or surveys. These victories were achieved by the people, and they can still be achieved by the people. This is important to remember because all the work I have ever done is non-profit and there have been many times where I felt like what I was doing wasn’t making a difference. In this current political climate, it is easy to feel that way and get lost in the work.

One of the biggest disadvantages to getting lost in the struggle is that we forget that while we can always be teachers, we will never finish being learners. There will never be a training or a memo that will be fully informative of every oppression, experience or ultimate solution. There will never be a seminar that will fully scope the lives of trans women of color, a database that captures how homeless LGBTQ+ youth feel, or a conference that tells me what it feels like when you find out you’re being fired from your job because of your sexual orientation. If we want to make social change, we need to keep learning and listening from the outside. 

That is what I want to do after this fellowship is over.

Week 6 of the fellowship has provided a lot of insight into social enterprise. LifeCare Alliance utilizes many strategies for social enterprise, including Carrie’s Cafe, a senior dining center which is open to the public, L.A. Catering, a catering company, travel vaccines and immunizations at the wellness clinics, and wellness screenings to corporate partners. Social enterprise has allowed LifeCare to continue providing an increased demand of services while suffering a decrease in traditional government funding sources.

This week, I had the opportunity to assist with a corporate wellness screening. Employees were biometrically assessed (blood sugar and cholesterol levels) and counseled by the nurses on the importance of implementing certain lifestyle changes. The nurses also provided skin and prostate cancer screenings. This experience illustrated the immense value and necessity for community health workers. 

I also got the chance to explore Hilltop/Franklinton area where I work. LifeCare Alliance is hosting a blues concert to benefit the Columbus Cancer Clinic and I was tasked with finding spots around the neighboring areas where we could hang up flyers to promote the event. I visited local coffee shops, libraries, and rec centers to post our flyers on their community bulletin boards. I loved being able to explore different parts of Columbus, especially Third Way Cafe in the Hilltop and Bottoms Up Coffee Co-Op in Franklinton! 

Third Way Cafe has the cutest reading nook!

Bottoms Up is a social enterprise with a mission to lower the high infant mortality rate in Columbus.

My latest #WellnessWednesday blog post was also posted this week, be sure to check it out!

Earlier this week, we heard from Doug Kridler the President and CEO of the Columbus Foundation. We touched on a concept that has always fascinated me, especially in the last year coming from the Columbus Partnership to the Columbus Foundation. As Doug mentioned, “The Columbus Way” is probably said around 10 times a day across offices in the 614. This phrase refers to the amount of collaboration in Columbus. It is a culture amongst sectors and competitors to work together for a better quality of life in Columbus. As with anything, people have questioned how true and effective “The Columbus Way” really is, but this week I was able to work in it.

For over thirty years, Safe Place has been operating at all our fire stations in the city. But, the partnership between the Division of Fire and us has been less communicative over recent years. I reached out to the Division of Fire to reconnect on Safe Place, and how Huck House can best support them in keeping our youth safe. When I heard back from them, I was really surprised and excited to hear that I was going to meet with the Chief of our city’s Division of Fire. I really did not think someone as busy the fire chief would stop and chat with me about Safe Place. However, I could tell within just a few minutes, Chief O’Connor was very serious about keeping our city safe. Our firewomen and men do much, much more than put out fires. They truly put themselves in the community to keep everyone safe and healthy as possible.  Chief O’Connor and I were able to chat about how to improve our Safe Place program, as well as working on ensuring all 1,500 firefighters know our Safe Place procedures. They are helping us create a training video just for our firefighters, to make sure that every youth seeking a Safe Place is helped. I am so incredibly happy this week to work so closely and collaborate with our fire department on Safe Place. This week was filled with the “The Columbus Way” to keep our youth safe!

I knew at the beginning of this fellowship that this experience would be filled with learning and growth. However, classrooms manifest in many different forms – the COTA bus system was one for me this summer.

The suburb that I grew up in, like most in our country, was built for single occupancy, internal combustion engine cars. You could walk to a few places, depending on where you live, but the sprawl of the community dictated the necessity of cars to live our daily lives. In contrast, this summer I have relied almost entirely on the COTA bus to navigate my daily life – going to work, getting groceries, socializing, volunteering, etc. I say almost entirely, as I can’t overlook kind friends with cars hauling me around town every once in a while. I can’t complain though: I live close to a number of bus lines that go throughout the city, I have a smartphone with an app that helps me navigate the bus lines and schedules, and when needed I have a bank account that allows me to call an Uber from my phone (all things that are not a given and require abundant gratitude).

I didn’t realize how much more challenging life gets without a car until I didn’t have one to use. I say this not to complain, but to draw attention to how little we can understand about one another until we walk a mile in someone else’s shoes (literally, in some cases with transportation). Without experiencing this personally, I never would have fully grasped the extent of how much of a hurdle transportation can pose. Time is one of our most valuable assets, and in Columbus it’s easy to spend more time on necessary tasks– commuting to employment, healthcare, nutrition, education – than necessary if using the bus. If we all need to access these assets to live healthy, happy, and prosperous lives, then why is it harder for some people to get to them than others?

This week, we heard Aslyne Rodriguez share her experiences as the co-founder and CEO of EmpowerBus, a social enterprise that promotes social mobility via access to reliable transportation. Essentially, she asked herself the same question as I did, but had the entrepreneurial savvy and know-how to go about making positive change on this problem. One of my favorite features of this fellowship program is how every learning session leaves me feeling enthusiastically inspired by leaders who are doing incredible work right here in our community. I had no idea about Empowerbus before this week, nor that such a solution to mobility barriers could exist. Hearing about this solution showed me how much potential there is to change systems as we know it – whether it’s the transportation system, as Aslyne is doing, or food systems, like Local Matters focuses on. This understanding left me energized and focused, and I hope to carry this with me throughout the remainder of the fellowship.

Every day, the kids at camp come in and fight over one toy: the Legos. Whether it’s the girls, the boys, the kids that like art, or the kids that don’t, there is a constant brawl over who is gonna get what pieces from the scarcity of Legos available. The lack of resources has been a conversation for a while, but seeing it manifest in this scenario had me thinking about what it means to be in the nonprofit sector. I realized that things don’t just magically appear. It’s all about connections and a willingness to have people who put money from their paycheck aside to donate to something bigger than themselves. So that’s what I did. I spent $65 of my $600 paycheck on a Lego and K’Nex building set. I am not sharing this to solicit praise or a pat on the back. This is a segway to a more important discussion.

Once the campers saw the building sets, they were surprised. They had no idea that a new set had so many pieces and guidebooks to make more elaborate things since they had been relying soley on their imaginations thus far. In less than an hour of playing with the set, four kids no older than eight years old showed me their new creation: a train. These four children have been the most destructive and distracting kids in the camp since it started weeks ago and here they were rolling around a Lego train smiling and laughing. For the first time, I saw something magical in their eyes: pride.

The Legos set the precipice for a very important discussion about children and education in general. From the first day of the camp, there was an acknowledgement from almost everyone on the camp staff that there needed to me be more toys for the kids. The most common statement that prevented anyone from acting on this acknowledgment is “they’re just going to break them and lose the pieces”. I held this opinion too after seeing the wasteland of broken toys that had accumulated over the years in the camp. However, over time, I saw how trusting the kids produced a better outcome than just assuming they will continue to act the same no matter what. In working-class communities, there is a heavy focus on obedience. Children are taught to behave and if they don’t, they are punished and the level of trust in that child decreases. Although the ability to follow instructions is important, what is more important and often overlooked is trust and self-efficacy. When a child misbehaves, you have the choice to reprimand them in a way that takes their power away or that gives them the power to make the right decision in the future. Empowering children requires trust.

I didn’t know how the kids would treat the Legos, but I sat them down beforehand and had a conversation about respecting the toys and the other campers in order to create a communal environment where more nice things can come into the camp. I gave some children the responsibility of making sure everything went into the right box when playtime was over so they could feel important and trusted with the upkeep of the new Legos. Trust is necessary for empowered. Empowerment is necessary for self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is necessary for success in every facet of a person’s life.  Seeing the toy train was enough to make the staff want to compile a list of other fun toys that the campers would like and be able to use for years to come. Next week is the Final Production and I cannot wait to see all the hard work of camp come together. 

Podcast link: https://soundcloud.com/user-110817248/tcf-blog-week-8/s-jqokQ

Podcast transcript:

“What’s this? I’m no longer surrounded by bugs and dirt and covered in sweat? Must mean my week of camp is over.

The past seven days I’ve been working remotely–very remotely–all the way from Danville Ohio, where I work as a counselor at a juvenile diabetes camp. I’ve been diabetic for 19 years, and I’ve been attending the Central Ohio Diabetes Association camps since I was three. The past couple years at camp I’ve had the opportunity to be the arts and crafts director, which is so amazing because I get to practice for when I’m teaching art in the community! I absolutely love this position because I get to foster the campers’ creativity and get to know all the kids in a different way. And as you can probably hear, I lost my voice from a week of singing, yelling, and cheering.

A beautiful day for crafts!

My domain. (Our camp isn’t religious, but the site that hosts us is)

I’m so thankful that TECH CORPS supported me still working this year despite the fellowship, because this camp means so much to me! I did learn that working from camp is difficult though, because the wifi was extremely bad and it’s not like I’m loaded with free time. I did the best I could. I tried to keep up as much as possible on our social media, and even got a few sponsor appreciation posts out! And a women in tech wednesday and a throwback thursday to earlier tech camps made appearances.

I also tried to edit a new video I’m working on. Two weeks ago I visited another non-profit that we work with called Per Scholas, which is an organization that provides free IT job training. It’s amazing because it’s a fast, intensive program that provides more accessibility for people to learn a valuable skill set. When we have young adults in our TECH CORPS programs unsure if they want to pursue college, we provide Per Scholas as an option to them. If our students can’t attend college because of financial reasons, Per Scholas provides a free alternative. If they just don’t want to commit to a degree, this program condenses what’s essentially an associates degree into a couple months. It’s a really great alternative to the traditional university route.

Anyway, I went to their location downtown and interviewed a few students. I’m creating a video that promotes the program so we can show it to our TECH CORPS students. It’s a relatively short piece, but I really want it to be good, so I’m taking my time and being very intentional with it. I didn’t get as much done this week as I wanted to, but I probably expected too much of myself with being at camp and all.

No worries though, next week I’ll be able to get a lot more done–and get back to having blog posts turned in on time.”

This is my best friend, Jessica! We work at camp together. Goals, am I right?

A terrible image of our final campfire under a spooky blood moon.

This past week I was able to substitute for a counselor and spend the entire week with one group of kids. I was very excited when I heard I would be doing this because as the CIT coordinator, all my time and attention was dedicated to the CITs, not the actual campers. Since the CIT program has ended, I haven’t had the chance to stick with the same group of kids for a week. Instead I have been floating around to different groups of campers. I was placed in a first grade group and really enjoyed it. After being with campers of different grade levels, I have noticed that the first graders tend to listen more quickly and are more obedient to following rules while the second/third graders sometimes tend to be the opposite. Within a week I was able to develop a bond with the group I was placed in. On Friday, we were able to experience a mini circus! Some of the campers from all grade levels signed up to participate in one of our week-long specialty camps, circus camp. Some first graders from my group were a part of the circus. The circus was very cool, I honestly didn’t expect for it to be as extravagant as it was. After seeing the circus, I began to reflect on how cool it is for the Jewish Community Center to organize yearly summer camps. The JCC’s summer camps benefit both counselors and campers. Counselors truly are able to develop strong leadership skills while campers are able to make new friends and learn about diversity through certain activities such as our Israeli Culture and Judaics activities. I am glad that I have been able to add onto the value of this summer camp program by fulfilling the CIT Coordinator position that never existed in the past.