Columbus Foundation Fellowship Programs

…her name is Corn Hole Carol.

On Friday, I spent the day as a chaperone for ETSS summer camp sites that went to play at Bicentennial Park and the Columbus Commons. At Bicentennial Park, the group of students I was with were all smiles, as they love water games and playing. Many camp staff who work with students from Wedgewood Apartments — arguably ETSS’s most high need camp site — were all smiles, too, with many staff commenting that seeing the kids they have been working with so happy made their hard work feel worth it.

Cut to a phone call we receive from ETSS’s main office. A (white) woman had called our office to complain about our children who were playing at another downtown attraction, the Columbus Commons. She was offended, apparently, at how our children played corn hole. Our children were trying to throw bean bags overhand instead of underhand, and, because some of them were boys under the age of nine years old, they were also trying to throw them at each other. There were ETSS staff there to direct the children back to the game when it happened. But, to Corn Hole Carol, this meant a barrage of complaints to our main office, calls to security, and threats to call the police and the Columbus Dispatch to report the children’s “offensive” behavior.

Almost every Friday when ETSS goes on field trips, we have to field complaints and questions about our kids. For example, when I went to Ohio History Center two weeks ago, a (white) woman came up  and asked me pointedly where the children I was a chaperone for are from. This woman could have been genuinely curious, but it is hard to tell intentions in our current political and social climate. Many of the children ETSS serves are from or have parents who are from countries on Trump’s Supreme Court-backed travel ban list. There has been high profile media coverage of white people calling the police on children of color for doing ordinary activities. Almost every week when we take our children on field trips, our children, whether they are conscious of it or not, are targeted by adults due to their skin color, their immigration status, and/or their religion.

As our speakers from Tuesday’s learning session, Melissa Crum and LaShaun Carter discuss, there is a great need to address trauma in order to begin a healing process and in order to design and implement successful projects and programming for people in marginalized communities. ETSS knows deeply that we cannot properly serve our children without addressing they trauma they have experienced in their very short lives. I admire the ways in which ETSS looks beyond just focusing on subjects taught in school to also include emotional and social forms of learning, as well.

This week I spent a considerable portion of my time away from the Summer Arts Camp environment. Out for some professional development opportunities, this week was extremely different from the usual day to day operations at the Complex.

Ohio State University has an annual Buckeye Bus Tour of Ohio. Centered around providing a select group of a  students with the opportunity to understand and serve the neighboring cities of Ohio, this opportunity by chance had a major focus on food insecurity in North East Ohio. As a Cleveland native who is currently working on a food and gardening program for The King Arts Complex, this couldn’t have been a more special opportunity. Using my platform as a student, I spoke with professors and community members on the trip about possible resources they could provide to help make a community garden and food pantry possible at the Complex. To my surprise, there are many efforts to address food insecurity in Columbus that are interested in partnering with local nonprofits. Getting the opportunity to learn more about an area that is so close to home was nostalgic and will have a great impact on the work that I am doing at the King Arts Complex.

Even with the amazing opportunity I was provided with by the Buckeye Bus, I missed being with the kids at the summer camp. Although they fall a little short when it comes to using terms like 501c3 and assets, they offer a relentless energy that can’t be matched by any person over the age of 13. Next week I will be returning with new knowledge on how to start the proposal process for the Community Garden and will be teaching a poetry/rap workshop for the kids in the camp as they start finalizing pieces for the Final Production at the end of camp. Here are some farm pictures, a photo of me rocking a fashionable hairnet with a fellow Buckeye, and a photo with Brutus.

Podcast link: https://soundcloud.com/user-110817248/tcf-blog-week-6/s-kHrcI

Podcast Transcript:

“You know when you meet someone and they’re like “ohhh yeah I was traveling on business merhehrh” Well guess what? That’s me now. I’m really important. So important in fact, I had to travel for business. To Elyria, Ohio.

Technically I went to Cleveland first, but then went to Elyria after. Why, you ask? Well, to take pictures, of course! And I’m really glad I did, because I think at these program sites I got the best pictures of Techie Camps so far. I stopped at two programs in Cleveland and two in Elyria. In Cleveland there was Student WEB CORPS and an E4Tech program happening. In Elyria there were two Techie Camps, one was an elementary school programming camp and the other was a middle school 3D printing camp.

I took a few group photos, so obviously at the end I had them do a few silly ones. This girl in the front is my hero.

Between visiting the two sites, I got lunch with my supervisor Lisa and the person in charge of the Northeast Ohio programs, Michelle. We went to this place called Oh Boy, it’s like a traditional diner joint. I had a veggie burger, and it was jammin. I wasn’t sure if they would have many vegetarian options and I was pleasantly surprised. I scarfed down the sandwich and fries. It was really cute inside, they had jukeboxes at every table! They didn’t work, but they were fun to look at.

Visiting these sites in Northeast Ohio was really impactful for a few reasons.

The first reason is that I was able to see even more of what we’re doing for students. I saw four more programs in action and it was cool to put in perspective how far past Columbus we’re reaching–we even have camps in California!

I got to see some of how our corporate sponsorships work and what that looks like. Nordson Corporation is one of our major sponsors, and they sent a woman named Cecilia to check out our camps to see what their dollars are doing. I’m not really interested in the financing or business side of things, but it was eye opening to see what those interactions are like.

Most importantly, it made me even more excited to be an educator myself. When I was little I wanted to be a teacher, but as I got older I decided I didn’t want to because I didn’t see myself in a classroom and I wanted to do something more media related. Turns out that I really am supposed to be a teacher, and I can do that in a myriad of ways! I want to teach art and media to the community. Hanging out with the little kids doing their programming camp was such a blast. They are so funny, cute, quirky and loving. I just can’t wait until I’m the one doing the instruction.

I can’t believe this is week 6. Time flies when you’re working for a non-profit (having fun)!”

Before I delve into the meat of this post, I must acknowledge that I have spent 21 years living in relatively homogeneous communities, where I have been surrounded by people who either look like me or have similar lived experiences to me. My interactions with diverse groups have been fairly limited until I left my hometown for college. This was not due to aversion, but due to the wealth of privilege surrounding me and the demographic disparities embedded within that. Embracing my ignorance and working to educate myself on this subject has been a necessary struggle since graduating high school, when I came to the realization of my limited exposure to different groups and experiences.

This diversifying of my interactions has led to me learning about implicit bias, which is a constant in our society, even at Local Matters, an organization heavily focused on addressing social injustices in our community. Watching kids interact with each other at Local Matters’ programming has been especially revealing of this. At a program last week, a group of campers came into the community kitchen for a program and sorted themselves amongst the four tables in the room. Except for one or two outliers, the four tables were evenly split by race and gender. No one gave instructions or insisted on this, it simply happened on its own. When the kids were then randomly assigned to new groups, they then arranged themselves by race and gender around the table, and again on their own. This happened in similar ways with nearly every class of kids that I have shadowed this summer.

While writing this blog post, the group chat for my Columbus Foundation cohort was having a conversation about racism in relation to an event where people acted on their implicit biases and “othered” a group of kids because of their skin color. (Side note, this cohort is filled with the most intelligent and kind-hearted people in the city.) Some cohort members pointed to education as the main factor for how these implicit biases are created. But while people learn these biases, people can also unlearn them, and grow to be aware of their biases, expanding their understanding of the world and the people around them in the process. While it was frustrating to watch these children seemingly unintentionally segregate themselves based on demographics, the acknowledgement that this occurred is how we can start to change these type of occurrences. Having conversations about these biases and experiences, such as the conversation that the fellows had, is the first step to working past them.

Everyone, regardless of privilege or demographic, has these unconscious biases. All people should work to become more aware of their personal implicit biases, so that we know to treat one another with dignity and respect, rather than judging one another based on features of our identity that are likely outside of personal control. Maybe then, we’ll live in a world where kids judge each other based on the content of their character, and not based on demographics like race or gender.

So, I didn’t post for week five and that was because our entire office was closed for the first week of July. This left me the opportunity of working on data entry and planning for a fundraising event from the comfort of my couch – the true activist agenda.

I can’t believe there’s only a few weeks left in the program when I feel like I’ve just been getting started. Right now it looks like I’ll be organizing two fundraising events in Worthington and Reynoldsburg for the end of July. The event in Worthington will be a wine tasting (exciting!) with a silent auction that I have worked to collect items for. It has been incredible to collaborate with organizations like Planned Parenthood, Dough Mama, and Gateway Theater to get items for the auction. It’s so weird to think I’m actually making something so important happen for an organization that does such great work.

Aside from the fundraisers, I’ve been working on more LGBTQ+ sensitivity training. I was able to teach one part of it at a local drop-in center and from there we decided to make fuller trainings for shelters across Columbus. It’s really exciting to know that organizations really care about how they treat LGBTQ+ individuals. I could really see myself doing work like this long-term. The more this program comes to a close, the more I think about where I want to go next. Doing work towards equality for my community, especially under this political climate, is very important.

I need another pair of eyes.

I have been thinking about this phrase a lot this week. We use it all the time, whether we are working on a paper at school, sending an important email, or even just looking for a lost item. We want someone else there double-checking our work. We can all agree that it is beneficial to get another perspective. This has been coming up a lot in my life this summer. I have been working on projects ranging from two very different groups of people. Within the fellowship at Huck House my project focuses on young people, and outside the fellowship my work with Age-Friendly Columbus focuses on the aging population. Both of these projects can be complex and multifaceted, often leading me into a series of questions for many different people.

In navigating my way through projects, I have realized that people often give their background or field of study before explaining a reasoning or concept.

“Through a social worker’s mind”

“From the aging lens”

“In the nonprofit world”

“In academia”

All of these begged the question, is there a difference between perspective and lens? Are they interchangeable? Short answer, yes and no. A lens is used to narrow the scope of which a topic can be examined. But, perspective is a point of view, usually influenced by context or a person’s surroundings. Multiple perspectives are situated within a lens.

Is this important? I’d like to think so. No matter what we are working on, we always want another pair of eyes, more perspectives, and more points of view. Other people catch things we don’t; they have their own experiences that could make whatever you are working on better. In turn the more lenses we apply, the more perspectives there are, leading to more people being represented. Examining my projects through various lenses such as, social work, non-profit, aging, and youth lenses help me to create an effective and an inclusive project. It is also important to try and understand the context of all those perspectives. We can’t pick and choose who we listen to. By needing another pair of eyes, we become invested in our communities and people.

This week was extremely productive and exciting! I am making great progress on pulling the invite list for our 120th anniversary event and had the opportunity to engage in some volunteer activities. I helped out in the kitchen packing frozen meals for seniors and went on a Meals-on-Wheels route with a couple who has been volunteering with MOW for 15 years! Spending the morning with them and seeing them engage with clients was so rewarding; I hope to connect with my future patients in the same way that this wonderful couple can.

A side project that I have had the pleasure of helping out with is our Fan Campaign. We have had an abundance of fans donated for the local community for individuals who do not have air conditioning in their homes or cannot afford to turn it on. Older adults, especially those who are medically challenged or homebound, are more susceptible to heat-related illness. A box fan in a room can reduce the temperature up to 10 degrees. So far we have given out over 1,000 fans! If you are interested in volunteering to deliver fans to our site or donate fans, please visit our website 🙂

A highlight of the week was definitely getting some mid-week ice cream with co-workers 🙂

After working in a non-profit space and hearing from the speakers in our learning sessions, I am gaining a better understanding of the role I hope to play as a future physician. I have always wanted to be a physician, but have struggled to identify how clinicians can most effectively help the most people. Engaging with a healthcare-related non-profit would be an excellent way to be a civically minded, actively engaged physician. I believe it’s extremely important for healthcare providers to prioritize and understand the needs of the local community in which they practice.

The time here is FLYING by- how are we already more than halfway done with the summer? This week has been no exception in terms of diverse projects and interesting content at City Year Columbus. Although I worked remotely this week while the rest of staff was at Summer Academy, I was excited to see that I was making tangible progress on the work I had been tasked with.

One thing I found to be particularly surprising in the work that I did this week was the fulfillment I got from working with donor data. I typically would consider myself a “people person” who prefers working in groups and connecting with people instead of working with numbers. That being said, I thoroughly enjoyed gaining a sense of the donor landscape City Year Columbus works with through donation data. This week, it was my job to segment the data to clearly define different donor groups in a way which I saw to be fitting. To gain a better understanding of how individuals/households give to City Year, I organized giving first by frequency, then by amount within a frequency. This helped me to better visualize giving over time. Once the donors are officially sorted, these donors will be targeted differently in the overall donor marketing plan for the upcoming year based on giving frequency and amount.

Working with donor data this week helped me to reflect on the idea of a “data-driven narrative”, as mentioned by Dr. Melissa Crum in the last Columbus Fellows meeting. Not only does donor data help City Year Columbus internally develop a narrative to better understand the types of donors they are supported by, it also creates a compelling story to tell other donors about those who consistently give, and why they do so. This may incentivize first-time or less frequent donors to give more (and with more frequency) if they feel included in the donor story that City Year is creating from the data it collects. In the coming weeks, I hope to better develop my own understanding of nonprofit-donor relationships and help shape City Year’s story for donors across the board.