Working with your community

[wildernesse]

I was interested in hearing about ways that you all are working within your communities. Currently, I'm volunteering with an organization in Athens that is trying to develop a long-range plan for Prince Ave., which is a major thoroughfare feeding into downtown. Parts of Prince and the nearby neighborhoods are really fabulous examples of in-town living, re-fashioning old buildings into new uses, etc. Parts of Prince are extremely ugly (and I'll just leave it at that!).

So, CAPPA (http://www.planningprince.org/) is trying to understand what the people who live/work/play/use the area want it to look like. And then there will be a design created (with intensive community help) to acheive the end result. (This is the ultra-simple version of things.)

Right now, we're in the interviewing stage, and we are speaking with local business owners etc. about their vision for Prince. A little nerve-wracking for me, but I'm easily transformed into the extreme extrovert, so I should be ok with my two. (My pic is on the Interviews page--I'm last!)

I'm just very excited to be able to be involved in this project on some level, and hope I can continue to be a busy bee for it.

Are any of you working on projects similar to this (or have worked on these kinds of planning projects in the past)? What is your current community project?

[Beth]

I volunteer once or twice a week at my kids' schools. I run couplies, do secretarial-type work for the teachers, and I tutor reading. Or, I should say that I will soon start again this week.

[solidsquid]

I work for a company in their Family Violence program as a shelter monitor and peer counselor. I also took an extra duty in working with our Batterer's Intervention and Prevention Program (BIPP) which aids the batterers in changing their behavior and ending a cycle of violence.

Within the shelter setting I also seem to have obtained the duty of tutor to anyone there in school. However, it's mostly the high school aged kids as the younger one's have the nice and easy stuff that anyone is okay to help with. But, if it's HS stuff it goes straight to me...eh, I don't mind...a raise after 3 years would be nice though.

[Scotty]

I keep on the computer equipment running for:
http://www.thehungersite.com
(plus all the other linked sites on there, which just run on the same machines, I was going to type them in, and didn't feel like it :) ).

So, if I keep everything running, others can give to help people, even if not directly in my community, it does serve people which is what I like to do.

I do that all day, pretty much every day, and wish I had wade-w's mathmatic ability (I can barely add and subtract, let alone spell, it is a wonder I can keep a job)

-Scott

[viscousmemories]

Thanks for starting this thread, wildy.

The closest thing I've done to charitable work is co-creating this site to provide an opportunity for people to share information, knowledge and ideas and hopefully put this newfound enlightenment to use doing good elsewhere. :)

I know that's not much and there are millions of other forums on the 'net designed for the same or similar purpose, but that's all I've got. We specifically created this forum (Community Activism) to help encourage converting that theorizing to action. Both for our own sake and for others. Hopefully this place will be a springboard for a lot of good.

Props to you wildy, Beth, solidsquid and Scotty for the work you do too. :)

[wildernesse]

Well, I'm glad that this forum exists, viscous. It's certainly a good service for this community. :)

Thanks, everyone, for sharing what you're doing in your communities! I think it's great what you're doing.

[viscousmemories]

Well, I'm glad that this forum exists, viscous. It's certainly a good service for this community. :)
Thanks. :)

[LadyShea]

I do various volunteer work, but nothing very defined and organized like you're doing Wildie, and not all of it strictly within my community (I am a support buddy for those donating kidneys for instance...that's the most ongoing).

I think that's a great project and look forward to hearing more about it.

[livius drusus]

If you don't mind, Wildly, I'm going to send the CAPPA link to an old college friend of mine who is currently finishing up her dissertation at UGA. She loves Athens, loves small community life, and is an insanely hard worker. Needless to say, I think this project will appeal to her on many levels. :)

I've worked with Hands on Atlanta (http://www.handsonatlanta.org/) on various local projects (and had a really great time doing it), but a cab driver gave me a great idea a couple of months ago when he suggested I volunteer to help teach English as a foreign language classes. I looked into a bunch of different programs at the time but didn't follow up. Thank you for inspiring me to do so.

[Dingfod]

I manage the property and assets of Horse Holler Farms, definitely a non-profit enterprise. Other than that, I manage to keep from going all Rambo on all those weirdo people that just generally piss me off. That's pretty much the extent of my benevolence these days.

[godfry n. glad]

wildernesse:

Yes, I have.

Since 1977, I've been active in two neighborhood associations in my city (one at a time, not concurrently). Now, this is probably different from any other city, but our city has created over 120 neighborhood associations in a city of nearly 500,000 people, their stated purpose when created was to create a set forum for public input on state-mandated comprehensive planning and any changes to agreed-upon plans.

What was interesting was that the mayoral regime that created the neighborhoods and defined their boundaries immediately tried to manipulate these associations to rubber stamp the mayoral regime's programs (usually with associated "baffle 'em with bullshit" dog and pony shows). Of course, the neighborhood associations took on identities of their own and often turned out to be the fly in the ointment for the mayoral regime....I know I was. :D

Three other neighborhoods united to fight a proposed freeway through their areas, and won when the freeway was dropped for a light-rail project.

I moved another neighborhood and have subsequently served as its newsletter editor, parks committee chairman, treasurer, and president. During my second year as president, my neighborhood spearheaded the completion of a four-neighborhood traffic calming project that was NOT welcomed by a lot of rabid auto owners.

I have spearheaded and organized shaming the city into acquiring land for pocket parks in a park-deficient neighborhood (mine, surprisingly). Since then, I've authored grants for materials to upgrade a community garden and underwritten and organized the acquisition of 10 new trees for one of the park spaces we obtained.

The above scenario was animated by the rumor that a major regional retail chain was attempting to buy up four square city blocks of residences to tear down and build a mini-mall...we started by raising money door-to-door to augment any city funds that might be made available to keep a two-lot property that had been used as a community garden managed by the city parks bureau under lease from the state. When we convinced the city to acquire the two empty residential lots, it killed the proposed mini-mall development because it placed a city park smack in the middle of their planned parking area.

I also participated in an effort to stop or do a major revision on a proposal by yet another major regional retailer to "trade" half of a park for the same amount of land abutting the other half of the park....giving them a site for a major retail outlet on one of the biggest and busiest thoroughfares leaving the downtown area. They thought that offering acre for acre and throwing in new playground equipment, that the people of the city would hand them a multi-million dollar per year revenue generation site.... My price theory was still pretty good at that time and noting that large, well-run private enterprises rarely wasted money on such ventures unless they thought the could get the requisite three votes on city council. My critique made the top of the op-ed page and got me an interview with the director of the park bureau. The retailer dropped the proposal.

I later advised the neighborhood in its successful attempt to stop the construction of a Burger King on an arterial through the neighborhood. I'm told that my neighborhood is the only such that has successfully turned around an already planned and approved fast-food outlet in any major city in the U.S. That may have changed now, because at ten years in the past, it probably has served as a model for subsquent battles with pall-mall development of chain outlets.

I've also served as a board member and president of an acting ensemble that produces the annual summer Shakespeare-in-the-Parks program. It was there I got my fill of begging for money.

I currently serve as a board member of the regional council of Hostelling International (formerly American Youth Hostels) and was just elected to my third term as it's board chairman.

I also still deliver newsletters quarterly to my immediate neighborhood and I've been trained by the Urban Forestry Division of the park bureau to be a "tree liaison", acting as a neighborhood contact and advising locals about tree issues and problems.

Keep in mind that I'm trained as an economist, urban planner and secondary school teacher. That all helps.

godfry

[seebs]

My church is doing a thing called "Project HOME" (there appear to be things called this all over the place) where homeless people get to sleep in the church, and I'm on the substitute list, so I get to stay up overnight and make people coffee.

I'd be allowed to just sleep and get up, but hey, 5:30 in the morning? Easier to stay up.

[godfry n. glad]

I manage the property and assets of Horse Holler Farms, definitely a non-profit enterprise. Other than that, I manage to keep from going all Rambo on all those weirdo people that just generally piss me off. That's pretty much the extent of my benevolence these days.

That's a lot of benevolence, worn.

Heh...

Just getting in my car and driving somewhere convinces me that most of my fellow humans are of sub-normal intelligence and questionable morals. It works every time.

A walk along a busy street has the same effect.


godfry

[maddog]

I'm not currently doing very much too active. I have been an adult literacy tutor both in SF and in So Cal. I can't say much for my teaching ability, however. I can't really say that I saw a lot of improvement in anybody. I did that with about 3 adult learners, seriatim, for about 5 years, but have been out of it at least that long.

I did some looking into charitable contributions, and have supported a number of them over the years in different fields: there was a school in Harlem I sent money to for about 3 years, because they took inner city kids and demanded that they think of themselves as winners, not losers or victims. Standard English, high achievement, good discipline (in the sense of applying themselves and in respecting one another).

Other groups I've given to from time to time: Doctors without Borders. A local food bank. A free legal aid clinic that provides internships for law students. A fund that gives grants to different legal projects.

My local YWCA is on my list right now too, because they have in-place programs for getting young women off drugs and into school/employment. Provides child care resources. Provides exercise classes for disabled people. Stuff like that.

I have been putting off getting involved in the "Volunteers in Parole" or VIP program, which is sort of like a big brothers/big sisters between a lawyer/mentor and a parolee/mentee. The actual time requirements are quite minimal, but it's the sort of thing that's too important to treat minimally. My other hesitancy is that I've already got a similar relationship with my 23-y.o. nephew, who has come out of his childhood with low self esteem and poor social and coping skills. He's done some things which he was lucky didn't land him in jail or prison. So he's kind of like my parolee right now, even though he isn't officially a parolee. How can I give more to a stranger than I give to him? So I'm a dithering idiot.

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