Acclaimed conductor brings music education to neighborhood kids, and other selections

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Acclaimed conductor brings music education to neighborhood kids

Twin Cities Planet – Mckenzie Martin – In 2008, Alsop founded OrchKids, an after-school music education program in low-income neighborhoods throughout the city. Through the program, students learn musicianship with the goal of improving the students’ social, academic and behavioral skills. Last year, 30 students participated in OrchKids, where they received musical theory instruction for the first half of the year, followed by lessons on the instrument of their choice throughout the second half of the program.

Crowd-Sourced Initiatives to Create a More Livable New York City

Inhabitat (blog) – Olivia Chen – When NYC’s Mayor Bloomberg launched the Big Apps competition this past June, he invited individuals and groups to program applications that make government data sets accessible to the public — solidifying that technology can contribute to improved quality of life. Applications created in response to Bloomberg’s decisions will join the crowd-sourced initiatives that offer residents not only information, but a place to gain a sense of community, to exchange ideas and to visualize space digitally.

Building a House and Community Ties With Habitat for Humanity

CBS MoneyWatch.com – Kathy Kristof – Prior to Habitat’s arrival, Tutwiler was best known for the brutal 1950s murder of Emmett Till, a black youth who had the nerve to talk to a white woman. Now, thanks to the donation of several acres of land and the time of hundreds of volunteers, it’s a place where the privileged and impoverished work side by side to construct a neat community of homes within walking distance of a medical clinic and recreation center run by a group of Catholic nuns.

Tradition in large helpings at suppers

BurlingtonFreePress.com – Glenn Russell – “What can be better than sharing a meal with your neighbors?” asked Paulsen. “I find it a great example of what community is all about.” Communities big and small across Chittenden County and beyond will follow Richmond’s lead this weekend by hosting their own chicken pie suppers. The dinners are organized as fundraisers by churches to generate extra income and to support a variety of grass-root projects, nonprofit causes and scholarships.

Photo Gallery: Falmouth event raises funds to help prevent homelessness

Falmouth Bulletin – Sarah Murphy – A sea of people in turquoise T- shirts departed from the village green in Falmouth for an afternoon walk. But it wasn’t just any Sunday stroll. The group was participating in the 24th annual Cape Walk to End Homelessness to benefit the Housing Assistance Corporation. HAC is a nonprofit organization dedicated to serving the housing needs of all Cape Codders. It operates homeless shelters for adults and families, administers rental subsidies, offers education and training, and develops new housing affordable housing.

Initiative to transform public housing project deemed success

Knoxville News Sentinel – Mike Blackerby – The revitalization continues, but Knoxville officials and neighborhood residents deemed the HOPE VI initiative – which transformed the old barrack-style College Homes public housing project into the thriving and vibrant Mechanicsville Commons – a success during a Monday celebration at Danny Mayfield Park. Nance said the project is doing exactly what it was intended to do: enhancing neighborhood pride through home ownership, reducing crime, improving schools through better family engagement, attracting businesses and creating jobs.

Neighborhood Watch Programs Safer Than Before

Loudoun Connection – Martin Casey – In the original Neighborhood Watch programs, volunteer residents took turns cruising the neighborhood in their cars, or even on foot. Volunteers literally stood watch to help keep their neighbors safe. But today, Dep. James Spurlock says, “I don’t want any of you out on the street, possibly putting yourselves in harm’s way. I want you in your homes, but keenly alert to any suspicious activities.”

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National Night Out, Make a Difference Day In

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Lots of good stories on last night’s night out (although some got rained out and moved down)

Neighbors gather to celebrate National Night Out

San Antonio Express – Eva Ruth Moravec, Valentino Lucio – Allie Hostetter looked around the Calvary Temple parking lot as hundreds gathered to watch a local elementary school choir, grabbed a bite to eat and chatted with friends. For Hostetter and the El Chaparral-Fertile Valley Neighborhood Association, Tuesday’s inaugural National Night Out event was a complete success. “We’re really proud of all the neighbors, businesses and everyone else that have helped us,” Hostetter said. “We didn’t expect this.”

Communities gather during ‘Night Out’

Brazosport Facts – Jones Creek officials were “ecstatic” Tuesday after more than 100 adults and their children attended the city’s first National Night Out event. The front lawn of City Hall was packed with residents talking with Jones Creek marshal’s officers, volunteer firefighters, Brazoria County Sheriff Charles Wagner and Pct. 4 Constable Fred Kanter.

We met people last night from all sides of every one of these hills in our little community. And we are indeed a community, with just a few roads winding around all these hills, some houses visible from the roads, others tucked way back and hidden in the woods. Honestly, I didn’t realize that so many families were in here to begin with– so there are more houses hidden by the woods and the trees that I imagined.

More NNO news here.

Lots of buzz on Make a Difference Day

In the old news, and the new news. If you need ideas, try these: Project Ideas for Make a Difference Day, 77 ways to build community in your neighborhood, 50 ways to serve in your neighborhood, and 31 ways to create sustainable neighborhoods.

And in other news of good people doing good …

Neighborhood Harvest shares bounty

Mail Tribune – Sarah Lemon – The Ashland couple, who usually share the bounty with nearby families, decided to expand their definition of “neighbor.” Neighborhood Harvest, an organization founded in Ashland last year, picked all the plums free of charge. After the group’s volunteers kept a portion of the 30-pound harvest, local food banks received about a third, and a third was set aside for sale at the Rogue Valley Growers and Crafters Market. “At this point, we’re totally funded by the fruit sales,” says Josh Shupack, who manages the program.

Huber Heights family devoted to volunteerism

Dayton Daily News – Beth Anspach – When Brooke Davidson of Huber Heights was just 5 years old, she began an outreach to those less fortunate that continues to this day. Now 14, Brooke and her entire family are devotees of volunteerism and believe that “giving back,” should be the center of everyone’s lives. “I went with my mom to help homeless people when I was 5,” Brooke said, “And we ended up producing a play to help bring attention to homelessness.”

NORCs: Unique Havens for an Aging America

Yahoo! News – Philip Moeller – Lillian Miceli owns her home, has no plans to leave, and looks forward to many more good years. But, at 89, with knees “that are shot,” she needs a lot of help to remain independent. Fortunately, a program in the western suburbs of St. Louis sends volunteer students from Washington University in St. Louis to tend her yard. Pete Pozefsky, a Boeing engineer who lives in the area and volunteers for the program, stops by to help her solve a computer problem, then sticks around to move some heavy boxes. Other volunteers periodically assist with physically demanding chores, and staffers of this unique program provide social and community support services.

Community turns out to support local farm, and other stories

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Community turns out to support local farm through lean year

Lincoln Journal – Raphaella Cruz – Laughter, bluegrass music and the sweet smell of flowers drifted across Blue Heron Organic Farm on Saturday during the farm’s Fall Festival and Fundraiser. Intermittently pouring and sprinkling rain didn’t seem to have any effect on visitors who picked bouquets of flowers in the labyrinth, joined the hayride around the fields, and shopped for fresh vegetables while mingling with friends and neighbors at the farm stand.

Single mom gets first Menlo Park Habitat for Humanity home

San Jose Mercury News – Jessica Bernstein-Wax – The families, who were all on a waiting list for low-income housing in Menlo Park, must put in 500 hours of labor, called sweat equity, in exchange for a zero-interest mortgage and no down payment on the properties. The initiative revitalizes rundown or abandoned buildings and makes home ownership possible for people who otherwise wouldn’t be able to realize that dream, organizers say. “It’s about rebuilding the community — putting families back into the community and letting them grow,” VanHook said at the ceremony.

New arrival: community-supported kitchen

OregonLive.com – Ivy Manning – Just as we were getting acquainted with the idea of community-supported agriculture, or CSAs, a new alphabet soup of initials has cropped up in our locavore food scene: the CSK, or community-supported kitchen. “The idea is something like a CSA, but we go one step further and use local food to make nutrient-rich, prepared foods for those who want to eat well, but don’t have the time or know-how,” says Tressa Yellig, founder of 3-month-old Salt, Fire & Time CSK in the Buckman neighborhood.

Eighteen years later, Citizens on Patrol credited with reducing crime throughout Fort Worth

Fort Worth Star Telegram – Mike Lee – “Our crime has gone down significantly because of the amount of people patrolling,” she said. The first class of 105 COPs volunteers from 11 neighborhoods was trained in 1991. At the same time, police began focusing on community policing and assigned liaison officers known as neighborhood patrol officers to each part of town. By the mid-1990s, there were COPs programs in 120 neighborhoods; today 214 have them.

Touched by the Wayland Angels

Wayland Town Crier – Susan L. Wagner – In 2002, when Wayland’s Jean Seiden was being treated for breast cancer, her friends and neighbors set up a meal chain and delivered food to her home on a regular basis. Not long after, another town resident, Pam Washek, was found to have a tumor in her shoulder, and Seiden offered to set up a similar food chain for her family. Unfortunately, Seiden lost her battle three years ago at the age of 48. But the synergy between her and Washek still flourishes in the Wayland Angels, an organization the two women established to provide others with the same assistance they had received while undergoing their own cancer treatments.

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Making Community Happen Here, and other stories

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Making Community Happen Here

Richmond Times Dispatch – David T. Anderson – What if we brought together a disparate group of people who serve wide-ranging needs through a variety of institutions, and the families they serve, and worked together to build community? An expanding group of local people is doing just that, and last Sunday many of them gathered at St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church on Grove Avenue to celebrate the work they are doing in partnership with one another.

‘Heartwarming’ turnout for event

Williamsport Sun-Gazette – David Thompson – L-3 Communications employees washed windows at Hope Enterprises Inc., Susquehanna Health workers painted the dining room and office at St. Anthony’s Center, Lycoming College students mulched around trees at Brandon Park, the Young Professionals trimmed trees, loaded brush and leveled tombstones at the Oval Cemetery, and Pennsylvania College of Technology students performed work at the Children’s Discovery Workshop. Elsewhere, volunteers cut grass, painted, cleaned, organized, repaired, landscaped – anything that was needed to help the organizations.

Valley Mission volunteers brighten up the place

Staunton News Leader – Cindy Corell – Beneath the cross-shaped sign that says, “Jesus saves,” the folks among us who need the most help are being welcomed, nurtured and given a chance to grow. But it is a program that offers a hand up, not a handout, Reed says. To make it work, the guests must look for work, save their money, help with cleaning, cooking and serving others.

A well-spent $8

Suffolk News-Herald – Tim Reeves – Marlow is nothing more than a 4-way stop in central Baldwin County, but during heavy rains, floods, hurricanes and fires, this department provided quick and dependable emergency service to those of us living along Fish River. The members of that department had other jobs, but aside from their family and their faith, they had no bigger calling. For the men and women who volunteer in these area departments, their instincts to go into a burning home at the risk of their own lives is something all to rare in our society. They do so without call for fame or riches, but for the chance to serve their community and protect their neighbors. Saturday’s fish fry was an effort by the department to raise needed funds to help augment its force with new equipment and pay for upgrades to current equipment, while reducing the burden on Suffolk taxpayers. The $8 plate was well worth the investment.

Nixon embraces idea of church-state disaster relief partnership

St. Louis Post-Dispatch – Tim Townsend – White has persuaded two governors — one a Republican and the other a Democrat — to follow his advice and organize religious groups in partnership with government to prepare for calamity. In doing so, White has helped Missouri emerge as a model for states hoping to forge partnerships between church and government for disasters. He has done so despite long-standing concerns about the separation of church and state, especially when it comes to government funding.

The Art of Community

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Excerpts from Chapter 1 of The Art of Community, by Jono Bacon. Note from the author: When I started work on The Art of Community I was really keen that it should be a body of work that all communities have access to. My passion behind the book was to provide a solid guide to building, energizing and enabling pro-active, productive and enjoyable communities. I wanted to write a book that covered the major areas of community leadership, distilling a set of best practices and experiences, and illustrated by countless stories, anecdotes and tales.

But to give this book real value, I was keen to ensure the book could be freely accessed and shared. I wanted to not only break down the financial barrier to the information, but also enable communities to share it to have the content be as useful as possible in the scenarios, opportunities and problems that face them. To make this happen O’Reilly needed to be on board to allow the book to be freely copied and shared, in an era in which these very freedoms threaten the publishing world.

But they came through. Thanks to the incredible support of Andy Oram, my founding editor for the book, O’Reilly were hugely supportive of the project and our desire to break down these barriers.

Today I am pleased to announce the general availability of The Art Of Community under a Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license.

Main points

A sense of belonging is what keeps people in communities. This belonging is the goal of community building. The hallmark of a strong community is when its members feel that they belong.

Belonging is our goal. It is that nine-letter word that you should write out in large letters and stick on your office wall. It is that word that should be at the forefront of your inspiration behind building strong community. If there is no belonging, there is no community.

Belonging is the measure of a strong social economy. This economy’s currency is not the money that you find in your wallet or down the back of your couch, but is social capital.

The first known use of the term “social capital” (referred to in Robert Putnam’s Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community [Simon & Schuster]) was by L. J. Hanifan, a school supervisor in rural Virginia. Hanifan described social capital as “those tangible substances [that] count for most in the daily lives of people: namely goodwill, fellowship, sympathy, and social intercourse among the individuals and families who make up a social unit….”

For an economy and community to be successful, the participants need to believe in it. If no one believes in the community that brings them together, it fails.

For an economy to work, every participant needs to believe in the economy. Belief is a critical component in how any group of people or animals functions. This can be belief in God, belief in values, or belief in a new future. Whatever the core belief is, the economy and the community can be successful only if everyone has faith in it.

Like any other economy, a social economy is a collection of processes that describe how something works and is shared between those who participate.

An economy is a set of shared concepts and processes that grow and change in an effort to generate a form of capital. In a financial economy, participants put goods and services on the market to generate financial capital. The processes and techniques they use include measuring sales, strategic marketing, enabling ease of access, and so forth. A social economy is the same thing—but we are the product, and the capital is respect and trust. The processes and techniques here are different—open communications mediums, easy access to tools, etc.—but the basic principles are the same.

These processes, and the generation of social capital, which in turn generates belonging, needs to be effectively communicated.

An economy is like a flowing river: it never stops, and the flow is critical to its success. Economies never stand still. Every day they change, adjusting to stimuli in the world that affects them. At the heart of how this movement works is communication.

The Basis of Communication

Peter Block, a consultant on learning, makes an important foundational observation about communication in a social economy: “community is fundamentally an interdependent human system given form by the conversation it holds with itself.” When I first heard that quote, I realized that the mechanism behind communication in a community is stories.

Stories are a medium in which we keep the river flowing. They are the vessels in which we not only express ideas (“I was taking the subway to work one day, and I saw this lady on there reading the paper, and it made me think xyz”), but also how we learn from past experiences (“There was one time when I saw David do xyz and I knew I had to adjust how I myself handle those situations in the future”). Furthermore, when the characters in the stories are people in a community, the stories are self-referencing and give the community a sense of reporting. Communities really feel like communities when there is a news wire, be it formalized or through the grapevine.

Not all stories are cut from the same cloth, though. Communities tend to exchange two very different kinds of story: tales and fables.

Tales are told for entertainment value and to share experiences. They are individual units of experience that are shared between people, and their primary value is in communicating a given person’s experience and adding to the listener’s repertoire of stories and experiences.

Fables are different. Fables are stories designed to illustrate an underlying message. The vast majority of us are exposed to fables as children, and these stories are passed down from generation to generation, each one extolling a moral message to the youth of the day.

To be continued.

Join the Art of Community Comedy Photo Competiton

Join the Art of Community Comedy Photo Competiton

This book is free, but you should buy it if you could. From the author: While the book is ready to download right now, the book is available to buy in print, on Kindle, and other electronic book formats and I would like to encourage you to buy a printed copy of the book for a few reasons: Firstly, buying a copy sends a tremendous message to O’Reilly that they should continue to publish books (a) about community and (b) under a Creative Commons license. Secondly, it will encourage O’Reilly to invest in a second edition of the book down the line, which will in turn mean that communities around the world will have a refreshed and updated edition that is available to them. Thirdly, aside from the voting-with-your-feet side of things, it is just a really nice book to own in print. It is really well made, looks stunning and feels great to curl up with in a coffee shop or on the couch.

More from The Art of Community

A beautiful day comes to town, and other stories

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A beautiful idea comes to town

Duncan Banner – Kevin Kerr – The idea got to her, and she came up with something that has turned into a day-long event called Neighbors helping Neighbors. The event won’t be limited to curb cleaning, but to whatever community members think needs to be done in their neighborhoods to help clean up the look of Duncan, and to help their neighbors with tasks that they might not be able to do. “We get so busy doing our jobs and the things we need to do in life that we really don’t visit with neighbors anymore,” Bowden said. “We go to work, church, school functions for our kids day after day, but we don’t stop and find out from our neighbors if they’re doing OK. We need each other. If we’re all so busy, we miss out on finding out about each other.”

Choosing green path to jobs

The Spokesman Review – Cindy Hval – Summer jobs are hard to come by for young teens. Paper routes are scarce and often taken by adults with cars. Fast-food restaurants don’t hire anyone under 16, and day care centers have reduced the amount of baby-sitting jobs available. Yet 14-year-old Dave Howell not only earned income this summer, he also gained job skills that will serve him well throughout his life.

1600 Springfield College students, faculty, staff, help clean up Springfield

The Republican – MassLive.com – George W. Graham – The city is a bit cleaner and brighter and lot more neighborly today thanks to a small army of volunteers provided by Springfield College.  Some 1,600 Springfield College volunteers, clad in distinctive yellow T-shirts, fanned across the city Thursday as part of the college’s 12th annual Humanics in Action Day. “It makes us more powerful,” said 70-year-old Mattie M. Jenkins, a parent facilitator at the William N. DeBerry School where 30 to 40 volunteers volunteered their time.

Seattle Post Intelligencer – Sharon Hong – It’s been six years since 15-year-old Sobhi Subeh stood on two legs. Six years ago at his home in war-torn Gaza, Sobhi, at the age of 9, was severely injured when a bomb landed on his family’s farm field where he was helping his parents work. Three days passed before Sobhi awoke to find himself in a hospital with only half a left leg. Weeks passed before he got out of bed and started a new life on crutches.

Newberry welcomes Hope house to the neighborhood

Williamsport Sun-Gazette – Shawna T. Turner – Two agencies with the desire to help those in need have joined forces to bring six individuals – some of whom have never even had their own room – the house they deserve. Hope Enterprises and Habitat for Humanity partnered to build a new home in Newberry for the six, who are living in the Hope system.

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Local farmers reclaiming the valley’s rich agricultural history

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Excerpted from Growing a Revolution by Stett Holbrook in metroactive

Meghan Cole, manager of the Full Circle Farm in Sunnyvale, sees urban farming as part of a larger movement for change. Photograph by Felipe Buitrago

Meghan Cole, manager of the Full Circle Farm in Sunnyvale. Photograph by Felipe Buitrago

Like much of Silicon Valley, Full Circle Farm was once an orchard, but the rows of Santa Rosa plum trees were plowed under when the orchard was in full blossom one spring in the early 1960s. The Santa Clara Unified School District bought the land and used it as an informal athletic field.

When the school district later considered selling the undeveloped parcel, it was valued at $60 million. That’s a huge sum of money for a cash-strapped district, but thanks to grassroots community support and former school board member Teresa O’Neill, who championed the idea of a community farm early on, the district saw another use for the land and decided not to sell out to developers.

“To me that’s the most amazing part of the story,” says Liz Snyder, interim executive director of Sustainable Community Gardens, the nonprofit group that runs the farm. “In Silicon Valley, where land was being gobbled by development, that was a minor miracle.”

The school district now leases the land to Sustainable Community Gardens. The organization also runs the 1-acre Charles Street Garden, which it leases from the city of Sunnyvale. The first tree planted at Full Circle Farm was a plum tree in honor of O’Neill and the orchard that once stood there. The farm has become many things to many people. Students get their hands dirty as they learn about the source of their food and what makes it grow. Last year, 1,200 students spent time on the farm.

With the planned construction of an on-site kitchen, Snyder, an earnest, soft-spoken woman, hopes to incorporate food grown on the farm into the school district’s food-service program. That would allow them to unplug, at least in part, from the national school-lunch program’s notoriously inferior menu of frozen heat-and-serve meals. She wants to replace 50 percent of what the school cafeterias now serve with produce from the farm.

The farm also provides fresh produce to the community at its thrice-weekly farm stand and community-supported agriculture (CSA) program. Local restaurants buy some of the produce. In addition, the farm attracts a wide range of volunteers who simply want to learn to grow vegetables and literally reap what they sow. The farm and its half-acre garden where schools and local residents can experiment and plant on a smaller scale has proved so popular that there are often more volunteers than work.

“Instead of going out to fast food, I can I cook with my own food that I learn to grow here,” says Kristal Caidoy, 20, a De Anza College student and volunteer.

Snyder studied the relationship between community food systems, exposure to food-marketing messages and childhood nutrition at Oxford University. For her, the farm and the support it has received are part of a national shift in the way we think about food: “I think we’re absolutely at a tipping point where urban agriculture is going to be more commonplace. … I think it’s a change in awareness at the community level and [a desire] to know where your food comes from.”

(more…)

Good Samaritans help flood, fire victims

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The worst of times can bring out the best in Filipinos.

This was particularly true in the case of a Chinese-Filipino family who voluntarily provided shelter to their neighbors when floods spawned by Storm “Ondoy” left a huge part of Metro Manila underwater on Saturday.

On Agno and Kaliraya Streets in Quezon City, some 1,000 families spent the night on dry ground and with full stomachs after a kind-hearted Chinese-Filipino family invited them into their house.

“If they hadn’t invited us inside their house, more people would probably be dead because we had nowhere else to go. There’s fire above and water below and then you might get electrocuted if you hold on to dangling electrical wires,” Raul Tabuena, a resident in the area, told the Philippine Daily Inquirer in Filipino.

Senior Police Officer 3 Jerry Abad of the Quezon City Police Department reported that seven people, including a six-month-old baby and a pregnant woman, were killed in the fire.

Residents had just resigned themselves to spending the night submerged in floodwater when the Chinese family invited them to spend the night in their house.

“They opened their gate and invited us to go inside and gave us food and allowed us to stay the night until the flood subsided and the fire stopped.” Tabuena said.

They were also given dry clothes and a hot meal, while some children, who were covered in mud and soot, were given a bath.

“It was an opportunity to help and helping is a luxury. We are not expecting anything in return,” the owner of the house told the Philippine Daily Inquirer as he asked for anonymity.

Read the full story: Good Samaritans help flood, fire victims – INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos. By Nancy C. Carvajal with Edson C. Tandoc Jr.