OTES – NMMS – AEHS

If you have been reading the blog, you might have noticed we are doing quite a bit of work with the “Kennedy Cluster” — that refers to a number of schools that feed into Kennedy High School, including Argyle Middle School up on Bel Pre Road.

But many of our network members have kids at other schools in Wheaton. Through our connections with the Department of Family and Community Partnerships at MCPS and an amazing property manager at The Fields Apartments we are working to engage parents of kids at the following schools in the “Einstein Cluster”: Oakland Terrace Elementary, Newport Mill Middle and Albert Einstein High.

Judith, Ira, Teresa & Anh

This is part of the group that went door knocking at The Fields yesterday to tell residents about Neighbors Exchange we will have there on Oct. 27th. We met many parents picking their kids up from the bus stop. In less than 2 hours, we engaged over 80 families!

After door knocking, we went to  watch Mahlet play volleyball with her team at Einstein! They lost to B-CC, but raised a lot of money for for breast cancer awareness.

Mahlet, Henok, Abebech & Yafet after the game

We’ll be door knocking on Saturday and Monday — come join us as we get to know more neighbors in the “Einstein Cluster”!

A Warm & Welcoming Open House

Piney Branch held its Open House on Monday, October 11th. The event was an opportunity for parents to see their children’s classes in action. It was also yet another opportunity for the Action Team to put the Multicultural Criteria into practice. The Team primarily focused on taking steps to ensure that:

* The school fostered a warm and welcoming multicultural drop-in environment.

* Clear/transparent/consistent communication was provided between parents and other school stakeholders that was multiculturally sensitive.

Action Team projects included hanging posters announcing the event in apartment complexes surrounding the school. Parents were greeted in the school lobby by friendly patrols handing out school maps and Open House Tip Sheets for parents. The Tip Sheets were designed to help parents understand the purpose of Open House and how to get the most from it.

Fifth grade student patrols were posted in the hallways as escorts to help guide parents to classrooms.

Parents were encouraged to provide Open House feedback via an Action Team-created survey. More than 70 parents expressed views. School staff, the PTA and the Action Team will use the feedback to inform ongoing efforts to promote a thriving, multicultural Piney Branch!

Learning new tech tools together

Last Wednesday, 15 residents from Silver Spring neighborhoods of Long Branch and Wheaton gathered at our office to learn new tech tools.

Gemechu learned how to apply for jobs online. With Guadalupe’s help, Judith sent an e-mail for the first time. Fredo met new neighbors. With Fredo’s help, Jorge practiced e-mail. While the group had gathered to learn new tech tools, network members also had the chance to build new relationships with each other.

Join us every Wednesday from 6pm-8pm until November 10 at IMPACT Silver Spring, 825 Wayne Ave!

PBAT Y2 Retreat

The Piney Branch Action Team brings together diverse parents, school staff, and community members to build a community-owned school culture that supports and celebrates the school’s multicultural identity. Piney Branch Elementary School is in Takoma Park, Maryland. PBAT posts are new to the Neighborhood Opportunity Network blog. To check out earlier posts go to www.pineybranchactionteam.blogspot.com.

Team prepares for an energizer activity.

The PBAT kicked off its second year of school transformation with a retreat on Saturday, October 9th.  The team has grown to include new teachers and parents:  Kathy Rutledge (paraeducator), Kerry Danner-McDonald (3rd grade parent), Kristen Dunlap (3rd grade teacher), Ally Zevin (PTA co-president), Tasha Winns (Speech/language specialist).

The retreat was a moment for relationship building, visioning, and strategic planning.  The team spent the morning engaged in interactive exercises to help break down barriers and create connections.  After lunch, we revisited the mission statement and began crafting operating principles to help give definition to the team. The draft principles include this suggestion from Ally: “It’s the blending of our ideas that enables us to create the widest/best opportunities for parental involvement.”  Ken offered:  “The members of the Action Team have found that by initially building personal relationships, we are able to more effectively blend our voices.”

Rachna and Tracey work on posters for Open House.

The end of the day was devoted to working on action projects that will impact Piney Branch’s October 11th Open House.  The team wants to encourage more families to attend the Open House and have it be a more meaningful experience for parents and teachers.  Look for a report on the projects in the next blog post.

Ken closed the retreat by sharing a poem that he was inspired to write during our day together.  Enjoy!

Long Branch: Together we make Community!

Thursdays Together

Have you ever stopped to consider how many people are saying “hello” to each other today in our community, and in how many different languages?

Last night in our Long Branch Neighbors Exchange ” Thursdays Together” our community came together and said hello in their own language, Ha-i, Mar-ha-ban, bonjour, salaam, hola, sawubona, Kamaha and hello to meet and support their neighbors. We had neighbors from Sudan, France, Ecuador, Ethiopia, United States, El Salvador, Panama, Bolivia, Nigeria, Honduras, Dominican Republic, Ivory Coast, Guatemala and Nicaragua.  WOW – This is Community!

 

Mutual support time!

 

Our Impact team Sebastian, Lanita, Noelle, Luis, Noemi, Alicia and Elisabeth hosted the first ‘ Thursdays Together” for the Long Branch community in the Tess Center. We had resources partners from Montgomery Cares, HHS and Catholic Charities to talk about Jobs and health services available for the community and ways our neighbors could access them.

Margaret from Sudan came to the meeting with her neighbor and our Impact Community Connector Alicia to seek support around finding a job and health services  for her daughter and English Classes for her, she came to the right place Margaret will be participating starting next Monday at our Nob Hill Mutual Support English Circles and her daughter will be calling Montgomery Cares to schedule a doctors appointment. Wow this is Community coming together to support each other.

 

Community comes together!

 

Barbara a talented story writer for kids was looking for support to publish a book for kids and guess what, Noelle knows someone in our network that can support her in finding ways to publish her dream book. At the end of the session i asked her how her book was doing and she started sharing parts of the book and i almost stared to cry to see her put her heart and soul on each word that came out of her mouth.

I could go on and on with so many great stories about our neighbors giving and offering mutual support to each other, but the only way to find out about our great neighbors from Long Branch is joining us next week at the Tess Center located at 8513 Piney Branch Rd.

Thank you Impact for all your Love and Support!

Long Branch Team: We did it!

What can you offer?

our mutual support group this week

This week at Tuesdays Together, we had a great mix of old and new friends. After the usual dinner, welcome and introductions, we split up into three groups: the workforce circle; the ESOL class; and the mutual support circle.

For the first time in a few weeks, I stayed in the mutual support circle and I was reminded how this simple tool can allow a diverse group of neighbors (some of whom are attending for the first time) to share personal challenges and gifts.

For example, Hector hasn’t been able to join us for many weeks — his work schedule simply didn’t allow it. But, he was back this week glad to see his friends and looking for work. Instead of relying solely on ads on Craigslist like he used to, he came back to Tuesdays Together to find out what jobs his neighbors knew about (or as we network builders like to say “activate his networks”). In response to his request about jobs, Carlos A., Jose, Ana, Rosa and Guadalupe all offered specific information on openings that might work for him.

In my opinion, Hector is the perfect example of mutual support — last night he received the group’s support and he offered what he could. As Carlos A. shared the a very difficult story about scraping together the money for his young daughter’s medical needs in El Salvador, Hector chimed in: “Carlos, I can’t give you money, but I can help you get around. I have a car and since I’m not working, you just call me when you need a ride and I’ll pick you up. That way you can save time by not having to take the bus.”

Luckily, there are many neighbors like Hectors in Wheaton and when our friend Carlos A. shared about his daughter’s medical situation they all jumped in to offer support — Juan, who stopped by Catholic Charities by chance this week, offered to fix our cars (he’s a mechanic in Silver Spring) and then donate the money to Carlos for his daughter. Rosa offered to organize a fundraiser with the group and Ana agreed to help out by cooking.  Ira and I are going to buy candy to sell and donate the money to Carlos.

Join us next week at Tuesdays Together and contribute to our evolving story of neighbors supporting each other.

Power and Love: Try it Out!

For most of IMPACT’s twelve year life, we have struggled to find the one phrase that sums up our work.  In the beginning , some argued that we were an “anti-racism effort”. Another group settled on “building bridges across our differences” and yet another thought the phrase “community empowerment” was the correct one.

About five years ago, we started focusing on the word “power” and have most often referred to our work as a power sharing model.  When we use the phrase “power sharing”, we quickly offer our definition of power, saying that power is infinite and can be shared for the good of all.

This summer, almost by accident, I bumped into a relatively new book called Power and Love, A Theory and Practice of Social Change, by Adam Kahane. While I admire Mr. Kahane’s original work and writing, I am especially appreciative of his compilation of quotes and definitions from people like Paul Tillich and Martin Luther King. Please see how each of these great thinkers define Power and Love, stated below.

Paul Tillich:

• Power is the drive of everything living to realize itself, with increasing intensity and extensity. It is the drive to achieve one’s purpose, to get one’s job done, to grow.
• Love is the drive towards the unity of the separated; the drive to reconnect and make whole that which appears or has become fragmented.

Martin Luther King:

• Power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose
• Power without love is reckless and abusive and love without power  is sentimental and anemic.

After years of “social justice work”, I am listening to Paul and Martin and Adam: I am clear that to co-create new social realities we have to work with the two fundamental forces that are in tension – power and love. I hope to write more about the practical applications of what this means, but in very simple terms when it comes to the Neighborhood Opportunity Network:

• POWER: We must bring forth the power of residents in determining what they need and want for their neighborhoods and
• LOVE: We must work to connect, reconcile and negotiate these ideas with the well-established solutions flowing from our service delivery and community development systems.

My colleague Mary McCurty and I found this book and these quotes very helpful as we designed and thought about the work we are doing to help service providers, community organizers and resident leaders share power. I encourage you to read Mr. Kahane’s book – it is an easy read.

The chief service provider (Uma Ahluwalia) and an ace community organizer (Megan Moriarty) share power and love in the circle.

Getting on the Same Plane with the Same Destination!

When we first embarked on the Neighbors Campaign (now referred to as the Neighborhood Opportunity Network Initiative), we often referred to the effort as one in which we were building the plane while flying it. Along the way, we discovered that some of us had slightly different (or very different) ideas of our destination and some of us were not even on the same plane.

So, in an effort to move closer to a shared vision of change, the key leaders of this initiative spent 16 intense hours together during the month of September, building relationships, sharing specific visions, crafting common goals and outcomes, making requests and negotiating with each other around how to share our power and our love, going forward. (see blog post on our use of a Power and Love framework! I highly recommend it.)

We are making progress! Yes we are!

We are pleased to report that we not only agreed on a common vision and destination, we also agreed on specific milestones we want to reach along the way and on how we will talk about this journey with others. (See the outcomes framework, posted on the blog). This is no small feat, given that the group of 18 people included social services providers from government and three large nonprofits, a faith community liaison, diverse community organizers and a local funder. (see list of participants posted under the resource section of the blog).

We are all committed to and can actively communicate about four outcomes:

1. Residents and Service Professionals are Co-Investors in Neighborhood Opportunity Networks
2. Real and Sustainable Access to Services
3. Thriving Neighborhood Centers
4. Thriving Neighborhood Networks of Mutual Support

Envisioning proposed outcomes in real life; how will it work?

As one of the designers/organizers of these 16 hours, here are some of my reflections. By the way, three others have been asked to share their reflections, each from a different participant perspective.

Some things we did right:

• Insisting on an 8 hour session on a Saturday and insisting on meeting weekly for three weeks – time, space and momentum.
• Asking a sub-team of diverse perspectives to prepare a draft framework.
• Providing a healthy mix of relationship building and taking action.
• Creating welcoming environment for each session, with lots of subliminal messaging on the walls (big grin!).

Some things I would change:

• Participants went door knocking together prior to the beginning of the sessions.
• Neighbor corps graduates and community connectors participated, in some shape or form.
• Holding each meeting in each of the three Neighborhood Center sites.
• Creating better documentation of comments, stories and reflections – as the process unfolded.

My biggest new awareness:

• You can’t expect things from people and institutions if you do not make a clear request.
• People are more capable of opening up than we give them credit for.
• In group process, let everyone speak, going around the room one by one.

My most joyful moments:

• When a key leader and partner on the direct services side said,  I have been moved from thinking it is more about neighborhood networks and less about services.
• When one the people more resistant to the group process said, I really like the posters on the while; they kept me grounded when I couldn’t focus on the discussion.

Connecting with our Schools!

Last Thursday, 9/30, we held a Neighbors Exchange at Argyle Middle School.  The Exchange was the first step in a partnership between the Neighborhood Opportunity Network and Argyle.  Not only were residents able to get questions answered about the school system, but they also learned more about some resources in their community, including Montgomery Works, the Neighborhood Service Center, TAYA Health Connection, and Montgomery Cares.  We also found some resources in our community, including Angel, a parent at Argyle who shared some information about affordable housing, and Cordelia, a neighbor who informed everyone about the Montgomery County bus system.

Neighbors sharing information in the Argyle Media Center

The most exciting part of the partnership was that the Argyle team went door knocking last Saturday!  The team included Principal Robby Dodd, Assistant Principal Sundra Mann, and two Argyle teachers, Ms. Hooper and Ms. Johnson.  We went out the the neighborhoods on Bel Pre Rd. and met with some parents of Argyle students.  I went out with Principal Dodd and it was amazing that he knew every student and parent whose door we knocked.

Celebrating the start of a fantastic door knocking day!

Everyone really enjoyed door knocking and the Neighbors Exchange.  We hope they were both just the start of a long-term relationship between IMPACT and Argyle.  Keep checking with the blog to see all the exciting things that will be happening at Argyle over the school year!