Katie Schmahl, Rosa Sanchez, Tim Warner, Frankie Blackburn
Maria Lopez, Rosa Sanchez and friends
Last Sunday afternoon, the streets of downtown Wheaton were alive with people dancing, singing and eating deliciousfood! It was a great celebration of all the diversity that Wheaton has to offer! With the help of 4 members of Senior Leadership Montgomery, who did virtual doorknocks at the IMPACT booth, and a great group of Neighbor Corps members, Maria, Martha and Rosa, we were able to connect with lots of interesting people, tell them about the Neighbors Campaign and refer them to the Neighborhood Service Center!
Last Saturday, thousands of people in the Silver Spring/Gaithersburg area came out to the Montgomery County Housing Fair in Bohrer Park. There were over 90 vendors from all different aspects of housing offering: free credit reports, banking information, rental and lega assistance. IMPACT had a booth right at the entrance to the fair and we got to talk to lots of people about the Neighbor’s Campaign and gave out over 100 flyers directing people to the Neighborhood Service Center in Gaithersburg! Many people we talked to were not aware that there was a service center so close by! They were excited to tell their friends and family about it. We also connected with about 10 people who were interested in door knocking in their neighborhoods.
On Saturday, September 26th until Sunday, September 27th some very serious bonding took place in the serene country setting of Buckeystown, Maryland. The Bishop Claggett Center a.k.a the perfect little getaway, was hands-down the best place to host our 1st EVER NeighborCorps Retreat! On the first day of the retreat, nineteen NeighborCorps participants apprehensively began the journey of leadership and community building, and by the end of the retreat we’d laughed together, cried together, and played TABOO together.
My favorite part of the retreat by-far was the storytelling. Storytelling was a chance for each participant to choose to take a risk and trust his or her neighbors. We told stories about our personal life journeys. These testimonies moved even the strongest personalities in the room. The bonds made at the NeighborCorps Retreat were more precious than GOLD. I can tell this is the beginning of an amazing 3-months, which will enhance the lives of many people in Wheaton and beyond.
On Thursday morning at the Family Services building in Gaithersburg, a diverse group of partners from Health and Human Services, IMPACT Silver Spring, Family Services Inc., Catholic Charities, Interfaith Works, and the Office of Community Partnerships came together to welcome the new
Community Connectors and Lead Triage workers for all the Neighborhood Service Centers. After a lively round of “speed friending” to warm up and get to know each other a little bit, we jumped right into a story-telling segment with Uma Ahluwalia and Frankie Blackburn recounting the emergence and vision of the Neighbors Campaign using a lovely new poster (thanks Mebrahtu from IMPACT!).
Unfortunately, many people had to leave after that, but those of us who stayed had a very enlightening and emotional story-telling session and really learned a lot about each other! Participants agreed that despite our differences, we really have a lot more in common than we think and have many similar struggles in life and because of that, we can help each other better!
Then, the group brainstormed about which qualities are important for their future roles as community connectors…patience, empathy, good listening skills, and resourcefulness were some that got mentioned. After that, we had some excellent practice with role plays of possible scenarios that the community connectors might face. Finally, we passed out “Friendly Persistence” buttons and “Embrace of Community” scrolls to end a great meeting.
Congratulations and welcome new community connectors!!
We kicked off a new round of door knocking in Gaithersburg last night at our favorite gathering place, Antijitos. Unlike our nervousness the first time we gathered here last February, we stood in front of some new potential door knockers WITH one of the people whom we met while knocking on this door at the Parklane Apartments in Gaithersburg, our new friend Jean Paul. The picture below is of Jean Paul talking to the group gathered. Also listen to Monica, IMPACT staff member, talk about first meeting Jean Paul and to Jean Paul sharing his story of meeting and helping a fellow french speaking neighbor while waiting at the bus stop.
Last night, members of the IMPACT Network from communities all over Montgomery County gathered to celebrate the Neighbors Campaign pilot program and refocus our energy toward the challenges that lie ahead.
The thoughts and stories we heard from Neighbors Campaign participants formed a clear message: there is still real hardship and isolation in our communities, but now, maybe more than ever, we have the energy, the passion, and the unique partnerships to create real change in Montgomery County through the Neighbors Campaign.
Jean Paul, a Gaithersburg resident, shared an animated story about his first interaction with the Neighbors Campaign. This past spring, Jean Paul received a knock on his door. There to greet him were Frankie and Hoan, two door knockers with the Neighbors Campaign. Jean Paul invited the pair in for a friendly conversation. Energized by the idea of reaching out to his neighbors to build relationships and strengthen his community, Jean Paul agreed to join Frankie and Hoan for the next round of door knocking. A few weeks later, while out knocking doors, Jean Paul connected a neighbor in need with emergency services at the new Gaithersburg Neighborhood Service Center. Because they formed a lasting relationship of mutual support, Jean Paul later learned that in addition to receiving direct assistance, the neighbor was also referred to a partner who helped him secure a part-time job.
Those present at the event last night signed up to knock on doors in their communities and provide other support to the Neighbors Campaign throughout the month of August, kicking off a massive effort that will reach 10,000 doors across the county over the coming year.
Neighbors Campaign members sign up to knock on doors and help out in August
Please join us in rebuilding our communities, door by door, block by block.
There’s a gathering at IMPACT’s office on Sligo Avenue tonight to celebrate the amazing achievement of the pilot of the Neighbors Campaign and kickoff the next phase with a bang!
Look out for comments from your neighbors about their excitement for our upcoming chapter as well as their reflections on the past several months.
About a month ago, Jayne Park (with the Nonprofit Advancement Fund of the Montgomery County Community Foundation) and I sat in the office of Evans Faustin, the Executive Director of the Caribbean Help Center, Inc. Evans and I have been building a relationship for about five years. He participated in IMPACT’s Community Empowerment program and we have stayed in regular communication. Jayne has been cultivating a relationship with him over the last six months in her new role at the Foundation. Jayne and I were trying to convince Evans and his younger colleague Sam Tremont that the government is serious this time in its attempts to listen and work with people like he and his wife, Olga, who have been tirelessly working for nearly 8 years to help low income Haitians and other French speaking immigrants of African descent secure jobs and health care and other vital services. He was initially wary of the Neighborhood Service Centers and not sure how they provided him and his people anything new or different. As we talked back and forth, Evans and Sam started describing story after story of real people who do not feel comfortable seeking government services. Jayne and I have both heard many stories through the years, but we found the accounts described by Evans and Sam particularly compelling. We asked him to consider partnering with us to collect these stories in a more organized fashion.
Evans had an immediate idea – he proposed holding an open house/party with food, music and videos on a Saturday night, as a way of attracting people to the Carribean Help Center and then asking them to talk one on one about their stories. Olga, standing nearby, volunteered to organize the food. When I mentioned the possibility of video taping some of the participants (using a non-imposing Flip Camera), Sam loved the idea and knew how to secure use of a camera. We all agreed to co-sponsor the event on June 20.
As time passed and the date drew closer, Jayne and I tried to help out – but Evans insisted that we just show up. (Thanks to IMPACT Intern Samantha Frank for reaching out and securing their permission to bring a bunch of balloons). As you can see from the pictures and the video clips below, the event was very successful. Sam and Evans are working on a written report and a short compilation of the video stories collected. We look forward to showing these stories in the very near future.
At this point in the process, Jayne and I want the readers to know of and appreciate the work of Evans, Olga, Sam and many others involved in their effort. The Neighbors Campaign will not succeed without forging a careful, on-going alliance with these and other similar and amazing unsung heroes – even if their approach is different or does not always conform to that of established service providers.
Olga (on right) and friends preparing fried plantains!
Members of Haitian Community - listening to Rev Evans Faustin
I have been involved with some form of community development work for nearly 30 years – both inside and outside local government. Throughout this time, I’ve read about and encountered countless attempts to bring government and community together as partners. While I have certainly participated in projects that looked like a partnership between government and community, all of these experiences really represented a transactional moment or a protracted negotiation, where one of the parties – mostly government – maintained the power and control throughout the entire process. Even though I admit hesitancy in acknowledging this next point, I believe the emerging relationship between IMPACT (with our Community Partners) and HHS/Montgomery County represents a moment where the people involved are working to put aside positional power in order to authentically share leadership and co-create a new way of delivering emergency services (and beyond) to diverse residents. To illustrate this early assessment, I will share the story of a recent set of conversations and meetings between the people involved in opening up the first two Neighborhood Service Centers, as part of our Neighbors Campaign to reach out to those in crisis, linking them to services and sparking new networks of mutual support.
This leg of the journey began for me at a weekly meeting of HHS staff people (and a few community partners) concerning the operation of the Neighborhood Service Center in Gaithersburg. After a discussion about whether the Community Connectors who staff the Centers should sit in on this weekly meeting, I realized that we all had pretty different visions for how these Centers should look and feel.
I called Uma, our partner in this project and the head of HHS, and shared my reflections, as well as the thoughts of other team members. (Notice that I feel comfortable calling her our partner, before I mention to you her position of power). We typically check in with each other every two weeks or so – over our cell phones – as each is driving home after a long day. She agreed that we needed to pull some of the team together to pose the question – do we have a shared vision for these centers?
About ten days later – right in the middle of a very difficult County Budget season – seven team members gathered early in the morning in the cafeteria of the County Council office building to hold a “visioning session” in a 60 minute time period, to accomodate Uma’s busy schedule and the fact that she had to appear before the County Council to defend her budget at 9:00 a.m. Even though I would not call this the ideal circumstance for a “visioning session”, we were able to run the meeting in a way that surfaced everyone’s specific visions for how these centers should look and feel one year from now.
I can only offer my personal reflections after the meeting. I urge others to post comments, sharing their thoughts. To be perfectly candid, I left the meeting thinking that we were pretty far apart in terms of the one year vision – and the division was occuring across the government and community lines among the team. I was so clear about my assessment that I strongly urged our community team – in follow up meetings – to lower our expectations regarding change and transformation of government processes, and to return to our primary focus on building community strength and shared power within a community context. In these meetings with community partners Jayne Park and Tim Warner and my IMPACT colleagues (Winta and Megan), we began to get excited about crafting a Neighbor Corps vision, flowing out of our door knocking.
Several weeks went by. Some particular circumstance occured – which I cannot remember – to prompt another late afternoon call to Uma, again as we were both driving home. I shared with her my assessment – very calmly – given my passionate tendencies, and described for her our decision to place more emphasis on building the community network to wrap around the centers, instead of focusing so much on the centers. To my surprise, she immediately pushed back and revealed (uncharacteristiccally, for a government official…at least in my experience) that she had really been thinking alot about the conversations held in that baren cafeteria room. She told me that she wanted to forge ahead with some action steps to build a better, more welcoming connection between the Centers and the residents of the community. She warned me that this process will take longer than I might want, but that we cannot let up in listening to and learning from each other. When I hung up the phone that day, I said to myself….I have never experienced a “partner” with that much positional power openly acknowledging that he or she spent a lot of time mulling over the input from the community and actually shifting their viewpoint regarding how to proceed. We agreed to pull the team together again for a series of action planning meetings. I remember she said to me – We need to roll up our sleeves and really start taking action to create more welcoming and inclusive Neighborhood Service Centers.
Yesterday, we held the first of these meetings, from 4 to 7 p.m. in a HHS conference room. Again – we were in an environment I have typically found nonconducive to sharing power across government and community lines. Uma walks in with a smile on her face and a bag of chocolates. I then admit how much I need coffee, but that chocolate will be a great substitute. She offers bottles of water and goes to get them herself, not calling a secretary in to serve us…. Winta (from IMPACT) jumps up to go help her bring in the water. This led to a conversation about food. I then made everyone go around (without some formal exercise) and share their favorite comfort food or birthday dinner. I admited how much I like to indulge in very salty potato chips and dip late at night…
Ok – I admit that sharing these little details may seem crazy to some of you, but these are the simple behaviors that start to create a “room” or an environment that can foster risk taking – which in turn fosters some level of trust – which in turn helps people from different backgrounds solve problems or create shared visions.
We went on to have a very productive meeting and came out of it with new understandings, an initial vision for crafting a Neighbor Corps leadership program that would actually include HHS staff people and a series of next steps to begin implementing this vision together. As our team left the meeting, we acknowleged that we went into the meeting thinking that we would focus more on the Centers or the role of the Community Connectors. We actually admitted to a few moments of fear in the meeting when the conversation was so focused on what we consider to be our domain – the process of recruiting and supporting emerging leaders from the neighborhood. But, we looked at each other in the elevator – almost in disbelief – that we were walking away with a shared vision for connecting our community organizing with the established system and how this feels so much more powerful and impactful than our traditional, rather quiet approach of gathering people in a far corner outside the inner circle of positional power.
I taped closing comments of everyone on my Flip Camera but the sound did not come out (anyone want to donate $200 for the better Flip version? ) The video is embedded below so you can at least get a visual image of who was involved. I offer a few reflections that I remember from the comments, with no attribution and I list the name of all of the participants:
Some reflections:
We focused on a specific issue and connection between our worlds and made progress.
This was very different than the meetings I typically attend.
We took the time and space to really listen and ask clarifying questions; we were all really trying to understand where the other was coming from.
We are beginning to be able to use and understand the same language; at times our differences are so nuanced, that language has been a problem….I see this shifting and it feels good.
The spirit in the room was different…it felt like people entered the room with an open heart and an open mind. People used humor well…took risks…spoke honestly.
I felt so included and welcomed in this setting; so appreciated this – I do not often feel this way.
I feel like I am finally understanding the process of community organizing at a more concrete, practical level.
I know the journey is long and full of many twists, but this meeting and past meetings really help give me the motivation and energy to keep going.
Listed in order of appearance on the video clip:
Uma Ahluwalia, HHS
Kate Garvey, HHS
Winta Teferi, IMPACT
Megan Moriarty, IMPACT
Jayne Park, Montgomery County Community Foundation
From the very beginning of IMPACT Silver Spring and throughout our effort to build a diverse civic network, we have kept the issue of class differences front and present in our dialogue and in our practices. To no one’s surprise, it is our area of greatest struggle. As mentioned earlier, I recently attended a gathering of the Leadership Learning Community in Oakland, California and helped promote the concept of Network Centric Organizing, a term of art coined by our friends at Lawrence Community Works – a term which captures our work and our mission here at IMPACT Silver Spring. During this gathering of 60 or so community practitioners, I convened a smaller discussion around the issue of class divides. See the advice I received from this helpful dialogue.
Tips for Engaging Upper and Middle Class Folks in the Network
Even though my colleagues can point to many successes in network building within a context where most residents are of lower income, I have yet to find examples of true bridge building across class – except for some of our early efforts in working to bring immigrant parents and teachers together and our initiative to link property managers and lower income tenants. I raise this core issue of class - in the context of the Neighbors Campaign - because we have a chance to approach this huge challenge differently, on so many levels.
Here’s my dream – we recruit middle class door knockers to help approach residents in lower income communities and support them in approaching these doors from a core belief in Reciprocity….do unto others as you would have them do unto you. What does this mean exactly – in the context of linking people to emergency services? It means that these door knockers approach those of the other side of the door, anticipating that there is as much chance that their lives will be enriched and supported by these individuals as the chance that they will be able to help them to secure emergency services….AND that as their hearts and minds open up to this possibility of benefitting from these new friends, they take the follow up steps needed to build a few relationships of trust across these lines and begin to carry the message of reciprocity to others…to others who are very well intended but who, in their zeal to help, miss the opportunity to receive the gifts of others.
Below is a video interview I conducted of my two colleagues Judith Rosenberg and Bill Traynor – as I ask them to talk more about Reciprocity and review the conversation we held about class divides at the Leadership Learning Community gathering.
Also embedded below is my favorite statement highlighting the importance of reciprocity, called the Embrace of Community.
The Embrace of Community
by Sobonfu E. Somé,
the Dagara tribe in Burkina Faso, from
The Spirit of Intimacy: Ancient Teachings in the Way of Relationships
Community is the spirit, the guiding light of the tribe, whereby people come together in order to fulfill a specific purpose, to help others fulfill their purpose, and to take care of one another. The goal of the community is to make sure that each member of the community is heard and is properly giving the gifts that they have brought to this world. Without this giving, the community dies. And without the community, the individual is left without a place where they can contribute. And so the community is that grounding place where people come and share their gifts and receive from others.
When you don’t have community, your are not listened to; you don’t have a place you can go to and feel that you really belong. You don’t have people to affirm who you are and to support you in bringing forward your gifts. What this does to a person’s psyche is that it disempowers it, making the person vulnerable to consumerism and all the things that come along with it.
Also, it leaves many people who have wonderful gifts, wonderful contributions to make, holding back their gifts, not knowing where to put them. And without the unloading of our gifts we experience a blockage inside, and this blockages effects us spiritually, mentally and physically in many different ways. We are left without a home, a home to go to when we need to be seen.
