Braddock Redux, Revitalizing a Community

On August 2nd, our group made a trip to Braddock for a site visit with the Braddock Redux group. Everyone knows the troubles the Braddock region has gone through over the past few years, especially with their hospital being torn down. So going down there, we assumed that we would see a bunch of vacant lots and depleted areas. However, we were pleasantly surprised at how much work has been done to help this neighborhood.

We were able to see the incredible work that the kids at from the Braddock Youth Project were working on, including community gardens, murals on buildings, and media projects. The kids were genuinely proud of their work, and just by talking to them we could tell that this program has been very beneficial for the community.

It’s amazing to see a program that only makes around $350,000 can do so much for these kids. Even though we were only there for a couple of hours, we could tell that Braddock is an up-and-coming community, based off of the excitement that these kids show and their joyful enthusiasm for helping revitalize this community.

Northview Heights, a neighborhood with a new beginning

On July 26, our group made a site visit to Bethany House Ministry. They have two locations in the city including Saint Clair Village, but that day we ventured into NorthView Heights, one of the poorest neighborhoods in the city. Right as we arrived in the neighborhood, we noticed the housing authority security check-up, inspecting all the cars that wanted to go through. For us who traveled there for the first time, it was both disturbing and bothersome.

 

Once we arrived at Bethany House, we were greeted by 30 energetic kids. Mr. Keith Murphy the executive director at Bethany House, discussed the many programs that Bethany House has, including a daily day care for many young children who don’t have productive alternatives. A particular program is the ”rite of passage” were young men are given the unique opportunity to travel to Ghana to get their “rites of passage”. Of course, before they do that, they have to complete various tasks first. One of those tasks includes being able to turn ten other youth to be on the path to success as well.

We hope that Mr. Murphy, as well as the other volunteers who continue to make an impact on the lives on the children who have the chance to change the reputation of Northview Heights and Saint Clair Village, because they are the future for the struggling neighborhood.

For More information on Bethany House Ministry, please go to:

http://www.bhaweb.org/

Inside Greenstar Recycling!

Today all of the interns got a chance to visit the largest municipal and commercial single stream processor in the Pittsburgh area, Greenstar Recycling. While there, we were able to get a behind the scenes experience on what really happens when you recycle. Greenstar began in 1991 as a metals only processor, but is currently a full service materials recovery facility. The location we visited today is located in Neville Island which has been operating since 2007. I personally thought this facility was very interesting and inspired me to continue recycling as well as encourage others to do so. – Aleisha Starkey

Click below to see more pictures from the visit!

green star

An Interview of the Interns at United Way of Allegheny County

Oakland Planning and Development Corporation

Yesterday, our group went on our first official site visit. We had gone on other site visits to film groups as part of our documentation of the internship, but this was our first trip to visit with a potential applicant. As we road the bus into Oakland to make it to our 9:50 appointment with the OPDC (Oakland Planning and Development Corporation) to learn more about their L.E.A.D.S. Team, I started to get a little nervous.

As I was formulating questions to ask the team, it struck me just how unique this internship is. I was almost startled when the realization occured to me that we, five teenagers with no experience in the nonprofit sector, were to hand out $25,000 at our discretion. At first, this thought scared me; that’s a huge responsibility. I calmed my nerves by recalling what Wayne had said to us earlier in the summer, “We’ve done worse with more.” This raises a good point: grant-giving is a gamble, no matter how worthy the cause. Even experts in the field have no way of knowing if a project will fail or succeed.

As soon as the fear dissipated, it was replaced with an acknowledgment of just how privileged I am to get this opportunity. How many other kids my age can say they have had the honor of awarding $25,000 to a truly worthy cause, an amount of money that, in the world of nonprofits, may seem small, but to a teenager is equivalent to a year’s tuition at a moderately-priced school? Heinz Endowments is trusting us to take a gamble, to make a difference.

In no other summer job can 17, 18, and 19-year-olds hand out $25,000. In no other summer job can teens fully visualize the power they posses to make a change. In no other summer job can young adults develop so greatly under such responsibility and trust and use that responsibility and trust to make a positive impact on their community. This opportunity is one I am truly thankful for and one that I am sure will prove to be incomparable.- Autumn

Often times with this internship you won’t hear much about it after the summer is over unless you really want to.  Last year my group gave our entire $25,000 grant to OPDC to fund a program that works with high school aged students to learn about sustainability and work on projects around Oakland.  If I had not participated in this internship again this year, I never would have seen what happened with the money we gave them.  At OPDC today we met many of the L.E.A.D.S. kids who are part of the program that our grant helped to fund.  It was great to actually meet the kids that our grant had an impact on.  The program seems like it is doing so much in terms of helping and improving the community, which is exactly what we wanted last year.  I also find it quite humorous that my group this year is going to possibly consider funding the same program as I did.  I couldn’t have been happier to see how my work last summer has become a great program with visible results in the Oakland community. -Christina

Click the picture below to view the whole album!

OPDC site visit

A Whole New Perspective

On Monday, July 18, T.H.E. 1 spent the morning working at the soup kitchen for the East End Coroporative Ministry. We knew what went on in a soup kitchen thanks to television, but up to this point our group never experienced the actual minute by minute operations first hand. Throughout the morning, we prepared the meals that were going to be sent out to many people in the East Liberty/Lincoln area through the Meals on Wheels program. Autumn and I had the honor of assisting the delivering of the food. What truly saddened me on this day wasn’t the fact that there were people who depended on this food to survive, but that these people were abandoned by their families, and society as well. Seeing the smiles on the faces of people who were so thankful for food that many of us would easily take for granted changes your attitude about many things and gives you an incredible amount of admiration and respect for all of these volunteers who make this happen every day.- Tristan

Featuring: Brian Gaudio

We’re going to intermittently going to feature past interns to see where they have gone and how the internship has impacted their life.

Brian Gaudio was an intern in 2009, and a senior intern in 2010.  He graduated from Upper Saint Clair High School in 2009, and currently attends North Carolina State University.  He started a non-profit called Que lo Que, and is currently doing research in the Dominican Republic, so we sent him a couple of interview questions online, here are his answers:

1.Can you explain ShoeManity and elaborate on how it got started?

ShoeManity started at Pennsylvania Governors School for Global Entrepreneurship in 2008. My team worked with Runner’s World Magazine to design a way for subscribers to reuse their lightly-used running shoes. Having been to the Dominican Republic in 2007 on a high school service trip, I learned that shoes were an essential part of a child’s school uniform, so we investigated how to get shoes on the feet of students who needed them in the Dominican Republic and Haiti. We ended up working with an organization called Soles4Souls (http://www.soles4souls.org/) which ships shoes all over the world to those who need them.
ShoeManity has adapted and evolved rapidly over the past four years. Our student organization is now called Que lo Que, and its members represent four universities throughout the United States. Que lo Que’s mission is to: ” reduce ethnocentrism and cultural misconceptions in the United States by building relationships and communication networks that tell the true story of those living in the “developing world,” specifically the Dominican Republic.
Que lo Que is currently collaborating with the village of Las Lajas, DR. This year, our group lived with host families in Las Lajas and conducted general interviews about the history, culture, and education in Las Lajas. We worked with women in the macrame club to learn more about their role in the community as well as the art of macrame. In the process, the women and Que lo Que created a large curtain of macrame that now hangs in the artisan school, showcasing the possibilities of macrame beyond personal items.
We also worked with children in the village. Que lo Que hosted a brainstorm where school-age children proposed and drew ideas for another art installation in the artisan school. The children ended up designing and painting a mural that told the story of macramé in the community. In the process, we taught them how to use videos cameras, and they filmed their own documentary about the artisan school including skits, interviews, and games.
Now our group plans to use our website and blog (http://que-lo-que.com/) to begin go back to school in the fall and engage the student body in the culture of the Dominincan in creative ways.

2. We understand that you are in the Dominican Republic doing research. What are you working on, and how is it going?

I am living in the rural village of Las Lajas, Dominican Republic and am conducting a qualitative capacity-inventory of the community. What does that mean? Basically, a team of community members and I are looking to understand what skillsets the people of Lajas posses and how those relate to the youth in Las Lajas. We are conducting interviews with residents of the community to better understand what is important to the people of Las Lajas, and what they were interested in learning about their community. We created an interview questionnaire asking people from the 104 households ‘yes or no’ questions regarding certain skillsets related to agriculture (Lajas is a farming community), art, education, and business.
Now I am conducting the capacity inventory with youth ages 6-15. Our goals were to better understand what youth’s dreams and aspirations are, how and where they spend their time, and what skills they are interested in learning. After analyzing all the data, I will map the information about the skills the community has and how they relate to the skills that the youth are interested in learning about. The maps will show the existing and possible connections between youth and the adults in the community.

3. What challenges did you face when starting up Que Lo Que, and do you have any advice for people looking to launch a non-profit?

Relying on good intentions alone is one mistake I have learned from. By assessing my own mistakes with ShoeManity and the mistakes international development organizations have made working with different cultures I have been able to adapt my approach when working in the Dominican Republic. Learning to understand and accept my bias as an American citizen as well as the social constructs of the community I am working in is one way I have grown from during the past four years.
By no means am I an expert in the non-profit field, but my advice to other young people who are either volunteering for a non-profit or are creating a non-profit would be to be patient with the process, and that tangible results aren’t always the answer. Many times the concrete, measurable, results-oriented mindset that we value in the US does not apply to other cultures and can hinder progress of the mission in the long run. Relationships drive missions and paint vision; whether it is a person’s relationship to place, or a relationship between non-profit and community members, these connections will sustain projects.

4. How did the internship shape your interest and understanding of the nonprofit sector?
The Heinz internship opened my eyes to how vast the non-profit sector is in Pittsburgh. After learning about the creative, innovative, and passionate people who work in the non-profit field, I have been drawn to the non-profit sector as I study at the university level. Writing RFP’s and reviewing grant applications was a great peak into the world of philanthropy and has given me a foundation to build from as I pursue my own interests in the field.

5. What impact has the internship had on your current career path?

The internship has shown me some of the inner-workings of philanthropy and has opened my eyes to its connection to architecture, which I am studying in college. I have been lucky to apply for a receive a few grants at the university level for the work I am doing with Que lo Que in the Dominican Republic, and I believe that working for The Heinz Endowments helped me to see my own.

6. What were some of your most memorable moments from the internship?

You gotta love working at SLB Radio with Larry and Jeff. Those two always good for a laugh, and there is never a dull moment in the basement of the Children’s museum.

What lies beneath the Children’s Museum…

The basement of the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh houses the Saturday Light Brigade, an award-winning public radio station that “uses radio and audio to encourage, amplify, share and archive the ideas, stories, and feelings of children, youth and families.” This community-based, nonprofit radio program began in 1978 and has grown significantly as it won a loyal fan base, 10 local awards, and numerous state and national awards.

In 2004, SLB earned enough support to open a $250,000 broadcast studio and training facility in the Children’s Museum. This very impressive space has housed some of the Heinz Interns this week as they produce a radio show on an aspect of sustainability. Under the guidance of Larry Berger, Jeff Baron, and Rob Gray, the interns have been learning how to work with recording equipment, record and edit audio, find and contact interview subjects, conduct meaningful interviews, write a narrative tying interview pieces together, and (by the end of the week) assemble a three-minute radio show. Topics range from Solar-Powered Roadways to the Recent Cuts on PA’s Education Budget, from Public Transportation to Marcellus Shale Drilling, from Air Quality in Pittsburgh to Pros and Cons of Rising Gas Prices. And that’s only the half of it. The remaining half of the interns who did not spend this week at the SLB studio will be here next week creating their own radio shows on the area of sustainability of their choice.

We are only half way through the week and I can already say that this week at the SLB studio has been one of my favorite aspects of this internship, and that’s saying a lot. The things we have learned so far this week are things that will undoubtedly prove to be

useful to us in the future, regardless of whether or not we decide to go into nonprofit radio, as I assume the majority of us will not. Technical skills, interviewing techniques, and contact making are the kinds of skills that can only help. This week (or half a week so far) has exposed us to an underground world of nonprofit radio and an interwoven network of contacts that we would not have otherwise known existed. That’s one of the things I love about this internship: its ability to extract us from our comfort zone and show us just how much there is to learn about ourselves, each other, and this city when we take the time to look. – Autumn

Click the picture below to view the entire album:

SLB Studio Pictures

The Highlights of Orientation Week

Orientation Week, June 20-24, was filled with amazing moments that were perfect to form new friendships amongst coworkers and teams. Our team, THE1, compiled a list of highlights and condensed them all for you. Additionally, we have a bunch of pictures from our rooftop garden tour on day 4 sprinkled throughout the post that you can click on to see more from the whole album.

Day 2: The second day of the internship, really shook things up a bit. I never would have thought I would be thirty feet off the ground, grabbing at ropes and balancing on a wire at a high ropes course. Our senior intern, Christina, said, “It is good way to get out of our comfort zone and get to know each outside of the normal, office setting.” – Tori

Day 4: After renovating a vacant lot with G-Tech, the pouring rain made the interns scatter into different groups, none of which knew where they were going. Plus, seeing as half of us didn’t have umbrellas, it made us wonder why we weren’t in our offices. Just when it appeared that hope was all lost, a PAT bus came to our rescue and drove us to safety. I vowed never to talk poorly about public transportation again! – Tristan

Day 5: After taking a tour of East Liberty with Mr. Nate Wildfire of E.L.D.I., the youth interns entered the Waffle Shop for their first taste of Bolani, a form of Afgani street food prepared by the Conflict Kitchen. While both variations, potato & leek and spinach, were delicious, I prefer the potato and leek one. Even though I have lived in the East End all of my life, I had never visited the Waffle Shop. This, like so many other experiences from this internship, has opened my eyes to new, amazing places in this city. – Tori

Before we begin…

From right to left: Autumn, Aleisha, Tristan, Christina, Tori

Let’s take some time to introduce ourselves.

The Heinz Endowments Youth Philanthropy Internship is a program that is more than a decade old and designed to educate young residents in the Pittsburgh area about the city and the inner-workings of the non-profit world. The program gives the interns an opportunity to voice their opinions on issues their communities face and allows those opinions to be heard by the Heinz Endowments. Interns work Monday through Friday for eight weeks on a myriad of projects that expose them to the city and the world of non-profits and teach them how to write Request For Proposals (RFPs) as part of the grant making process.

The 36 interns work out of sites around the city (The Heinz Endowments, Sarah Heinz House, Student Conservation Association, Sustainable Pittsburgh, Adagio Health, United Way) to develop an RFP specific to their interest in sustainability, meet with and analyze grant applicants, and devise a plan to be presented to the board of Heinz Endowments as to how to allocate $25,000 dollars to the nonprofit that best meets the requirements specified in the RFP.

The interns also work with Pittsburgh Filmmaker’s to develop a media project dealing with sustainability. Interns are currently working on videos, blogs, and photojournalism projects. We will be linking those projects to this blog whenever possible. Also, the projects that are easily presentable will be screened at the Melwood Screening Room at Pittsburgh Filmmaker’s on Thursday, August 4.

The final component of the internship is a radio show that interns produce with the help of the Saturday Light Brigade. The radio show will center around sustainability and be broadcasted…. more information to come.

We will be posting interviews, site visits, links, and photos pertaining to the internship. We appreciate your interest and hope that you choose to follow us throughout the summer.

Autumn Vogel: Hello! I’m Autumn Vogel, a recent graduate from Shaler Area High School. I will be attending Allegheny College in the fall, majoring in English and minoring in Psychology (as of now). I entered this internship with very little knowledge as to what we would be doing, never having ridden a PAT bus, owning only one pair of work-appropriate heels. I intend for none of those to remain true by the end of the summer. I was a member of Shaler’s Youth Advocacy League. In this program we honed our leadership skills and advocated for social justice. I attribute many invaluable experiences and opportunities to YAL, one of those being this internship. I am looking forward to the things I will learn, the people I will meet, and the PAT bus stories I will be able to tell because of this internship.

Aleisha Starkey: Hola! I’m Aleisha, a 17-year-old student from the Northside of Pittsburgh; born and raised. In the fall, I plan on attending California University of Pennsylvania to study social work with a minor in Spanish. Helping people is my passion, and when I heard this internship was about helping the community, I immediately knew this was the place for me. From this internship I hope to gain a better understanding of the community, life skills, and simply just knowledge overall. So far, I couldn’t ask for a better opportunity. It’s only been two weeks and I’ve learned so much already. I look forward to learning more and doing the best I can to make Pittsburgh a “Sustainable Community”.

Tristan Freeman: Hi, I’m Tristan Freeman, a graduate from Carrick High School. After this program, I will be attending Washington and Jefferson College. My plans are to major in International Relations and minor in Sociology. What concerns me the most about the city of Pittsburgh is the wide difference in the level of education from Pittsburgh school districts. My hopes for this summer is to gain a better understanding about the various non-profit organizations in the city so that I can one day give back to Pittsburgh myself.

Christina Brown: Hey!  My name is Christina Brown.  I completed the program last summer, and am working as a senior intern this year.  I graduated from Schenley High School in 2010, and currently attend Penn State University to study psychology and neuroscience.  When I started the internship last summer, I didn’t know much about Pittsburgh’s nonprofits, foundations, and sustainability. Since then I have been exposed to all of these things, plus so much more.  This summer I hope to gain more knowledge, personal connections, and leadership skills that I can use in the future.

Tori Hirata: Greetings! I am Tori Hirata, a youth philanthropy intern for the summer of 2011 and a rising sophomore at University of Southern California. I am a pre-law double major in International Relations (Global Business) and Psychology with a minor in East Asian Studies. Before this internship, I had taken a history class that focused on Pittsburgh as a living laboratory. This sparked my interest in sustainability, green development, and non-profit organizations here in the Steel City. Although I did not come into the internship with a specific focus for my group’s grant writing, I had been very interested in possibly funding projects in Braddock, PA. Having never ridden a PAT bus before this summer, I look forward to learning in and outside the office building.