Getting our hands dirty
A few weeks ago, four teams of volunteers visited United Way agencies to do two things: experience the United Way’s work “on the ground” by performing an afternoon of service; and, reflecting with agency and United Way staff on how what they learned connects to the bigger picture of our goals, strategies and accomplishments. They visited Children’s Services of Roxbury , Jewish Vocational Services Bird Street Community Center and HomeStart .
The volunteers read to children, helped job seekers with practice interviews, worked with a youth council and worked with agency staff to help families locate and secure affordable, permanent housing.
For people who participated, what was the experience like for you? what did you learn from it?
My visit to Bird Street
Many people spend their busy work days in front of a computer, on a phone, or typing furiously into a Blackberry between appointments. So infrequently do we have the time stop and take a bigger view of the world around us. We rarely get to touch the everyday miracles that happen in our own backyard.
On May 7th, I had the pleasure of visiting Bird Street Community Center, one of UWMBMV’s agency partners located in the heart of Dorchester. I was accompanied by five volunteers; members of our Employee Campaign Manager Advisory team. This is a dedicated, hard working group of champions. People who care about their communities and gracefully took a few hours out of their day to see and feel the work UWMBMV supports.
UWMBMV partners with Bird Street around our Youth focus area. They serve youth in Uphams Corner, Dudley Street, and the surrounding Boston neighborhoods. This area is home to more than 19,000 youth ages 19 and younger. Bird Street is not far from one of the most violent area’s of Boston. There is so much to distract a young person, to take them off a path to success in the surrounding neighborhoods. Bird Street has managed to create a safe, warm haven for kids and their families by providing a great variety of after school and summer academic and sport programs.
We asked some of the young men and women we met that day, ‘what would you be doing without Bird Street?’ Many said ‘just hangin’ out, getting in trouble’. They all felt Bird Street was their extended family, keeping them on track and accountable…….teaching them that no matter where they came from, they could be a success. I left feeling lucky that day to have met so many wonderful young men and women who are working for brighter futures.
Bird Street is one example of many agencies that United Way supports in our region that know that our youth are our future miracles. Through yearly funding of innovative programs, community based agencies are transforming the lives of youth all over our area. Keeping them safe, teaching them to care about each other and their communities. Igniting dreams and visions that might not ever catch flame without the special spark that great mentors bring.
* Commenter is a United Way staff member
My visit to Homestart
Imagine calling your home a quiet place behind a store dumpster and your bed is asphalt and a dirty blanket. For many of the clients at HomeStart, a United Way affiliate agency, they have experienced this or similar situations. It was difficult to hear some of the stories on May 7 at the United Way community experience; they tended to be sad stories with disappointment. However, they don’t have to end that way.
HomeStart is a wonderful example of the work United Way is partnering to achieve. Nearly 90% of the clients HomeStart places in permanent housing are still in the same residence 2 years later!
Here is one success story. A 23 year old mother of two children ages 1 and 3 found herself in difficult circumstances. Her children were in Department of Social Services (DSS) custody and she was homeless.
At this time she sought services from HomeStart. HomeStart staff worked to help this young women find permanent housing. She applied for housing through the local housing authority. She found out a few months later she had been denied housing. Some of the reasons may have included her criminal charge at 18 years old and the fact that she did not have any previous history of renting property or any previous history of having a credit card. She had no way to prove she could and would pay her rent every month.
HomeStart and this young women appealed the denial but she was denied again. At the same time DSS was trying to work with her but the State of Massachusetts mandates require that after a certain amount of time in foster care the case must move from a reunification goal with mother to an adoption goal. This mother and HomeStart were well aware of this problem. This young women and HomeStart continued to call the housing authority in an effort to ask them to reconsider. Oddly enough one day the housing authority called and said to the women you have housing.
This same mother now lives in a two bedroom apartment with her two children is paying the bills and living a happy responsible life! All because of her persistence, sense of responsibility and the support of HomeStart and the United Way.
* Commenter is on staff at United Way
Visiting Children Services of Roxbury
One of the greatest things about United Way is that it focuses on our country’s greatest assets…it focuses on our kids. This is one of the reasons why I left the for-profit world and joined United Way almost three years ago. I was a “Y” kid and a Boy Scout growing up and a Big Brother during college. For me, United Way was the glue that tied these agencies, and others, together. Partnering with direct service agencies is a piece of how United Way helps to advance the common good and achieve the greatest impact on some of the toughest issues that we face in our community.
Recently, I had the pleasure of visiting one of our partner agencies with a few of our United Way volunteers who are serving on our ECM Advisory Committee. Children Services of Roxbury is an agency that provides services to economically challenged children and youth and the organization receives funding from United Way to help accomplish this mission. On this day, our task was to read to a group of the kids that are served by the agency and then to make books with those same kids. The goal of the exercise was to help kids, age four and five, in a couple of ways: Work with them on their reading and memory skills and to help them continue their learning on how to socialize with others. I am there to help…yeah, right!
This happens to me a lot. I enter an agency that is serving kids who are economically disadvantaged and often will have very little. Kids, who at home, often live in fear and don’t always have a parent or adult to turn to. Kids who not only see violence in their neighborhood on a regular basis but often experience it. And here I am with my suit on and my United Way pin affixed just below the buttonhole on my lapel. I am here to help these kids prepare to enter school ready to learn, and I do. However, something amazing always happens when I leave an agency like Children’s Service. I have the feeling that I am the one who is walking away with more than I might have given. Maybe it’s the constant smiles of the kids.
*commenter is on staff at United Way
Jewish Vocational Services
I’ve done volunteer work before. I’ve been out there in the trenches. I know what scary or sad looks like and I know how to prepare myself for it. I--like just about every other person on the street--have fought through my own accidents, injuries, traumas and prevailed. I always thought that my survival capabilities were what made me so strong. I believed in the lunch-pail democratic mentality I was raised with because I was living it and working it. When I signed on for this volunteer service at Jewish Vocational Services (JVS) I did it because I thought I could help our Employee Campaign Managers (ECMs) gain more out of this experience. I thought I would add a little value. I thought I would help people learn.
Then, I am reminded that nothing in this experience is about the well-intentioned “I” and it’s time again to eat a big ole slice of humble pie.
I arrive at JVS and there are people here from the green zone in Iraq. There are people here who know all too well what ugliness there is in peoples hearts. There are people here who have lost parents, siblings, children, friends—that they will never hold or see again. There are people who were scientists, professors, clergy, anesthesiologists—and they are crowded into a room practicing counting back change and repeating food orders. They are memorizing dry cleaning customer service and house cleaning phrases. And they are smiling. And they continue to stumble over a language that sits foreign in their mouths with dogged determination. And they are sincerely thrilled to have other people coming to acknowledge the skills they have developed. And I need to leave the room to go in the hallway to cry—because the simplest thought won’t leave me—isn’t it enough?
Isn’t it enough to have survived the tragedy? Isn’t it enough to have a spirit that is intact? Isn’t it enough not to be a quitter? Isn’t it enough to have actually made it to American soil?
But it’s not enough. In fact, it’s only the beginning of the fight for food, housing, shelter, employment, self. And they do it with a smile. They do it with genuine sincerity.
The next time I encounter frustration with someone else’s language barrier, I’m going to take a deep breath and think about when the last time they heard someone say “I love you” or “thank you” in their own language was.
And I’m going to keep working here and advocating for United Way to everyone I know because, even the well-intentioned I needs some humble pie.
More thoughts on JVS
It is always a challenge to step back from our overly hectic work lives to observe and experience in some small way what it is like for individuals who are not blessed with the same tools and advantages we have. You take for granted how easy it is for us who are born and raised or have lived in this environment to navigate our way around our little universe. Now imagine trying to endure in this part of the world as you develop rudimentary language skills and adapt to a totally different culture that often has little tolerance for waiting more then a nanosecond for the correct response. Does that sound at all familiar to you? How often are you in a restaurant or involved in a sales transaction with someone you recognize as foreign? How impatient might you get when you perceive that your business is going to be more difficult to accomplish because of this potential barrier?
Spend some time with JVS employees and volunteers and come away like I did, humbled by the experience. You are in a room surrounded with recent arrivals to our country. They may have been persecuted minorities from their nation. There are many compelling stories, but what is truly moving are the results this organization is fighting so hard to achieve. JVS is tutoring and mentoring these people so new to our country and trying to ground them so they can begin earning wages to support themselves and their young families. I got right into the thick of it with everyone. I was a customer in a Laundromat, a hungry patron in a restaurant, I critiqued a PowerPoint presentation, and I could go on. Although there were challenges with the spoken word, I can tell you that it was evident in the way people looked and reacted to me that they were appreciative of the attention.
I left the room incredibly impressed with the fierce dedication of the JVS folks. My visit didn't end here. I next spent some time speaking with and conducting a mock interview with a young man who has dedicated himself to returning to the workplace from spending time being incarcerated. This is an entirely separate program also managed and supported by JVS. At the conclusion of my afternoon in this setting, I left with a new sensitivity to what it must be like to have to battle your way to the respectability we all deserve.
Alan M. Beagan
Director of Operations
ROPES & GRAY LLP
Thank you...
Alan & Korri, I wanted to thank you both for the powerful comments that you gave around your visit to JVS. JVS is a great partner of United Way and is one of our 21 partner agencies that help individulas develop much needed job skills. Between July and December of 2007, these 21 agencies collectively helped obtained jobs for over 2,300 people...pretty powerful when you think about it. This is a great example of how together we can create positive impact in the lives of individuals and in our communities.
For more information on what United Way is doing in this area, please follow this link:
http://supportunitedway.org/employment
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