A 62-year-old recovering from a broken neck and a 17-year-old who wore the reddest dress in the world to prom are an unlikely pair. But they’re mentor and mentee, and now friends, as part of a program that aims to solve two troubling challenges: the “silver tsunami” of millions living longer and needing care, and the challenges of at-risk urban youth trying to find meaningful careers that offer the chance for advancement into the middle class.
Olga Cruz lives in The New Jewish Home, a nursing home in New York City’s Upper West Side. She fights feelings of isolation and depression with the help of Wenetta Celestine, who shares stories about life during weekly visits. Celestine, like 225 other high school students from the Bronx and Manhattan, spends six to eight hours a week training to work in geriatric care.
Cruz helps her understand what it is like to grow old and what elders in a long-term care facility need.
“She’s wonderful and loving; I want to hug and squeeze her like a grandma,” Celestine says of Cruz. “If I can’t tell my mom something, I can tell her.”
With 10,000 Baby Boomers turning 65 every day, and the population of elderly people expected to more than double by 2050, well-trained caregivers are already scarce. And they’re becoming even harder to find, with growth slowing in the primary pool of such workers: women ages 25 to 64.
Back in 2006, The New Jewish Home had trouble hiring certified nursing assistants (CNAs) for residents in its facilities in Manhattan and Westchester County, N.Y. Meanwhile, the graduation rates of many high schools in the Bronx and Manhattan was 40 to 60 percent; few students went on to college.
With the help of private, city and federal grants and a curriculum from nearby Columbia University Teachers College, the Geriatric Career Development (GCD) program introduced 20 students to eldercare.
GCD isn’t just about finding people to take vital signs, empty bedpans and bathe the elderly. Its larger aim is to provide struggling teens with the skills and jobs that make it possible for them to earn money, pursue higher education and escape from poverty (almost three quarters live below the poverty line; many reside in violent neighborhoods).
Without this program, Celestine says, “I wouldn’t be working to be a CNA, and I’d probably not know CPR. I learned that there’s always an open door, no matter where you go.”
Eleven years in, it’s found success. Ninety-nine percent of GCD’s 517 graduates have finished high school and 28 currently work at The New Jewish Home. Of this year’s 62 graduates, all are going on to attend college.
In return, the Home gets more than simply a larger hiring pool. Students spend 8,000 hours a year with its elders.
“It makes the residents feel less lonely, and they feel a sense of satisfaction, especially those who do not have family around,” says John Cruz, director of the program. “It makes them feel young again, alive again.”
Research shows that both young people and the elderly gain when participating in programs like GCD. A recent Stanford University report called for “intergenerational engagement,” citing particular benefits for underprivileged youth.
Today, similar programs exist in Maryland, through the High School Health Education Foundation, and via the Pathways in Technology Early College High School (P-TECH) model, where students can enroll in a six-year-long program that includes job training, a no-cost associate degree and employment that’s all but guaranteed.
Demand for the GCD program is high — each year about 200 students (mostly African American or Latino) apply for 100 spots. Most start as sophomores and spend the next three years learning how to care for elderly patients. Students can earn $11 an hour during a nine-week-long internship at the Home when they are seniors.
Participants receive tutoring help and assistance on how to study for the SAT and how to write resumes and cover letters, among other topics. They also receive counseling on college selection and are taken on campus visits.
About 80 percent continue their medical education by receiving nursing assistant certification via Lehman College (The New Jewish Home covers the cost for each student’s certification course), and some become certified phlebotomists, EKG technicians, medical coders or patient care technicians.
Kayla Rivas, 17, and Joanne Langer, 91, chose each other because they both like to sing.
“It was like love at first sight,” Rivas says. Langer explains that they enjoy “anything except rock and roll,” before she croons her rendition of Irving Berlin’s “What’ll I Do?”
“I feel like she’s like a grandma for me. I always come to her for advice and comfort. When I told her about wanting to go to college she always motivates me, and gives me hugs and kisses,” Rivas says.
Other pairs share similar sentiments. Jaileen Morales, 18, says that without Mizue Fujimoto, 67, she’d likely be struggling more and planning to stay local after high school, instead of going to the State University of New York in Old Westbury, where she plans to study biology.
Just as important, Fujimoto helps Morales, who was raised by her grandmother, have a better relationship with the elderly.
The New Jewish Home has extended its program to people ages 18 to 24, who have dropped out of school or are not currently working. After three months’ of training, participants become certified home health aides, a position that does not require a high school diploma and pays a median hourly wage of $10.87.
Half of all home aides live in households that receive welfare or food stamps and other public benefits. Because of this, the program encourages graduates to earn more credentials.
Certified nursing assistants fare slightly better, earning a national median of $11.68 per hour, compared to $12.81 for patient care technicians and $16.92 for medical coders. While some of these jobs may not boost a worker into the middle class, they can further his or her healthcare career path or provide useful income during college.
Some GCD students are aiming higher. In all, 40 percent of GCD graduates became or are studying to become doctors, nurses, physical or occupational therapists, administrators or other healthcare professionals.
Rivas wants to be a physician’s assistant, a position that has a median salary of more than $90,000. And Morales hopes to become a plastic surgeon.
What started out as a desire to fill entry-level jobs has turned into a program that’s creating a chance to fulfill big dreams. Celestine, Cruz’s mentee, says that without GCD, she wouldn’t be heading off to SUNY Cobleskill in the fall.
“I like to keep to myself, so I’d stay home and get a job,” Celestine says. “I learned that there’s always an open door, no matter where you go. When I see kids on the street, I feel like saying, ‘If you all just knew what GCD could do for you, even if you’ve not finished high school. This is like a change.’”
Correction: A previous version of this article stated that 530 GCD students have finished high school and 75 of this year’s class is going to college. NationSwell apologizes for these errors.
Tag: New York City
The Giving Girls
Thalia Taylor, a 17-year-old Bronx teen has a lot of opinions, specifically when it comes to problems affecting her peers. After all, young women from the South Bronx, Southeast Queens or East New York areas experience higher rates of HIV infection, are more likely to be victims of violent crime and have less access to reproductive services than white women within the same age.
New York City government has attempted to address these issues by funding nonprofits that work with young women of color in those neighborhoods, but there’s one glaring issue: The organizations often don’t have representation on their staff or boards of the very groups they aim to help. The result? Here’s what Taylor thinks: “By leaving us out of the conversation and not consulting us is really useless, in a sense,” she says.
But now Taylor has become part of a program called Girls IGNITE Grantmaking (GIG). This group of 15 young women from the outer reaches of New York City’s boroughs are deciding how to divvy up $30,000 amongst a handful of nonprofits providing assistance to young women.
“We have a 30 year history of participatory grantmaking and we really think that community members should make decisions on where funding goes,” says Neha Raval, senior program officer at the New York Women’s Foundation (NYWF), who runs GIG in alliance with the YWCA of the City of New York. “But there was a problem. We didn’t see young girls of color at the table helping to make important decisions that would impact them.”
(In exchange for their work, Taylor and the other young women in the program also received a $1,000 stipend, 10 percent of which was earmarked for donation to other philanthropic causes of their choosing.)
In advance of their grantmaking, the girls learned the ins and outs of how nonprofits are funded and participated in lectures about popular social issues. More importantly, they made site visits and listened to pitches from directors of nonprofits about how they’d solve various issues impacting young girls of color.
“We were so pleased to see young people in these leadership roles, and I think this is something companies often strive for,” says Tracy Hobson, executive director of the Center for Anti-Violence, one of GIG’s beneficiaries. “It made us really step back and ask ourselves, ‘How do we speak the language of the people that we work with all the time?’”
Research into the demographics of philanthropy released in 2014 by the diversity coalition D5 showed that boardrooms are overwhelmingly filled with men and close to 90 percent of nonprofit CEOs and presidents are white.
The lack of diversity is problematic for philanthropic organizations hoping to address cultural issues such as socioeconomic status in poor areas or women’s reproductive rights.
“Philanthropy likes to think that it’s the investment capital for social change,” says Stephanie Chrispin, a public policy fellow at Philanthropy New York, a nonprofit organization. “But if its leaders are limited in their vision because they are overwhelmingly straight, white males who live in rarefied bubbles, the sector’s ability to see the possibilities and strengths in marginalized communities will remain obscured.”
Diversity within the nonprofit sector becomes even more problematic when looking at organizations that support youth. Leaders of nonprofits that work to help young women of color say there is a definitive lack of young female voices in deciding where money is needed most.
“If the point of diversifying is to make sure voices are heard for those who we’re helping, then philanthropy groups are failing,” says Jennifer Agmi, director of programs at NYWF. “With [the fellows], what we’re saying is we don’t know, and they know more than we do.”
Other philanthropic groups, including the Disability Rights Fund and The Social Justice Fund Northwest, also use participatory grantmaking. The New York Women’s Foundation plans to offer Girls IGNITE Grantmaking again next year.
By giving community members a seat at the table, more impact is achieved, says Dr. Amir Pasic, dean of philanthropic studies at Indiana University’s Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.
“I think there’s been a realization, globally, that investing in young women helps elevate a community,” says Pasic.
And there’s another benefit for fellows, including Taylor: The empowerment gained by knowing that through voicing their opinions, they’ve had a part in making their community a better place.
Homepage photo courtesy of Vivienne Peng at The New York Women’s Foundation.
Building the Future: Sustainable Infrastructure
President Trump has pledged $1 trillion to rebuild America’s systems, but the proposed infrastructure bill relies heavily on private financing to fund sorely needed waterworks and transit projects.
This poses a problem because private companies “only work on projects that create revenues,” says Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), ranking member on the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. “The vast majority of the national highway system, and our bridge problems and all our transit problems, do not generate revenues. It will not help them.”
A BETTER FINANCIAL MODEL
Sustainable infrastructure is often understood to be a bridge built from recycled materials or an electric plant powered by wind, for instance, but it’s also infrastructure whose upkeep expenses are included in its building costs so that there aren’t social or environmental costs later on.
The ability to fund maintenance prevents massive failures, like the Flint water crisis or the year-long shutdown of certain lines of the Washington, D.C., metro, from ever happening.
“For years, there’s been this separation of costs for building a bridge versus actually making sure that bridge stays up, and over time, it’s created a really weird recipe for a lack of consideration for operational costs in state budgets,” says Anthony O. Kane, managing director for the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure. “If you build a road one way and it has to be built again in 20 years. Why not build a road in another way and give it a longer lifespan?”
For the close to 30,000 rural local bridges that are deficient across the U.S., sustainable infrastructure is a solution with longevity.
SUSTAINABLE CITIES
Leading the way in sustainable infrastructure projects are New York City, Chicago and Kansas City, Mo. The use of recycled materials, a reduction of carbon emissions and sound pollution are often key elements of building plans.
In Los Angeles (another city at the forefront of the environmental movement), the Metro system is being revitalized by utilizing solar panels for alternative energy and adding 6.6 miles of new train tracks using recycled materials.
“It’s not the classic 1950s definition of infrastructure anymore,” says Rick Bell, executive director of New York City’s Department of Design and Construction. “Transportation isn’t just highways and bridges. It is just as important to create a bike lane for people to get around the city without a car.”
“BRANCHING” OUT
Some of the most successful sustainable projects are ones that citizens might not even view as infrastructure. In Chicago, trees are used as infrastructure to help reduce the city’s greenhouse gas emissions and energy usage. A 2014 Friends of the Park report found the 70,000 trees that were planted over a 20-year period have reduced carbon emissions in the Windy City by 25,000 tons each year — the equivalent of 15,100 automobiles. The tree canopy also reduced air temperature, saving $360,000 annually on residential utility costs.
CATCH UP ON THE FUTURE OF SUSTAINABLE INFRASTRUCTURE WITH THESE DEEP READS:
The Role of Public Policy in Sustainable Infrastructure, Brookings Institute
The Sustainable Infrastructure Imperative, The New Climate Economy
The Next Generation of Infrastructure, McKinsey & Company
Homepage photo by Rick Tomlinson / Volvo Ocean Race via Getty Images.
Fighting Poverty with Data
For nearly 10 years, New York City’s Mayor’s Office for Economic Opportunity has been an incubator of ideas designed to solve the challenges of poverty. Using research, data integration and program evaluation, the office’s staff tests these concepts to see whether they will truly work and scales them when they do.
“Evidence matters because people matter,” says New York City Deputy Mayor Richard Buery. “Most government policies aren’t driven primarily by evidence of impact; they’re driven by everything from what is politically popular to what’s been around the longest.”
Buery continues, “Being able to demonstrate to the world a real commitment to results, a commitment to changing course when a certain course of action isn’t working, becomes critical to gaining the kind of public support and credibility that are important to make sure that people are willing to invest their tax dollars to drive quality government services.”
The office is continually expanding its expertise in research, service design, evaluation and data integration to support key mayoral initiatives including Pre-K for All, IDNYC and Community Schools. It has also launched over 70 of its own programs. One of its first initiatives is also one of its most successful: ASAP, an associate’s degree program offered to students at the City University of New York.
Watch the video above to learn how ASAP is doubling community college graduation rates.
This Is What It’s Like to Run for Public Office
Frustrated by the feeling that his community wasn’t represented, Craig Caruana ran for City Council in New York City under the slogan, “Neighborhood First.” He failed to unseat his incumbent opponent, but that didn’t deter his focus on community affairs. Today, as the director of veterans programs at America Works, a for-profit venture that pioneered a “pay for performance” model in social services, Caruana helps lift veterans out of homelessness through employment.
As part of NationSwell’s weeklong focus on local governance, Caruana, a NationSwell Council member, shares how he knew that local office was a position worth pursuing.
How do you know you’re the right person to run for local office?
I remember people coming up to me and saying that I should run for City Council. That’s a really powerful thing that can go to your head quickly. If that happens enough and you can look at yourself objectively and say, “There’s a real widespread concern. Can I do this? Can I do it successfully?” then you should go ahead. But if you’re just someone who’s watching TV and getting angry and you say, “I’m going to run for office,” that might not be the best path. There’s got to be more to it than that.
A candidate should reflect the population’s wishes. A candidate can’t impose his will on people or explain why they’re is wrong. If you’re considering running for office, you should be asking, “What are people saying needs to happen, but isn’t?” That’s a really difficult question to answer. It’s one thing if someone in your neighborhood is saying something, but on the other side of the community, they’re saying something different. You want to make sure that it is a concern that’s large enough to warrant you running for office.
Some say that you shouldn’t run for office if you haven’t been part of the fabric of your community. How did you first get involved in community organizations?
Civic organizations are the basis of the democratic process. They’re organized, they’re not political, and they’re looking after your community. If you want to get involved and make your neighborhood better, joining one is the best way to do it. If you’re someone who wants to get involved or looking to volunteer, join your local Kiwanis club, which I was a member of. I was also a member of the Juniper Park Civic Organization, whose main mission was keeping the park clean and enforcing park rules.
MORE: Want to Run for Local Office? 6 Things to Know
What was cause for worry when you ran for local office?
There’s a ton to worry about when you run. You have to know the logistics of how to run. One of the main reasons why people don’t win their election is because they never get on the ballot. Understanding the political process is very, very important. You have to know how you’re going to get on the ballot, who can be a support network and help you run a successful campaign, how much money you’re going to need and how you’re going to raise it, and campaign finance laws. You also have to understand that there’s a lot you can’t control. There’s going to be a lot of noise going on around you, and you have to make sure you don’t get distracted by it.
Why was that not enough to dissuade you from running?
Most of us who run for office really are in it for the right reasons. You have to be a true believer — in yourself and in the message you’re selling. You have to believe that if you get elected, you’re going to make a difference and the difference is going to be so great that you have to be in the elected position and not your opponent.
To learn more about the NationSwell Council, click here.
Notes From the Field: Miriam Altman on School Absenteeism
One hot afternoon in late August, I spotted a familiar face as I exited the Prospect Avenue subway station in New York City’s South Bronx. It was Tonya, one of my former students. She was holding the hand of a young girl dressed in an orange school uniform.
Bright and focused on earning her high school diploma, Tonya’s plans to go to college changed when she became pregnant during her senior year with Destiny, the girl whose hand she held. After a three month hiatus from school, Tonya graduated, and went on to have two more children — all by the age of 22. As a single mother, she worked odd jobs and collected food stamps to make ends meet.
I know first hand that Tonya’s story is not uncommon where she lives in Community District 3. I am the cofounder of Kinvolved, a company that is working in her community to increase graduation rates by fighting school absenteeism.
Tonya lives in the poorest congressional district in the country, where about 37 percent of residents live in poverty and nearly 50 percent of residents earn less than a high school degree. By targeting the specific challenges facing the area’s youth, there’s hope to dramatically alter their futures.
South Bronx Rising Together is a group of neighborhood stakeholders working to improve the quality of life of neighborhood residents, in part, by ensuring that kids are college and career ready. Focused on elevating literacy rates, the organization discovered that student absenteeism is the main cause of lower-than-average scores. SBRT uses Collective Action Networks (CANs) made up of families, educators, business leaders, service providers and others to combat absenteeism.
Research proves chronic absence patterns can predict students’ graduation as early as sixth grade. New York City schools have one of the highest chronic absence rates in the country; public schools in Community District 3 have some of the highest rates of chronic absenteeism in the city: 36.6 percent of preK-12 students miss a month or more of school each year.
As SBRT analyzed absentee data, my colleagues and I at Kinvolved were working to help schools address absenteeism. We developed an app — KiNVO — that schools use to track attendance and to send text messages to families so they know whether or not their children are in class in real time. More than 100,000 stakeholders at 90 preK-12 schools in New York City benefit from KiNVO. At schools using the app, attendance rates improved 13 times that of an average NYC school.
As a CAN participant, my efforts focus on supporting the 60 schools in Community District 3. My CAN colleagues and I recruit schools in the neighborhood to be “All-In” schools, meaning they have committed to joining the fight against chronic absenteeism. By the end of the school year, there will be 30 “All-In” schools that participate in SBRT-sponsored events, webinars and meetings to exchange best practices to elevate attendance.
In part, as a result of these efforts, “All-In” schools that had regular attendance meetings and staff dedicated to attendance, experienced a drop in absenteeism between 5.7 percent and 10.3 percent from the 2014-2015 school year to the 2015-2016 school year.
According to SBRT co-directors Elizabeth Clay-Roy and Abe Fernandez, the organization wants its model and learnings to be open sourced. That way, improvement in school attendance will extend beyond Community District 3 in the South Bronx to the entire country.
Looking back, I have realized that I learned about SBRT and its focus on chronic absenteeism just before my reunion with Tonya and her daughter Destiny. That day, as we parted ways, I hugged Tonya goodbye and felt Destiny’s small arms hugging my knees. I looked down at her eager smile and bright eyes and wished her a wonderful school year.
I believe that through the work of South Bronx Rising Together and also Kinvolved’s progress in fighting chronic absenteeism, we’re going to help Destiny and her peers achieve a future that hasn’t been as easily attained for her mother.
Miriam Altman is the chief executive officer and cofounder of Kinvolved.
Correction: The original version of this post misidentified Miriam Altman in the second photo. NationSwell apologizes for the error.
7 Things to Do to Help Others in a Blizzard
As a blizzard bears down on the East Coast, resist the urge to curl up under the covers until the snow stops falling. Thanks to Winter Storm Stella, you now have hours of free time at your disposal. Use them wisely: help out others.
Here’s how to make your snow day count.
THE BASICS
You’ve heard this advice before, but it bears repeating.
- Clear your sidewalk every couple of hours. Dig out a path that’s at least four feet wide. Your neighbor will appreciate being able to walk his dog without trudging through snow up to his knees. (Your back will also thank you.)
- Look out for the elderly, disabled and homebound. Grab your shovel and remove the snow and ice from their sidewalks and driveways.
- Check on your neighbors. Shoveling snow is particularly strenuous. Occasionally peek out and make sure they’re safe while clearing their driveway.
- Don’t put yourself (or others) at risk. Download your utility’s app (most companies have one) and use it to report any outages or downed trees or power lines. Report non-emergencies to 311.
- Know what to do with the white stuff. Clean off your car in your own driveway, making sure to sweep all the snow from its roof. Don’t throw snow into the roadway or into crosswalks and dig out fire hydrants and pedestrian ramps.
SUPPORT YOUR LOCAL EMERGENCY SERVICES
As local budgets continue to feel the pinch, funding for EMS and fire departments is drying up. Contact your local 911 crew and show your appreciation for their life-saving work by finding out what resources they’re in need of.
CHOOSE A PERSONAL PROJECT
Instead of binge-watching Netflix all day long, commit two hours towards identifying a cause to support. Then, take action to help the homeless, eliminate food waste, protect immigrants or support wounded veterans.
Powered by Ad Dollars, Nonprofits Get a Boost
The work of charities relies on government grants, foundations and a limited pool of individual dollars. At EcoMedia, his in-house organization at CBS, NationSwell Council member Paul Polizzotto tapped into an alternate stream: corporate advertising budgets. With EcoMedia, CBS redirects some $80 million in profits to nonprofit programs, helping 30 million Americans affected by the most urgent social issues of our time: the environment, health and education, and better lives for veterans. NationSwell met with Polizzotto at CBS’s headquarters in New York City to talk about a better way for business and charities to work together for social change.
What first attracted you to social entrepreneurship?
I wonder if there was some sociological survey conducted, if it would show the growth in social entrepreneurship comes from people raised by hippies. My parents were products of the ’60s, raising kids in the ’70s. I grew up in Manhattan Beach, Calif. My parents were entrepreneurs themselves, with a swim school open half the year. My parents were incredibly compassionate and generous people. Over time, we took in people who had run away: Eventually, we had 22 people living in our apartment. And we didn’t have any means. Essentially, I kind of turned my parents’ way of life into a business model.
How did that happen?
I grew up surfing every day in the very polluted Santa Monica Bay, and we were sick all the time; the bay’s gotten a lot better, but back then, it was pretty bad. I noticed that the contract cleaning industry was washing pollutants and detergents right into the storm-drain system, which goes into the bay. I said, “Whoa, I am surfing in that!” And besides, it’s illegal. It’s a violation of the federal Clean Water Act. At 25, I set out to come up with a way to work on the issue and protect the environment. My zero-discharge business grew, and, essentially, we legalized and legitimized an industry and set a new standard: Either get legal or get out.
After that, how did EcoMedia get its start?
Around the same time, I started to learn about a lot of nonprofits doing remarkable work on environmental regulations. I knew there were a lot of great projects that needed a little bit of gap financing to get off the shelf. I created EcoMedia originally as a nonprofit, in the late 1990s, to fill those gaps by winning grants. But what I found was that we were winning money, and other deserving nonprofits weren’t. It was a zero-sum game. I was competing against nonprofits I thought were doing very important work. I looked for ways to keep doing what I was doing and accidentally stumbled on the advertising world. I thought, “Hey, maybe there’s a way to create an ad model to fund nonprofits, a way to create this entirely new revenue stream coming from ad spends.” I got involved with CBS in a joint venture, and in 2010, we were acquired. We’ve since become the fastest-growing division at CBS.
Where do you see yourself in the media landscape?
I have a very different view, because I’m not from media, advertising or technology. But all of what I’m doing now is squarely in that space. I remember having a conversation with CBS, and they said they thought their ability to improve communities came from content. I said, “I don’t think so: I think it’s your distribution.” I think content’s largely overrated. Look at health: Never before in history has more information been available to more people about what’s good and bad for you. Yet we’re not as healthy as we were 30 years ago, as it relates to health conditions like obesity and diabetes. You think you’re doing your job as a media company by getting the word out, but we’re not seeing the desired impact.
What’s an example of a campaign you thought was particularly effective?
A dear friend of mine, who has since passed, created a surf school to help kids with disabilities and military-service men and women suffering from PTSD, called the Jimmy Miller Foundation. To see how the sport of surfing, which gave so much to me, is being used as therapy is pretty remarkable. We do quite a lot to fund their work. Others that matter to me are putting solar panels on Miami City Hall, the first big city hall in the United States to be powered by them, and in my own hometown of Los Angeles, in the port, there’s a marine terminal controlling all the ships coming in and out of the port that we made energy-neutral. And we send kids with subsidized breakfasts and lunches home on a Friday afternoon with backpacks full of meals for the weekend. There are so many projects, it’s innumerable.
Learning to Code Is Vital for Today’s Students. This Nonprofit Helps Schools Teach It
Acerlia Bennet, a 17-year-old New Yorker from the Bronx, likes to read heady political news, often twice, from top to bottom, to make sure she’s fully comprehending the story. But she knows she’s unique: Her peers spend more time sharing memes. So at a local hackathon sponsored by Code/Interactive last summer, Bennet and three other high schoolers built a preliminary website that could translate hard news into more entertaining teen-speak. The algorithm, written with the programming language Python over a 72-hour weekend, extracts text from newspapers and replaces big, confusing words with simpler terms. “That way, they read it and know what’s going on,” Bennet says.
That type of out-of-the-box thinking — and the deep understanding of code to make it a reality — is the end goal of Code/Interactive (C/I), a nonprofit based in New York City. Since 2010, C/I has helped public schools better teach computer science. The program, which currently counts about 5,000 students in six states, is comprehensive: As early as third grade, kids begin experimenting with simple, block-based coding. By the time they reach high school, C/I is preparing them to excel on the Advance Placement (AP) computer science exam.
Besides equipping students with invaluable coding and web development skills, C/I provides teacher training and curricula for the classroom; hosts hackathons and arranges office tours at tech companies for students; and provides a select number of full-ride college scholarships, attracting those teens who otherwise wouldn’t apply for, or couldn’t afford to earn, a computer science degree.
“These computer skills are as fundamental to this generation of students as carpentry was to my father. Back then, not everyone built a home, but they all knew how to hang a picture and how to assemble a table,” says Mike Denton, C/I’s executive director. “The knowledge about tech you interact with is invaluable, and it’s necessary as these technologies become ubiquitous in every industry.”
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C/I got its start in 2001 as an arts organization in the Bronx. Back then, the nonprofit was providing basic technology like video cameras, color printers and online-accessible computers to at-risk youth. By 2010, though, as more and more people gained internet access through smartphones, the mission felt outdated. Denton, then a board member, left his consulting work to revamp the agency. Under his leadership, C/I began offering an after-school coding class on JavaScript at a local community center. “We recognized pretty quickly that teaching 20 kids would not solve the problems we knew existed,” Denton says. To scale their vision, C/I turned its focus to integrating programming lessons into the school day.
C/I first works with teachers who don’t have a background in computer science or engineering, offering seminars during professional development days. Over the course of anywhere from six days to six weeks throughout the year, educators come together to talk through the coding coursework, asking questions ranging from the simple, like what HTML stands for (that would be HyperText Markup Language), to wondering if there is a way to learn coding without a computer on hand (there is).
They also learn that C/I’s pedagogical method derives from an unexpected source: foreign language classes. After all, says Denton, “Computer science, more than anything else, is a language.” So like in Spanish or German classes, the teachers coach students in “grammar,” showing how individual units must be strung together, line by line. The new coders then, in turn, put those lessons into practice as they work to build a website or design a mobile app. Later on in their instruction, students participate in the equivalent of an all-immersive study-abroad trip, diving in to collaborative projects at weekend hackathons.
As students master the new language, like Bennet has done, C/I organizes office tours to show the multiplicity of careers in tech. In Austin, Texas, for example, students might visit a cloud-storage company’s offices or an architectural firm, all of which can use the language of coding in different ways. In New York, Bennet has dropped in at Google, BuzzFeed, FourSquare and so many small startups that she can’t remember all of the names.
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“A lot of times students say they want to be a lawyer or doctor because they know those are professions where you can make money more easily. But they might not be aware of the other positions that are available to them,” says Julia Barraford-Temel, C/I’s program manager for its Texas program, Coding4TX. “We bring them there so they can visualize their future.”
To be sure, C/I is not a workforce-development program. Students aren’t funneled into entry-level software testing jobs as soon as they complete their coursework. (About 70 percent of graduating seniors from C/I do choose computer science as a major or minor in college.) As a student at an arts high school focused on film, Bennet, for example, likes the idea of pursuing animation at a company like Pixar. But whichever career path she chooses, she credits C/I with strengthening her creative approach to problem-solving. “Computer science is not just a bunch of code,” she says. “It’s more about connecting through software and tech, with everyone building and creating and being more innovative.”
Denton echoes her point. To him, the main goal of C/I is for young people to understand the technology that now dictates so much of our lives. “We’re only at the beginning of the tech revolution,” he says. “By 2025, these kids are genuinely going to make a massive difference in the world.”
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This article is part of the What’s Possible series produced by NationSwell and Comcast NBCUniversal, which shines a light on changemakers who are creating opportunities to help people and communities thrive in a 21st-century world. These social entrepreneurs and their future-forward ideas represent what’s possible when people come together to create solutions that connect, educate and empower others and move America forward.
The Surprising Story Behind One School’s Healthy Lunch Program, The Best Way to Reach Your Reps and More
Revenge of the Lunch Lady, The Huffington Post Highline
In a country where cheap mass-produced food is king and pizza counts as a vegetable, healthy lunches for kids can be hard to come by. But a recent revamp of school fare in Huntington, W.V., previously designated as the nation’s unhealthiest city, provides a hopeful model. There, an enterprising employee managed to implement a healthy lunch program, starring locally grown produce, while maintaining the district’s minuscule $1.50-per-meal budget.
Getting a Busy Signal When You Call Congress? Here’s How to Get Through, The Christian Science Monitor
Since President Trump’s inauguration last month, there’s been a surge in citizens reaching out to Congress, but not all forms of communication are equally effective. If you really want your voice heard, say experts, try meeting with your representative in person, writing a personal letter and focusing on policy rather than cabinet picks.
The Compost King of New York, The New York Times
New York City alone generates 1 million tons of organic waste per year, but a new plant on Long Island will process this waste into both fertilizer and clean energy, generating significant returns. This new large-scale industrial waste processing is both more environmentally friendly and more profitable than traditional composting, and could revolutionize American energy.
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