Category: Moving America Forward

The Radical Act of Showing Kindness to a Neighbor

Posted on by robbie

For as long as he can remember, Mack McCarter has felt a duty to serve. A former pastor in Texas, McCarter returned to his Louisiana hometown in 1991. It was there that he began spreading a new message — one of racial reconciliation — in the historically segregated city of Shreveport.
One Saturday, McCarter, who is white, drove to a majority black neighborhood to meet people. When no one opened their doors after he knocked, he chatted with a few kids on the street instead. McCarter kept going back, week after week. It took three months before doors finally started to open.
McCarter’s Saturday efforts eventually led to Community Renewal International, a faith-based nonprofit that has transformed Shreveport by facilitating stronger relationships among community members. Trained volunteers might organize neighborhood social gatherings, for example, or help out when someone is sick or hungry. The nonprofit has also built 10 community centers in low-income, high-crime areas. Called Friendship Houses, they offer everything from family movie nights and service projects to after-school educational programs. In the neighborhoods where the centers operate, crime has fallen by an average of 52 percent.
Service-minded neighbors like McCarter are everywhere, yet most seldom draw attention to themselves. These humble leaders are weaving connections at a time when community ties throughout the U.S. are frayed and risk coming apart. Inspired by their work, the Aspen Institute, along with the New York Times columnist David Brooks, launched Weave: The Social Fabric Project, an initiative that identifies and supports the people quietly working to strengthen America’s communities.
The project began by cold-calling towns and cities across the U.S., said Brooks, Weave’s executive director. They’d simply contact civic leaders and ask, “Who do people trust most in your community?” As they began hearing the same names over and over, the Weave staff hit the road to connect with these trusted community members. Brooks would invite them out for a meal and ask about their lives, their communities and their work.
Common themes emerged from the cross-country conversations. For example, people kept mentioning hospitality — not in the usual way, but as a radical act. To them, friendship and generosity meant an always-open home or simply showing up for others without hesitation or expecting anything in return. When someone was in trouble, these “Weavers” said they always found a way to help.
Their jobs didn’t define them. Some were teachers or business owners. One ran a distillery, another a coffee shop, and one was a parking lot attendant. But what they all had in common was a dedication to lifting up others in the face of today’s self-striving culture. Like McCarter, these people made relationships and community success a priority ahead of status, power and money — and often, in spite of personal hardship and pain.

Weavers … are quiet rebels, working for the common good in a society that values the individual.

In an interview, New Orleans native Katherine Hutton shared how much of her early life was marked by intermittent homelessness and abuse. Instead of isolating herself from strangers, she welcomed them by opening a restaurant in the same neighborhood she’s always called home. Today, people flock to Open Hands Café not just for the crawfish, red beans and rice, and gumbo, but also for Hutton herself. She provides food — and company — for her customers, doting on every one of them.
Weavers like Hutton and McCarter are quiet rebels, working for the common good in a society that values the individual. They emphasize what they have in common with strangers, not how they differ. And they’d rather risk intruding on someone’s privacy than failing to offer support when someone seems isolated and might need a visit, a hug or a sympathetic ear.
Weavers don’t see themselves as doing charity work. “To them, ‘charity’ is the ultimate dirty word,” Brooks said. “In their view, we all need each other. We are all taking this walk together, helping each other with mutual needs and dreams.”
At a time when many in our country feel disconnected and lonely, when families and towns are torn apart over social issues and politics, and when suicide rates are rising, we need more Weavers, said Brooks.
Weavers know that effective change starts at the local level. They know that small gestures can snowball, leading to community-wide impact. And they know that simply showing love can be the most game-changing act of all.
As McCarter put it, “When I meet you, I assume there’s a bridge from my heart to yours — and I am coming over!”

This article was created by Weave: The Social Fabric Project of the Aspen Institute. Weave supports people who live in a way that puts relationships and community first. These “Weavers” lead with love and defy a culture of hyper-individualism that has left Americans feeling more lonely, distrustful and divided than ever. See their stories and learn more here.

A Chicago Neighborhood Revived Its Soul by Buying Vacant Lots

Posted on by robbie

Asiaha, her husband and daughter were set to leave their Chicago neighborhood, Englewood, to live in a suburb. But she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t just leave the kids playing in dirt and broken glass in empty lots. She couldn’t be one more person to give up on the neighborhood where she grew up.
According to an analysis of the FBI’s 2018 uniform crime reports, Englewood’s violent crime rate is about two and a half times higher than the national average, and property crime was nearly eight times higher, according to estimated data. Vacant lots are everywhere. The Chicago Sun Times reported that the neighborhood had the second highest number of property demolitions in the city, with very few permits to rebuild. An eye-opening 2011 report in the Chicago Tribune noted that the many vacant, boarded-up homes you see in Englewood have “kept [the neighborhood] in [a] downward spiral.”
Asiaha only knew how to lead by putting her love for her community first, and that made all the difference in getting her community to believe in Englewood again.

This article was published in partnership with Weave: The Social Fabric Project of the Aspen Institute. Weave supports people who live in a way that puts relationships and community first. These “Weavers” lead with love and defy a culture of hyper-individualism that has left Americans feeling more lonely, distrustful and divided than ever. See their stories and learn more here.

Happiness Is Something We Pursue, Joy Is Something We Choose

Posted on by robbie

The following article is adapted from “The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life,” by David Brooks, out now from Random House.
Every once in a while, I meet a person who radiates joy. These are people who seem to glow with an inner light. They are kind, tranquil, delighted by small pleasures and grateful for the large ones. These people are not perfect. They get exhausted and stressed. They make errors in judgment. But they live for others, and not for themselves. They’ve made unshakable commitments to family, a cause, a community or a faith. They know why they were put on this earth and derive a deep satisfaction from doing what they have been called to do.
Life isn’t easy for these people. They’ve taken on the burdens of others. But they have a serenity about them, a settled resolve. They are interested in you, make you feel cherished and known, and take delight in your good. 
When you meet these people, you realize that joy is not just a feeling — it can be an outlook. There are temporary highs we all get after we win some victory, and then there is also this other kind of permanent joy that animates people who are not obsessed with themselves but have given themselves away. 
I often find that their life has what I think of as a two-mountain shape. They got out of school, began their career or started a family, and identified the mountain they thought they were meant to climb: I’m going to be a cop, a doctor, an entrepreneur, what have you. On the first mountain, we all have to perform certain life tasks: establish an identity, separate from our parents, cultivate our talents, build a secure ego and try to make a mark in the world. People climbing that first mountain spend a lot of time thinking about reputation management. They are always keeping score. How do I measure up? Where do I rank? As the psychologist James Hollis puts it, at that stage we have a tendency to think, “I am what the world says I am.”
The goals on that first mountain are the normal goals that our culture endorses — to be a success, to be well thought of, to get invited into the right social circles and to experience personal happiness. It’s all the normal stuff: nice home, nice family, nice vacations, good food, good friends and so on. 
Then something happens. 

David Brooks and Jenn Hoos Rothberg hosting the “Repairing Our Social Fabric” Panel at the NationSwell Summit 2019 in New York.

Some people get to the top of that first mountain, taste success and find it … unsatisfying. “Is this all there is?” they wonder. They sense there must be a deeper journey they can take. 
Other people get knocked off that mountain by some failure. Something happens to their career, their family or their reputation. Suddenly life doesn’t look like a steady ascent up the mountain of success; it has a different and more disappointing shape. 
For still others, something unexpected happens that knocks them crossways: the death of a child, a cancer scare, a struggle with addiction, some life-altering tragedy that was not part of the original plan. Whatever the cause, these people are no longer on the mountain. They are down in the valley of bewilderment or suffering. This can happen at any age, by the way, from 8 to 85 and beyond. It’s never too early or too late to get knocked off your first mountain. 
These seasons of suffering have a way of exposing the deepest parts of ourselves and reminding us that we’re not the people we thought we were. People in the valley have been broken open. They have been reminded that they are not just the parts of themselves that they put on display. There is another layer to them they have been neglecting, a substrate where the dark wounds and most powerful yearnings live. 
Some shrivel in the face of this kind of suffering. They seem to get more afraid and more resentful. They shrink away from their inner depths in fear. Their lives become smaller and lonelier. We all know old people who nurse eternal grievances. They don’t get the respect they deserve. They live their lives as an endless tantrum about some wrong done to them long ago. 
But for others, this valley is the making of them. The season of suffering interrupts the superficial flow of everyday life. They see deeper into themselves and realize that down in the substrate, flowing from all the tender places, there is a fundamental ability to care, a yearning to transcend the self and care for others. And when they have encountered this yearning, they are ready to become a whole person. They see familiar things with new eyes. They are finally able to love their neighbors as themselves, not as a slogan but a practical reality. Their life is defined by how they react to their moment of greatest adversity. 
The people who are made larger by suffering go on to stage two small rebellions. First, they rebel against their ego ideal. When they were on their first mountain, their ego had some vision of what it was shooting for — some vision of prominence, pleasure and success. Down in the valley they lose interest in their ego ideal. Of course, afterward they still feel and sometimes succumb to their selfish desires. But, overall, they realize the desires of the ego are never going to satisfy the deep regions they have discovered in themselves. 
Second, they start to rebel against the mainstream culture. All their lives they’ve been living in a culture that teaches that human beings pursue self-interest — money, power, fame. But suddenly they are not interested in what other people tell them to want. They want to want the things that are truly worth wanting. They elevate their desires. The world tells them to be a good consumer, but they want to be the one consumed — by a moral cause. The world tells them to want independence, but they want interdependence — to be enmeshed in a web of warm relationships. 
The world tells them to want individual freedom, but they want intimacy, responsibility and commitment. The world wants them to climb the ladder and pursue success, but they want to be a person for others. The magazines on the magazine rack want them to ask, “What can I do to make myself happy?” but they glimpse something bigger than personal happiness. 
The people who have been made larger by suffering are brave enough to let parts of their old self die. Down in the valley, their motivations changed. They’ve gone from self-centered to other-centered. 
At this point, people realize, “Oh, that first mountain wasn’t my mountain after all. There’s another, bigger mountain out there that is actually my mountain.” The second mountain is not the opposite of the first mountain. To climb it doesn’t mean rejecting the first mountain. It’s the journey after it. It’s the more generous and satisfying phase of life. And it can happen at any age.
These people show up in the world differently. They’ve found a better way to live. They put relationships at the center of their lives. They weave thick connections and a tight social fabric in their communities. They inspired me to start on this path after my world crumbled. I created Weave: The Social Fabric Project to tell their stories and inspire others to be “Weavers.” Take some time to meet these Weavers and consider if you are ready to climb your second mountain.

This article was created by Weave: The Social Fabric Project of the Aspen Institute. Weave supports people who live in a way that puts relationships and community first. These “Weavers” lead with love and defy a culture of hyper-individualism that has left Americans feeling more lonely, distrustful and divided than ever. See their stories and learn more here.

Most of America’s Farm Owners Are White. This Program Is Rooting for More Diversity

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Christina Chan connects with her family through food.
As a first-generation Chinese-American, Chan searches for ways to embrace her Chinese heritage. She doesn’t know much of the language and she doesn’t hold the same traditional values of her parents. But she does share a mutual love for soup dumplings. 
And a love for traditional Cantonese dishes. And a craving for simple dishes, like Chinese leafy greens steamed with oyster sauce. When she eats, she’s connected to her roots. 
“Not only do we use food to show each other care and affection, but it’s the part of my culture that I can understand the most,” she told NationSwell. 
While her family’s shared culture is a major part of her identity, it’s not the only one. She is also a farmer, which is part of why she’s committed to eating local organic produce. 
But Chan struggled to find organic versions of her favorite Chinese vegetables in New York. When walking through Chinatown or Jackson Heights, she couldn’t find t organic versions of the vegetables she grew up eating. “It felt like I had to choose between that part of myself or my culture,” she said. 

farm, diversity, farmer,
Chan pinches a bunch of basil she’s just finished harvesting for the season.

Chan’s struggle represents a bigger problem in American farming. The crops our country grows aren’t diverse, and it’s partly due to a lack of diverse farmers.
The 2017 USDA Census on Agriculture surveyed 2.7 million principal producers in the United States. Of the 2.7 million, only 16,798, or .7%, identified as Asian. 38,000, or 1.4%, identified as black or African American. At 2.6 million of the 2.7 total, white farmers made up a majority of the principal operators. 
The statistics in Chan’s home state, New York, show a similar pattern — 97% of farms belong to white men, and their average age is 57 years old. While a majority of owners are white, farmworkers are overwhelmingly Latino.
“A system where over 90% of the people are white men is not a resilient system,” Gabriela Pereyra, the Beginning Farmer Program manager at GrowNYC, told NationSwell. “A system that is resilient, it must have diversity.”
The lack of diversity impacts communities in all kinds of ways. It means individuals living in New York City, one of the world’s most diverse populations, don’t always have access to fresh produce used in traditional recipes. It means young people don’t have mentors in a potential career path. It means that communities are disconnected from farmers, and therefore, disconnected from their food. 
So GrowNYC set out to narrow the diversity and age gap between farmworkers and farm owners. “We needed a new generation to bring food to the city,” Pereyra said. 
The nonprofit knew there was a population of young, diverse farmworkers, but because many were immigrants, they lacked the knowledge to navigate the U.S. farm system and establish their own business, explained Pereyra. 
In 2000, GrowNYC launched the New Farmer Development Project, a program to support Spanish-speaking farmers interested in starting their own agricultural business. A decade later, the program merged into what’s now called FARMroots. FARMroots offers both technical assistance for established farmers and a Beginning Farmer Program, open to any farmer with less than 10 years of experience. 
While any new farmer, regardless of background, can apply to the Beginning Farmer Program, the nonprofit is focused on cultivating a diverse group. This year, 40 people applied who immigrated from seven different countries and speak 12 different languages.  
The program is structured as an eight-week course where the 15 accepted farmers will learn every aspect of farming: Finances, land ownership, crop rotation, tractor driving, greenhouse management and land access are just a few they’ll delve into.
After the course, GrowNYC pairs the novice farmers with an established farmer. They’ll spend 200 hours on the established farm and gain firsthand experience.
“We’re not only talking about farming. We are creating the new generation,” Pereyra said. “A new generation that speaks about diversity, equity, community.” 
Kama Doucoure is one of those farmers. After completing the Beginning Farmer Program in 2017, he launched his own farm this March.
Doucoure, who immigrated to the U.S. 12 years ago from Mali, Africa, had been farming since he was 6 years old, Pereyra said. But when he got to New York, he couldn’t find an entry point into farming. Instead, he worked “every single job you could imagine.”
Meanwhile, his community, which is largely West African Muslim, didn’t have the proper foods to celebrate religious holidays. Doucoure was connected with FARMroots, where he completed the Beginning Farmer Program. After, Pereya worked with him to find the right land and location for his farm — he now works in Saugerties, New York, a two and a half-hour drive from Manhattan.
produce, diversity, farm, farming
Christina Chan stands in a backyard garden in Astoria, Queens, where she grows produce for a local chef.

As FARMroots developed its program, Chan was on a winding path to discovering her career in farming. She had initially planned to attend vet school but pivoted and earned a master’s in conservation science. She quickly learned that fieldwork wasn’t a long-term career route for her, so she went to London to volunteer at an urban farm. “And that’s when I kind of put all of these pieces of the puzzle together,” she said.
Chan loved being outdoors. She loved eating. And farming was at the crossroads.
She came back to the U.S. and started an apprenticeship in Hudson Valley. She then worked as a farmer and educator at Randall’s Island Park Alliance. There she met her boss, an alumnus from the FARMroots program, who suggested she apply. 
“They really helped take what is the fuzzy farm dream and bring it into focus,” Chan said. 
Chan still works on an urban farm in the city, and once or twice a week she takes the subway to Astoria, Queens, where she grows produce for a local chef in a backyard.
In raised beds, she’s grown four types of basil and Korean perilla. Along the entryway to the garden, Chan points out a Thai eggplant and bright red chili peppers. 
“Really this year zero for me is to kind of try varieties and figure out what grows well here, what’s productive, what tastes good and just kind of refine my skills with certain things,” she said. She plans to spend 2020 on a production farm or completing another apprenticeship.
Her long-term goal is to feed the community. She plans to find three to five acres of farmland in Hudson Valley where she can bring produce to the Asian communities across New York City. 
“There’s not really many people selling the types of vegetables that are things I would see in my household growing up,” she said. So she’s taking the first step to change that. 
Chan has the group of farmers she worked with in London to thank, as well as her boss on Randall’s Island. 
But she also has GrowNYC to thank, too. Chan and Pereyra have stayed connected as Chan begins the hunt for farmland.   
“You’re not doing it for you,” Chan said. “You’re doing it for the community.”
More: Could One Parking Lot Feed a City? They’re Betting on It

Plastic Bottles Pave the Path to Affordable College Tuition in Oregon

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Instead of taking their recyclables to the curb, Oregonians can now turn their cans and bottles into money for higher education. 
Thanks to a new partnership between BottleDrop, Oregon’s redemption center for recyclable goods, and the Oregon College Savings Plan, the state’s 529 college savings plan, residents can directly add funds from redeemed cans and bottles to an existing college savings accounts. 
Previously recyclers had three options on how to receive the funds: cash, grocery store vouchers or donations toward a nonprofit. But this partnership adds a fourth option that makes it easier for participants to save for tuition.
To take part in the program, recyclers first need to create an online BottleDrop account where they can link college savings accounts for themselves or anyone else — family or friend — as long as the recipient has an Oregon College Savings account.
Each recycled container is worth 10 cents, and there are over 50 drop-off locations across the state. 
“Our collaboration with BottleDrop offers Oregonians with a creative way to save for education and training after high school,” Oregon State Treasurer Tobias Read said in a news release. “We know that no matter where you live in Oregon, every penny adds up, and we want to make it easier for everyone to start saving for their future today.”
Although 10 cents might not seem like much compared to the total cost of college tuition, the 529 program is a taxed-advantaged plan that will accrue interest over time. More importantly, studies show that students who have college savings accounts, no matter how much or how little money is in the account, are more likely to go to college. Research from the Center for Social Development at the University of Washington in St. Louis showed that a child from a middle- or low-income household with a savings account is three times more likely to go to college than their counterparts without a savings account. 
“For nearly 50 years, families have used bottle and can returns to teach kids about family finances and conserving natural resources,” Jules Bailey, Chief Stewardship Officer and Director of External Relations for the Oregon Beverage Recycling Cooperative said in a news release. “The BottleDrop partnership with the Oregon College Savings Plan offers Oregon families another easy way to turn their small deposits into big returns for their future.” 
More: This Oregon College Knocked Textbook Prices down from $200 to $40 with One Move

Strangers, Sidewalks and Folding Chairs Are One Solution for the Loneliness Epidemic

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Psychotherapist Traci Ruble believes that everybody — even folks with close-knit friends and family — gets lonely. It can happen anytime, and it doesn’t only happen when you’re alone. You might have felt it at a party with friends; or on a crowded subway watching strangers on their phones; or while you’re spending time with your partner.   
But Ruble thinks she’s found a simple way to make us feel less isolated and more connected.
It starts by doing the exact opposite of what your parents likely told you never to do: talking to a stranger.
In 50 cities around the world, volunteers unfold chairs, sprawl out blankets and create a welcoming space in public spaces. Their goal isn’t to give advice and therapize the strangers who sit down. They’re there to simply listen. 
Ruble calls her movement Sidewalk Talk — and there’s a reason to believe it’s working.
Loneliness is a societal problem that doesn’t get as much mainstream attention as, say, health care reform. But multiple studies show that feeling lonely on a regular basis may be more harmful to the human body than obesity or smoking cigarettes. 
“Belonging is as important to our survival and well-being as breathing. It’s a connection you can’t always get from a text message,” Ruble told City Lab. “As humans, we need eye contact, touch and personal interaction. It’s important not to forget how vital this is.” 
Experts have concluded that it’s a pervasive feeling: In a study published in 2018, nearly half of the 20,000 surveyed individuals reported sometimes or always feeling lonely. 
Barbara Meyers is one of the many volunteers working with Ruble to help. Every Thursday, she goes to Tenderloin, California, to make human connections with the people who show up. Two years and a myriad of conversations later, Meyers is the nonprofit’s longest volunteer. She’s passionate about supporting folks with mental health issues and saw Sidewalk Talk as an opportunity to spring into action.
“I like it because I think it’s a gift to offer yourself as a listener and to be, I guess, authentically connecting with another human being,” she told the Alternative UK.
She goes to Tenderloin to meet people from marginalized communities — communities where stigmas against mental health are sometimes stronger and communities are often underserved. 
“I know that … they don’t have the access to a lot of the mental health system, and if there’s somebody that actually listens to them, that’s a little piece of something that can be helpful to them,” she said. “I know they aren’t getting what they need elsewhere.”
After the Sandy Hook shooting, Ruble searched for ways to connect strangers and bring awareness about mental health. She and her colleague Lily Sloane decided to bring conversations to community centers.
“I wanted to create an empathy movement that extended beyond the walls of my office,” Ruble told City Lab.
In 2015, they gathered volunteers and launched the first day of talks in 12 locations throughout San Francisco, California. 
The idea quickly spread, and four years later, the nonprofit has hosted over 12,000 talks in 12 countries. 
Each city is structured with a city leader and volunteers. While the volunteers don’t need experience in therapy or trained listening, they all go through a training course. The city leaders are trained mental health professionals who can connect individuals to low or no-cost mental health support.
“I have a fundamental belief that we are all responsible for each other’s mental health,” Ruble told Washington Post. “But this is not therapy on the streets; this is taking one of its biggest tools and bringing it out to the masses. I’m trying to keep the message simple: It’s about listening and belonging. I’m talking about what makes us healthy, and relationships make us healthy.”
More: Can Democrats and Republicans Understand Each Other? It Starts with Getting off Twitter

The Partnership That Helped Save a Nonprofit

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Imagine a job that encourages you to not only look for problems in the world, but to actively play a role in solving them. That’s just one of the things that drew Austin, Texas-based Brooke Currie to join GLG, the world’s largest knowledge marketplace, as a recent college graduate.
GLG’s mission is to bring the power of insight to every professional decision by connecting clients who have questions to subject-matter experts who can answer them. As a team leader in GLG’s Austin, Texas, office, Currie primarily works with professional-services clients; her colleagues serve financial-services firms, life-sciences companies, corporations and law firms — yet that’s only a handful of the types of organizations GLG supports. 
Through its Social Impact initiative, GLG helps organizations across the social sector. The GLG Social Impact Fellowship provides two years of free platform access to high-impact, scaling nonprofit and social-enterprise teams. GLG Social Impact partners with grantmaking foundations, nonprofit advisory firms and impact investors to maximize their solutions. And the GLG Social Impact partners program enables every GLGer, regardless of role, tenure or geography, to connect nonprofits of their choosing with pro bono expert consultations.
For Currie, that meant helping women who are trying to advance their careers.
“As a young woman in the corporate world, it seemed like a good way to give back,” she said. “I know I have tried and erred a few times myself. If I could be a tiny help to anyone, that’s what I wanted to do.”
Last spring, Currie reached out to Mia Johns, the executive director of the Austin affiliate of Dress for Success. Launched in 2003, the central Texas affiliate helps approximately 1,000 women each year — and not just by providing them with suitable clothes to wear to an interview or a new job. They also offer workforce development skills and professional support to women entering the job market. 
“Dress for Success is a really strong worldwide brand, but each affiliate is responsible for raising their own funding,” Johns said. “We rely on our community [for support].”
When Currie reached out to offer the organization (free!) expertise, Johns’ emailed response included  “many, many exclamation marks.” 
“They were very excited we were offering help to them,” Currie said.
Over several phone calls and emails, Currie narrowed in on what Dress for Success Austin needed to work on most — namely, updated promotional materials that would provide potential clients with a clearer sense of the services offered. The organization also saw a need for fine-tuning communications among their network of 300 volunteers. And Johns asked what else they could do to help clients continue improving their skills in pursuit of more lucrative jobs.

“Nearly three-fourths of our clients who get jobs make less than $15 an hour,” Johns said. “It’s important for us to think of creative ways to increase their skills so they can get better-paying jobs.” 
Any one of the issues facing Dress for Success would have taken time and money to find just the right expert to help — “and most of the time, nonprofits don’t have the staff or the funding to do that,” Johns pointed out. But thanks to GLG’s extensive database of industry-specific experts, Currie had the answers at her fingertips. 
“The most challenging part for me — which I enjoyed — was figuring out who were the right experts to help,” said Currie. “The options were kind of limitless.”
Within weeks, Johns was put in touch with three professionals, each of whom spent an hour on the phone with her, including a director who’d worked on the American Music Awards, a human resources specialist, and an expert on labor management who previously worked for Amazon.
“The consultants I worked with were stellar,” Johns said. “I felt so privileged to talk to them. They were sincere and all very helpful.”
The conversations sparked action: Johns hung up the phone understanding how to better communicate Dress for Success’s programs on their website and social channels. She developed leads on companies that could offer clients higher-paying jobs. And she implemented the advice from the human resources expert on how to best disclose recent turnover in the affiliate’s volunteer-coordinator position. 
Currie called the entire experience “super-eye-opening,” in terms of how GLG is uniquely positioned to give an organization a leg up.
“It’s really rewarding to think creatively to help nonprofits problem-solve,” she said. “I love my job.”
This article was paid for and produced in partnership with GLG. GLG Social Impact delivers the power of GLG’s platform to the social sector.  

Looking for a Brilliant Way to Help the Homeless? Build One of These Walls

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Holly Jackson believes in the power of small things, like the impact kind words can have on a stranger or the way a $2 bottle of shampoo can afford something as invaluable as human dignity. 
Over the past year, the Cleveland resident watched 26,000 people benefit from small things. Each small thing was attached to a Wall of Love. 
To a passerby, these walls might seem like an obscure art project: Zip-tied to fences across Ohio are Ziploc bags full of everything from hats and hand warmers to school supplies and sunscreen. But near each wall is a sign that reads, “Please take what you need. Leave the rest for others. Pay it forward when you can.” 
They’re put together by the nonprofit Walls of Love, which provides basic necessities to people experiencing homelessness. The walls are assembled by Jackson and volunteers who gather materials, bag them and find a safe, willing location to post the items
A key to the walls’ success is the role of anonymity. Jackson, who experienced homelessness 28 years ago when she left an abusive relationship, is familiar with the stigmas of asking for help. When she left her home pregnant with nothing, she learned quickly that because she had a job, she didn’t qualify for financial assistance. Jackson recalled how hard it was to ask for help and how it was even harder to not receive it.  
With the Walls of Love, there are no criteria or requirements to getting what you need. 
Beyond supplying basic necessities, the walls also serve as a reminder that “you’re not just some random person. Somebody out there loves you,” Jackson told NationSwell. 
While Jackson was sleeping on the streets and in shelters, she felt like she was just a number. 
“Whether you’re a number for food stamps or a number for medical or a number for waiting in line for the soup kitchen or a number to get into a bed at night, you’re just a number,” she said. “And I wanted people to not feel that way.”

homeless, walls of love, necessities, formerly
Holly Jackson stands next to a Wall of Love.

The idea for Walls of Love came when Jackson saw a family last October with no hats, no gloves, no coats, no socks and wearing flip flops. Jackson decided to do something to help people in similar situations.
“I had wished there was just a magic wall where people could get anything that they needed and there was no stigma, no judgment,” Jackson recalled.
Then she realized she can build that wall. She started fundraising, collecting materials and volunteers. The first wall was built outside the police department in Lorain, Ohio.
One wall became two, which became a dozen. Nearly a year later, and Walls of Love has built over 195 walls and helped 26,000 people. On Nov. 9, to celebrate one year, Jackson and a team of volunteers will build 25 walls all in the same day. 
Jackson, who has a full-time job outside of Walls of Love, plans to take the momentum into this upcoming year. Her target goal is 500 walls across the country and constructing 216 in a single day (216 is Cleveland’s area code). 
Right now, a majority of the walls function as “pop-up walls,” meaning that once all the items are gone that wall is done. But Jackson’s goal is to work with groups to create sustainable walls that are continuously restocked as the seasons change. 
But either way, she said, “anybody that we can help, even if it’s just one time, is better than not helping anyone at all.”
Walls of Love is currently in need of both volunteers and donations. If you’re interested in starting a wall in your community, email [email protected]. 
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Joaquin Phoenix Isn’t Joking: It’s Time to Take Climate Change Seriously

Posted on by robbie

Rainn Wilson wants you to cut back on meat consumption.
Susan Sarandon is using reusable bags, straws and cups, and she’s hoping you will, too. 
Michael Greyeyes is urging you to compost and donate your old clothing. 
And they’re not the only celebrities encouraging you to combat our climate crisis. 
A new campaign, “The World Is in Our Hands,” captures celebrities in black and white photographs holding a pristine globe in their hands. Each photo is paired with action items anyone can add to their daily life. Whether it’s traveling sustainably, using less energy or demanding action from leaders, the featured celebrities are advocating for everyone to take matters into their own hands. 
“We chose people from all walks of life, from all different ages and different ethnicities,” Justin Wu, the photographer behind the campaign, told NationSwell. “I think if they can all come together for one unified message … that is amazing.”
Launched on September 18, the campaign is a partnership between Wu, the UN Environment Programme, social impact company The Krim Group and Accor, a hospitality company. 

Celebrity
Celebrities came together for the “The World Is in Our Hands” campaign, which urges individuals to adopt eco-friendly practices to combat climate change.

The campaign builds upon the UN’s ActNow initiative, a global call to raise awareness and spur action around climate change.
“With climate change, the world really is in our hands,” Todd Krim, president and CEO of The Krim Group, told NationSwell. “It’s up to those of us that are old enough to actually do something active to save the planet.”
In a pop-up studio at the Toronto International Film Festival, Wu and Krim recruited actors and actresses who are already invested in tackling climate change.
From there, interest in the campaign snowballed, Wu said. Word spread and other celebrities were eager to get involved. 
The end result is a series of photographs featuring Antonio Banderas, Joaquin Phoenix, Rosario Dawson, Neve Campbell and Alfre Woodard, to name a few.
Krim and Wu both have a history of working with celebrities and know the influence they can have on the general population.
“There’s a connection they’ve already made with the audience because they’ve already made audiences cry, they’ve made audiences laugh, and intrinsically, the audience already feels that much closer to the celebrity and so that kind of bond really resonated,” Wu said. 
But Krim stressed that this is just the beginning. 
Krim and Wu plan to continue the photo series through the fall and into 2020. This week, at UNEP’s Champions of the Earth gala, they’ll be taking photographs of individuals from grassroots and corporates sectors. 
“We don’t just view this as a ‘campaign’. We’re trying to create a movement here,” Krim said. “We want to inspire action.”
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