What activity can decrease a low-income family’s dependence on food assistance, promote health, reduce crime, and bring people of different income and education levels together? Gardening can accomplish all this and more.
Since botanist and garden enthusiast Larry Stebbins responded to the lack of community gardens in Colorado Springs, Colorado by starting the nonprofit Pikes Peak Urban Gardens (PPUG) in 2007, hundreds of volunteers have become involved in creating plots in low-income neighborhoods and educating their new owners on how to tend them. “By teaching others how to [garden], you empower them to be more in control of their food supply,” Stebbins told J. Adrian Stanley of the Colorado Springs Independent.
Case in point: Stebbins said that one low-income family participating in the PPUG expanded the garden volunteers had helped them plant and were able to reduce using food stamps by 70 percent during the summer months when tomatoes, zucchinis, and other produce was abundant.
Another benefit to gardening? The nonprofit has learned over the years that when the plots are physically close together in proximity, not only is a feeling of community created, but also an atmosphere in which gardeners learn from and share with each other. Now it plants “pods” of gardens, such as the nine clustered gardens they established in a low-income neighborhood this year with the help of a $3,000 grant from the Colorado Home and Garden Show.
In addition to helping people plant their own gardens, Pikes Peak Urban Gardens has established two urban farms that grow produce for charities; some of the homeless people that benefit from the produce pitch in to tend those crops, alongside volunteers from all walks of life. Stebbins told Stanley that one year, a doctor and a man who lived in subsidized housing struck up a garden-based friendship. “People come in their dungarees,” he said. “You don’t know if they’re rich, poor or whatever. And it’s a great equalizer, and it’s a great way for people to come together.” After all, we’re all united in our quest for that perfect tomato.
MORE: Thriving Gardens Now Grow in a Denver Food Desert
Category: Moving America Forward
Could Technology Provide Solutions to Global Poverty?
Think about these facts:
At least 80 percent of the world’s population lives on less than $10 a day.
22,000 children die each day due to poverty.
1.6 billion people live without electricity.
The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), which works to reduce global poverty and hunger, and its representatives think America has powerful assets — scientists, research institutions, and technological innovations — that are the keys to drastically decreasing the number of people who live in extreme poverty. Last week, the USAID announced a groundbreaking collaboration with 31 colleges and universities, as well as several corporations and foundations called the U.S. Global Development Lab. And they’ve set an ambitious goal: For this tech-oriented program to spur the end of extreme global poverty by 2030.
Dr. Rajiv Shah, USAID administrator and former undersecretary for agriculture, believes America can lead the way in harnessing technology to fight poverty. Shah told Maya Rhodan and Elizabeth Dias of Time, “If we could get and invent new seeds, new mobile technology and open new data centers to help farmers connect their crop prices and understand weather variability we can do something transformational against hunger and not just reach a small percentage of the people that are hungry with food.”
To finance the program, USAID hopes to raise $30 billion through corporate funding and other sources.
So far, those involved with the U.S. Global Development Lab include Stanford grads that are creating inexpensive, energy-efficient lighting solutions for the 22 million people in Africa who use kerosene lamps, and Berkeley scientists who wrote a mobile app that uses iPhone photos and parts built by a 3-D printer which detect impurities and disease in water. USAID hopes this new collaboration and financial support for inventors will accelerate the development of these kind of ideas.
“We see this as a transformation in how you do development,” Lona Stoll of USAID told Time. “By tapping into things that really make America what it is, which is our entrepreneurial spirit, our scientific expertise, and our real commitment to help people, you have a real ability to accelerate our impact.”
MORE: This Former Teacher Brings Technology Directly to Low-Income Preschoolers
This College Is Focused on Helping Its Most Vulnerable Students Graduate
The White House has set a lofty goal for the United States: To have the highest proportion of college graduates in the world by 2020. That’s a difficult number to reach — especially because a third of all higher education students need some kind of remedial help, and the percentage of pupils in remedial classes who actually graduate is astonishingly low.
Colleges across the country are trying to change that, and the Baltimore City Community College is a leading example. The college serves a wide range of non-traditional students from Baltimore, including ones like Floria Zobear, 58, who haven’t been to school in decades.
Administrators and professors at the school want their students to succeed. In order for this to happen, they have eradicated some non-credit developmental classes, so students don’t have to spend too much time in the classroom. They’ve also increased support services like tutoring, according to NPR. Plus, they are re-envisioning how class is taught, with some students working online or one-on-one with professors to go over what they’ve missed.
Thomas Bailey, who works at The Community College Research Center at Columbia University (an independent authority on two-year colleges), told NPR that nationally, students can enter college up to four semesters behind in a subject. They need help catching up — and because of good grades in bad high schools, they often don’t even realize they were behind. Bailey’s research center tracks the effectiveness of innovative remedial programs around the country.
Only about a third of first-time, full-time students enter Baltimore City Community College ready for the coursework. Zobear is one of them, but says that she likes the individual attention she gets in the classroom, and she feels like she’s improving in her remedial math class with professor Edward Ennels. She told NPR:
“He’ll say, what do you need help with? And he’ll come back to you individually, so you can understand.”
Their Daughter Died When She Didn’t Buckle Up. Now They’re Working to Save Other Children From the Same Danger
According to the U.S. Department of Transportation National Highway Traffic Safety Commission, more than 33,000 people were killed in car crashes in 2009. Of those fatalities, more than half were not wearing their seatbelt. Last year, Alexa Johnson, a 19-year-old Colorado resident, was one such victim.
Johnson died when she lost control of her pickup truck in rural Weld County, Colorado and was ejected through the driver’s side window. She wasn’t wearing a seatbelt.
Colorado highway officials note that many drivers on rural roads fail to wear safety restraints. In fact, 59 percent of the unbuckled fatalities in Colorado last year occurred on rural roadways. Alexa’s father, Tad Johnson, told Monte Whaley of the Denver Post, “The first thing I felt was anger and then I wanted to blame someone. And then I had an ‘aha’ moment and I said, ‘Alexa, what are we going to do about this?'”
Tad and his wife Jona launched a social media campaign to raise awareness about the problem of young adults in rural areas driving without seatbelts. He looked at the photos on Alexa’s Facebook page and said, “We saw that in all those photos, hardly ever was Alexa and her friends using seat belts. It’s something that we just had to deal with.”
The Johnsons took to Facebook with their message about buckling up for safety, and then began to sew inch-wide Velcro ribbons that wrap around seat belts to remind drivers to use them. The ribbons are called Alexa’s Hugs, and since last year, the Johnsons have produced thousands of them, which now come in a variety of designs.
Alexa’s Hugs have already saved at least one life. Alexa’s friend, Kole Kilcrease told Whaley he was driving near the same stretch of highway where Alexa died when he hit ice and lost control, rolling his pickup two-and-a-half times. Both Kilcrease and his passenger survived because they were buckled in. Kilcrease said, “I never really buckled up because it just seemed like an inconvenience. You have a busy day, and you have other things on your mind. I don’t think that anymore.”
MORE: A 16-Year-Old Died in A Car Accident. What Happened Next Changed Hundreds of Teenagers’ Lives.
The Giving Guide: 5 Things to Ask Before Donating to a Charity (And 5 Things That Shouldn’t Discourage You)
It’s no wonder that Americans are known as the most generous people in the world. In 2012, Americans donated more than $316 billion to charity, 3.5 percent more than they did the year before — and nearly three-quarters of the money that went to public nonprofits came from individual donors.
But while many Americans are eager to support their cause, with 1.5 million nonprofits in the United States alone, it’s not always clear which organization deserves to receive their money. To help figure it out, NationSwell talked to Jennifer Chandler, vice president and director of network support and knowledge sharing at the National Council of Nonprofits, a resource and advocate for America’s charitable nonprofits. Of course, the first thing you should consider is whether the nonprofit is fiscally responsible, she says. But beyond that, Chandler outlines five other key questions to ask before choosing a charity, as well as five “problems” that shouldn’t dissuade you from giving.
MORE: Finally, a One-Stop Shop for Charity Research
Things to Ask Before Donating
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Things That Shouldn’t Discourage You From Donating
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“There’s no better way to feel good about your gift than to get to know the charitable organization as well as you can,” Chandler says. That means making informed donations by doing your research first, and focusing on a charity’s overall performance — including transparency, governance and results — instead of just one or two things, like overhead or fundraising costs. By following the 10 tips above, we hope that you’ll be even more inspired to support the nonprofits that are working hard to move this country, and others, forward.
MORE: Can I Recycle This? 5 Things You Should Always Recycle (And 5 You Shouldn’t)
What Happened When This Mom Came Up Short on Her Grocery Bill Will Give You Hope
Andrea Gardner, a mom with five kids, was struggling to make ends meet after her husband was laid off. Like many Americans, she relies on food stamps to help put meals on the table.
Out grocery shopping one day, Andrea found herself unable to pay her $17.38 bill because the store’s EBT machine (which is used to deduct money out of a person’s welfare benefits account) wasn’t working, and she didn’t have any other form of cash on her. That’s when a perfect stranger standing behind her stepped in and paid off the entire tab.
Andrea wrote about this experience in a touching blog post titled “To the Woman Behind Me in Line at the Grocery Store” published by the Huffington Post.
“You didn’t judge me. You didn’t snarl ‘Maybe you should have less kids.’ You didn’t say ‘Well, get a job and learn to support yourself.’ You didn’t look away in embarrassment or shame for me. You didn’t make any assumptions at all.”
MORE: North Carolina’s Food Stamp Crisis Is Nearly Resolved, But It’s Not Too Late to Help
“What you did was you paid that $17.38 grocery bill for us. You gave my kids bananas, yogurt, apple juice, cheese sticks, and a peach ice tea for me; a rare treat and splurge. You let me hug you and promise through my tears that I WILL pay this forward. I WILL pay someone’s grocery bill for them. That $17.38 may not have been a lot for you, but it was priceless to us. In the car my kids couldn’t stop gushing about you; our ‘angel in disguise.’ They prayed for you. They prayed you would be blessed. You restored some of our lost faith. One simple and small action changed our lives. You probably have forgotten about us by now, but we haven’t forgotten about you. You will forever be a part of us even though we don’t even know your name.”
Andrea’s story is a sobering reminder that this could be happening in your own neighborhood grocery store. In a recent article, Slate reported that 1 in 7 of Americans are on food stamps. And it’s not just people who are chronically unemployed who need a little help. Slate also reports that the fastest-growing group of people who need assistance are actually people with jobs and work all year round.
Times are tough for millions of people across the country. But it’s stories like these that show how ordinary people can play a big part in making sure families like Andrea’s don’t go hungry.
How to Get Inner-City Students Into High-End Offices
The teen unemployment rate reached a distressing 20.9 percent in March, according to Next Economy (a joint initiative between the Atlantic and National Journal) and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That number is especially devastating for kids from poor neighborhoods, who need work and already face significant employment barriers.
But the Boston Private Industry Council (PIC) helps fight the problem by placing around 3,000 public high school students in summer jobs that help them develop the skills and connections needed to secure a job after graduation. PIC is a non-profit that has been around for 35 years.
Rayford Laconte, an 18-year-old resident of Roxbury, Massachusetts, is one of the students who found work through PIC. Last summer, PIC garnered him an internship at Genzyme, a biotech company in Boston. After the summer ended, Genzyme offered Laconte a part-time, after-school position with the company, which he happily accepted. After graduation, Laconte plans to work at Genzyme again over the summer to save money for college.
PIC places students at organizations and corporations all over the city, from Genzyme to the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Joseph McLaughlin, PIC’s research and evaluation director, told Next Economy that the organization’s private-sector commitment is unique — and especially useful.
“We’re introducing urban high school students to professional environments. That has a payoff to employers as well, since they want to grow their future workforce.”
Throughout the school year, PIC also works to help students by offering resume and mock interview workshops, as well as advising students how to dress professionally and fit into an office environment.
Now that summer’s almost here, PIC and other organizations like it are especially important. Students in Boston and around the country who need work and aren’t sure how to get it could benefit from more programs like this one.
Meet the Teacher Who’s Still Inspiring Students, Despite Retiring More Than Three Decades Ago
At almost 100 years old, retired teacher Azella Taylor still has words of wisdom to share.
“Teachers are blamed for all kinds of things. They don’t realize it’s one of the hardest jobs there is,” she tells the News Tribune in the video below. “If you’re a real teacher you devote your life to it and it’s physically hard, it’s mentally hard, it’s emotionally hard. But…it’s very gratifying.”
MORE: The Blind Teacher Who Has Vision Like No Other
After several decades of teaching in schools around Olympia, Washington, Miss Taylor has touched countless lives. And as Good News Network reports, many of her former students still stay in close contact with the remarkable woman, who has stories about Ernest Hemmingway (“He was full of himself and foul-mouthed), Chiang Kai-shek (her grandparents were friends with the Chinese Chairman) and Ansel Adams (“a charming, delightful man, down to earth”).
“She was our Forrest Gump,” former student Paige Porter told the newspaper. “If there was something important that happened, it seemed she’d been part of it.”
And even though Taylor has retired from her profession 35 years ago, she has never stopped teaching. “Some teachers make a difference in the lives of children,” another former student Sandy Flatness said. “She made a difference in the lives of adults.”
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This Young Child Has Big Plans to Feed His Hungry Peers
“Have there been times in the past twelve months when you did not have enough money to buy food that you or your family needed?” In North Carolina, one in five households answered yes to this question.
It’s worrying statistics like these that drives little William Winslow’s ambitious plan to end hunger in his community. Last year alone, he collected more than 1,400 pounds of food and more than $300 in donations, Raleigh news station WRAL reports. Even more incredibly is the fact that William is nowhere near his goal. The eight-year-old boy hopes to raise five times that amount this year, plus he’s planning a state-wide food drive next year.
“It just makes me feel bad when I hear that kids in my class are hungry,” he told the television station.
MORE: This Girl With Cancer Could Have Asked for Anything. She Chose to Feed the Hungry
William recently held his second annual food drive for BackPack Buddies, a food shuttle program that provides healthy meals to low-income families on the weekend.
The young go-getter even approached a local grocery store to ask if he could take food donations in the store’s parking lot, William’s dad, Mac Winslow, recalled to WRAL. “He looked at the store manager and said, ‘Come on, man. Think win-win.’ He said, ‘You get the money and I get the food for BackPack Buddies and we both win.”
We all know that hunger isn’t just a problem in North Carolina. In fact, one in six people — including one in five children — face hunger every day. No one deserves to go hungry, and it takes big hearts like William Winslow’s to make a difference.
“We’re just absolutely blown away by him, impressed by him,” his mother, Blythe Clifford, said. “His ability to empathize with his peers is just really incredible.”
Ask the Experts: 7 Ways to Improve K-12 Public Education
The United States bests almost every country in the world in many areas, but when it comes to educational achievement, American students are just plain mediocre. According to the most recent (2012) results of the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) — a test of critical thinking administered every three years to about half a million 15-year-olds around the globe — U.S. students are lagging behind those in many other countries, including China, Finland and Korea, in math, reading and science. Compared with other developed nations, the U.S. performs average or below. Worse, among the 34 countries surveyed, the U.S. school system ranked fifth in spending per student, at $115,000. That’s a hefty chunk of change for so-so results.
PISA scores aren’t the only measure of an educational system, but most experts agree that American schools are in need of a major overhaul. The question is: What kinds of reforms will result in lasting, meaningful changes?
As part of NationSwell’s Ask the Expert series, we asked our panel to share their ideas on how best to improve K-12 public education. Read on for their thoughts, and then join the conversation by leaving your own ideas in the comments box.
MORE: The Radical School Reform That Just Might Work
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