Soulardarity is a nonprofit organization that puts energy control in the hands of the community.
After a utility company repossessed more than 1,000 streetlights in Highland Park, the Michigan-based group began raising money to install solar-powered streetlights on the town’s dark streets.
Soulardarity envisions a future where energy is cooperatively owned and the wealth it generates is used to make communities stronger together.
Tag: michigan
A ‘Good News’ Story From Flint
LaBria Lane spends her days inside the greenhouses of Holmes STEM Academy, a middle school in Flint, Mich. She keeps her hair and nails short, ideal for gardening and teaching children the benefits of eating fresh produce.
“Fruits and vegetables are important everywhere, but if you zoom down into Flint and talk about the lead crisis, vitamins in fruits and vegetables help to deter lead from storing in the bones,” says Lane.
Lane is part of a group of service year corps members who began working in Flint in 2014 — the same time that the city’s lead situation was making headlines. Prior to the water crisis, four nonprofit organizations took a coordinated step: They worked together to recruit and host individuals to serve as AmeriCorps and AmeriCorps VISTA members. Their joint effort resulted in higher numbers than they would have been able to achieve working alone. In the span of just two years, the number of service year corps members rose from 30 to more than 200.
This approach is now known as the “Flint Model.”
Because of the established service year force on the ground, Flint was better prepared to respond to the water crisis. Without these individuals, much of the aid received by the city might not have been effectively distributed.
“There are a lot of great people here who are actually here trying to help build the city up,” says Jessika Larkin, another service year corps member.
In this episode of NationSwell’s eight-part mini-documentary series on service years, learn about the Flint Model and “Service Year Impact Communities.” NationSwell asks you to join our partnership with Service Year Alliance. Watch the video above. Contact your elected officials and ask them to support national service. Do a service year yourself. Together, we can lead a movement to give young Americans the opportunity to help bridge the divides in our country.
MORE: Service Year: Retired Gen. Stanley McChrystal
Las Vegas’s First Family Gambles on Downtown, Indoor Agriculture Gets a Boost and More
Meet the Goodmans: Las Vegas’ Flamboyant Political Family, Governing
Did you know the Strip — with its high-rolling casinos and debauched dance clubs — isn’t actually within Las Vegas’s city limits? It’s technically on Clark County’s turf. The timeworn battle between city and county is playing out in the Nevada desert, as a husband-and-wife pair who’ve held the mayor’s office for a collective 17 years try to remake the city’s downtown, gambling their future on a performing arts center, a med school and a pro sports team.
High-Rise Greens, The New Yorker
In 2003, Ed Harwood, a 66-year-old inventor from Ithaca, N.Y., sketched out designs for a seemingly impossible idea: a compact vertical farm, where produce could grow without any soil, sunlight or more water than a fine mist. Today, his grow tower has been perfected and adopted by AeroFarms, a company in Newark, N.J., whose indoor agriculture aims to compete with California’s kale, bok choi and arugula farmers.
Did Free College Save This City? Christian Science Monitor
For every graduate of the Kalamazoo, Mich., school system — rich or poor — a group of anonymous donors has guaranteed scholarships to cover the cost of college tuition. The 11-year-old educational experiment, known as Kalamazoo Promise, has revived the district public schools and fostered a college-going culture in this frozen Rust Belt city that’s trying to transition to the digital economy.
Continue reading “Las Vegas’s First Family Gambles on Downtown, Indoor Agriculture Gets a Boost and More”
Why America Must Remember Its Lynching Past, The Compassionate Nonagenarian Who Knits Hats for Those on the Streets and More
The Legacy of Lynching, on Death Row, The New Yorker
Bryan Stevenson, one of the foremost civil rights lawyers of our time and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, sees a link between wrongful convictions, today’s police shootings of young black men and the nation’s barbarous history of lynching. To honor the 4,000 African Americans killed in the former Confederate states, Stevenson plans to build a $20 million memorial in Montgomery, Ala., on the site of a former public housing complex.
Man, 91, in hospice care knits hats for the homeless, WXMI
For the last 15 years, Morrie Boogart, a 91-year-old in Grandville, Mich., has knit hats for the homeless. Using donated yarn, Boogart has made at least 8,000 caps to keep the homeless warm during the winter. Confined to bedrest from skin cancer and a mass on his kidney, he’s spending his last days in admirable service to others.
Yes, Queens, The Ringer
When one thinks of podcasts, the image of a bespectacled white man, like “This American Life”’s Ira Glass, probably comes to mind. The seriously irreverent, wildly popular weekly podcast “2 Dope Queens,” hosted by Jessica Williams, formerly of “The Daily Show,” and Phoebe Robinson, a standup comedian, opens the medium to a new type of host. Racism, sexism and politics, as seen from a black woman’s perspective, are all carefully discussed, and somehow hilarity ensues.
MORE: Why Sleeping in a Former Slave’s Home Will Make You Rethink Race Relations in America
Every City Should Replicate What This Michigan City Did, A Smarter System for Doctors Making House Calls and More
The City That Unpoisoned Its Pipes, NextCity
The idea of preemptively improving infrastructure long before a crisis hits is foreign to most Americans. An hour’s drive west of Flint, Mich., the entire water system in Lansing (which once contained lead-lined service mains) will be declared lead-free in 2017 after a decade spent switching to copper pipes. Soon, residents will have the ability to swig their H2O without worry.
A New Brand of Doctor Targets the Unhealthy in Rural Tennessee, The Tennessean
In rural areas, there are a lot of benefits to a country doctor who makes house calls: a robust patient-physician relationship, no administration contributing to overhead. But isolation limits those medics’ ability to understand what’s affecting their region. By banding together, a network of primary-care physicians in 50 desolate counties across Tennessee now share knowledge such as health trends among their populations and best practices for dealing with insurance companies.
The Collapsible Helmet that Could Revolutionize Bike-Share Safety, CityLab
Bike-sharing is one of the easiest ways to get around a city and is friendlier to the environment than a short, gas-guzzling car ride. But cyclists often put themselves at risk on roadways by going without a helmet. To improve safety, a Brooklyn, N.Y., commuter created a collapsible helmet made from paper honeycomb and glue, which folds up to the size of a banana, making a bike-share ride even more desirable.
MORE: In the U.S., 1.7 Million Don’t Have Access to Clean Drinking Water. This Grandma Is Changing That
The Park That’s Protecting America’s Largest City, A Prosecutor Who Refused to Let Sexual Assault Victims Be Forgotten and More
N.Y.’s Clever New Park Will Weather Epic Storms and Rising Seas, Wired
In sharp contrast to New York City’s towering skyscrapers, several large, berm-like structures rise on nearby Governors Island. These unique, tree-, shrub- and grass-covered mounds not only provide green space to residents of the nearby concrete jungle, but they also have a more surprising purpose: to protect the Big Apple from rising sea levels and destructive superstorms.
11,431 Rape Kits Were Collected and Forgotten in Detroit. This Is the Story of One of Them, Elle
More than 80,000 cases pass through Wayne County, Mich., prosecutor Kym Worthy’s office each year. Despite that crushing caseload — and a bankrupt Motor City — Worthy, a sexual assault victim herself, put together a plan to process the backlog of more than 10,000 untested rape kits found in the county’s crime lab warehouse.
A New Argument for More Diverse Classrooms, The Atlantic
As a child, U.S. Education Secretary, John King, attended racially- and socioeconomically-diverse public schools. Today as an adult, he’s advocating that all American schoolchildren have access to the same thing. Why? A fully integrated educational system benefits all students — affluent and low-income alike.
MORE: This Proven Method Is How You Reduce Sexual Assault on College Campuses
The Surprisingly Simple Way to Improve Child Development, A State Protects Its Residents From Contaminated Water and More
To Help Kids Thrive, Coach Their Parents, New York Times
When it comes to nurturing healthy, successful children, the focus is usually on improving education and nutrition. But research proves it’s much more basic than that; coaching parents to create loving, stable environments at home has the biggest impact of all.
The Flint of California, Politico
The poisonous drinking water in Flint, Mich., dominates the news headlines, but contamination is a problem numerous low-income communities face. With a landmark bill, California law now protects citizens’ need of H20, declaring that everyone has the right to “safe, clean, affordable and accessible water adequate for human consumption, cooking and sanitary purposes.”
How to Clean Up the Dirtiest Vehicles on the Road, CityLab
Individuals can lessen their carbon footprint by opting to drive a Prius or Tesla instead of a gas-guzzling SUV. But to really reduce the greenhouse gas created by transportation in the U.S., those pumping out the most emissions — buses and medium- and heavy-duty trucks — must green up.
MORE: This Engineer Co-Founded Tesla. Here’s His Next Electric Idea
The Zero-Energy Way to Produce Food, How to Build Hope in a Poisoned City and More
What’s Growing On at The Plant?, onEarth
On the southwest side of the Windy City, a former meatpacking plant is now the home of The Plant, an incubator of 16 food start-ups. Tenants work together in order to be as sustainable as possible — literally, one business’s trash is another’s storage container, recipe ingredient or energy source. The long-term plan for this urban agricultural experiment? Sprout numerous Plants across the nation.
Life as a Young Athlete in Flint, Michigan, Bleacher Report
In a city under siege by its poisoned public water system, hometown heroes are using basketball to raise awareness and kids’ spirits. Kenyada Dent, a guidance counselor and high school hoops coach, uses the game as a tool to motivate his players towards opportunities outside of the struggling city; another coach, Chris McLavish, organized a charity game featuring former collegiate and NBA players that grew up in Flint. The activity on the court doesn’t make the tap water drinkable or erase the damage already inflicted, but it does bring much-needed joy to a city overcome with despair.
Truancy, Suspension Rates Drop in Greater Los Angeles Area Schools, The Chronicle of Social Change
A suspension doesn’t just make a child miss out on a day of learning, it also increases the likelihood that he’ll go to prison. Because of this, many school districts in the Golden State now implement restorative justice practices — a strategy that uses reconciliation with victims as a means of rehabilitation — instead of traditional, punitive disciplinary measures. Suspension rates and truancy filings have decreased, but racial discrepancies still exist when analyzing discipline statistics.
MORE: Suspending Students Isn’t Effective. Here’s What Schools Should Do Instead
A House That’s Actually Affordable to Those in Poverty, Stories of Innovation from Coast to Coast and More
This House Costs Just $20,000 — But It’s Nicer Than Yours, Fast Co.Exist
Is it possible to build a house that’s cost-effective to someone living below the poverty line? The answer is yes, according to students at Auburn University’s School of Architecture, who worked on the design and construction dilemma for more than 10 years. Last month, they revealed two tiny houses in a community outside of Atlanta that cost just $14,000 each.
How America Is Putting Itself Back Together Again, The Atlantic
As writer James Fallows says, “As a whole, the country may seem to be going to hell.” But as he’s discovered while visiting various towns across America in his single-engine prop plane, there’s actually a groundswell of renewal and innovation already happening — from impressive economic growth in an impoverished area of Mississippi known as the Golden Triangle, to an investment in the Michigan public education system and a creative movement in more than 10 cities where artistic ventures are being celebrated.
Here’s What Happened When This School Made SATs Optional on Applications, Mic
Along with prom and getting your driver’s license, taking the SAT or ACT is a teenage rite of passage. But that’s no longer the case for some college-bound students. In a bold move, George Washington University made standardized test results optional for undergraduate applicants. The positive outcome: A more diverse candidate pool, including a sharp uptick in applications from African-American, Latino and first-generation college students.
MORE: Meet the Courageous Man Who Has Housed 1,393 Chronically Homeless Individuals in Utah
Going to the DMV Just Got a Whole Lot Better
Rather than waste a day waiting in line, a person in Michigan, Texas, Massachusetts and a growing number of other states can check in at the Department of Motor Vehicles remotely via computer or cell phone or through an in-office kiosk. The app, which was created by Pasadena, Calif., tech firm QLess, will estimate the time until your number is called and send you a message when you’re up next. Running late? Send a quick text and you’ll be moved back in the queue.
“We believe time matters, and we’re on a mission to eliminate waiting lines worldwide,” says Alex Bäcker, QLess founder and CEO. “Our technology has liberated more than 20 million people from waits long and short, collectively giving humankind more than 500 years back, while simultaneously giving control back to an organization.”
Already a success for retail stores, healthcare facilities, college campuses and polling places, implementing QLess at DMVs was a logical next step. QLess reports a 75 percent reduction in people who walk away because lines look too long. For probably the first time ever, DMV customers are saying visits are actually “pleasant.”
“My wait was so short that I only lost two of my five lives on Candy Crush,” Darren Little notes of his review of Michigan’s program in The Detroit News. “We shouldn’t expect government to develop the latest and greatest technology,” he adds, “but we should expect them to utilize existing technology to make government work better.”
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