Time to Say Goodbye: Tonya’s Last Post

It has been just a little over two years since I took over the Tulsa Initiative Blog. One of my first assignments was writing a blog post introducing myself to you, the readers. Now, one of my last assignments is to write a post to say goodbye.

It is time to start the next chapter in my life, and so in a few days I will begin a one year LLM (legal masters) program in Energy and Natural Resources.

I would like to thank everyone who contributed a guest blog and helped us keep the topics fresh. I would also like to thank everyone for their thoughts, ideas, insights and encouragement. My time at CAP Tulsa was rewarding and I’ll carry this experience with me as I move forward.

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The 20K House: From Research Project to Product

A previous blogger, Diama Norris, first wrote about the 20K House Project on our blog back in 2009. The idea behind the project is the creation of affordable housing which serves as an alternative to mobile homes and expands homeownership among low-income individuals. The idea is as appealing now as it was when Diama first discussed it over 5 years ago.

Rural Studio is the program behind the 20K House project. They are an undergraduate program of the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape Architecture at Auburn University. Rural Studio is celebrating its 20^th anniversary and has much to show for it. Over the past two decades they have provided practical experiences for students who design and build projects benefiting underserved populations in rural Alabama.

The 20K House Project itself began in 2005, and has produced 12 versions of the 20K house. Each version was given away to residents in need who reside in and around Hale County. Now efforts are underway to take what Rural Studies has learned through this hands-on research project and create a marketable product. This will

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Have You Heard About Giving Tuesday?

I first heard about Giving Tuesday last year. It was the Monday after Thanksgiving and I was listening to NPR on my way to work. The next day I was posting about it on this blog, and talking to my friends about it on social media. Last year, I was a little late to the party. So this year I want to help build awareness early.

Giving Tuesday is a movement to create a National Day of Giving to kick off the holiday season. It happens the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, so after shopping on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, the giving starts December 3^rd this year.

The movement was started by the 92^nd Street Y (92Y), a nonprofit community and cultural center in New York City. It has grown to include thousands of partners including the United Nations Foundation.

The idea behind Giving Tuesday is to encourage people to

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Cliff Effects: A Barrier to Escaping Poverty

Work support programs are designed to sustain low-income earners and encourage work. In this they have been successful, as SNAP alone lifted an estimated 3.9 million Americans out of poverty in 2009.  And according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ blog “public programs lifted 40 million people out of poverty in 2011, including almost 9 million children.”

Most of us know families must fall below certain income limits in order to qualify for government benefits. In many cases, individual states administer federally funded safety net programs and often set certain eligibility requirements for benefits such as SNAP or child care subsidies. For some benefits, the state or federal government also sets asset limits, meaning in some states even a modest savings account can disqualify families from receiving assistance.

Yet another harsh side effect of eligibility guidelines is called the “Cliff Effect.” It refers to situations where a small increase in income leads to an abrupt end to a critical benefit. Two work support benefits often associated with income limits are child care assistance, which makes daycare affordable for working parents, and food assistance, which often includes work requirements.

The dilemma posed by cliff effects is that it penalizes people who are slowly working their way out of poverty and into higher income brackets. As income increases,

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Rally4Babies: Advocating for Early Learning

In case you missed it last month, on July 8^th Rally4Babies hosted a virtual rally on Google+. Rally4Babies is a partnership sponsored by Zero to Three (The National Center for Infants, Toddlers and Families). The event, hosted by Soledad O’Brien, featured guests Secretary Arne Duncan, U.S. Department of Education, and Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, U.S. Department Health and Human Services.

O’Brien and her guests talked about the success of Head Start, Early Head Start, Home Visiting Programs and other programs offering early childhood education.  Secretary Sebelius described how babies are learning every day, and emphasized that a safe, secure and stimulating environment both inside and outside the home can “make a world of difference” in language development and other fundamental skills.  Along those same lines, Secretary Duncan is concerned because low-income children who do not have the advantage of quality early learning experiences can start Kindergarten a year, to a year and a half, behind their peers.

Backed up by research from Harvard University’s Center on the Developing Child, we know babies begin developing the skills necessary for lifelong learning shortly after birth. The Center’s InBrief report, Executive Function: Skills for Life and Learning, tells us the optimal window for dramatic growth occurring between ages 3 to 5.

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Sequestration Check-Up: It’s Scary Enough

It bothers me to read recent reports implying the budget sequestration has not been all that bad. While some dire consequences, such as furloughing federal prison guards, air traffic controllers and border patrol agents, have been avoided, one thing is now perfectly clear: poor and at-risk Americans are bearing the brunt of the funding cuts and there is no relief in sight. I want to link readers to a few resources that drive that point home.

Congress moved quickly to end furloughs causing delays at our nation’s airports, but there are still lines of people waiting for housing assistance, job training, or a slot for their child in a Head Start program. All of these programs offer critical services, and all suffered funding cuts due to sequestration.

Greg Kaufman, poverty correspondent for The Nation, and Moyers & Company,  has kept a close eye on how low-income families are faring under budget cuts. Through a series called Sequester Watch, Moyers & Company has tracked the effects federal cuts are having on housing assistance, food programs for seniors, Head Start and job training programs.

I’ll list the articles and some of the interesting issues from the series here:

• Housing: Kaufman’s article, Mapping the Sequester’s Impact on Low-Income Housing, provides a map spotlighting over 60 stories on housing cuts from around the country.

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Guest Post: Principal for a Day

Today’s guest post is written by Ken Wenglewski, Manager of the Neighborhood Revitalization Program.  Last month, Ken had a chance to see firsthand the challenges and rewards of running a public school.  We thought his experience was a great way to show how people can create and maintain links between schools and the neighborhoods.    

On April 5th, I had the wonderful opportunity to participate in Tulsa Public Schools’ “Principal for a Day” at Rogers High School, under the leadership of Stacey Vernon. Stacey was awarded Principle of the Year so it was an honor to shadow her work.

Coming to Rogers was a bit surreal. My wife attended Rogers so walking the halls was very nostalgic.

My day started by working with the Assistant Principal Kendra Bremlett. We talked about her role as support for Stacey. We also spoke of the exciting things that will be happening this Fall with the implementation of College Summit; one of our department’s educational partners.

Later, Stacy took over and we met with April Dalto, a science teacher who had her class cook hotdogs with natural sunlight. The class was energetic, engaged and very creative.

Back in Stacy’s office, I was offered the opportunity to communicate through an Auto-dialer system called School Connects. I read a script out loud, on the phone, telling parents to show up at a bowling event. I had a blast sounding like a DJ for a radio station!

There was another memorable moment back at Stacey’s office. She has a pinball machine in the back office that she likes to use when she isn’t buried in instructional leadership duties. Needless to say, it isn’t used very often.

To that point, the most amazing thing that I observed with Stacey was her ability to know all of the students by name.

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Thoughts on “A Place at the Table,” Part Two

Last week I wrote about attending the Tulsa premier of A Place at the Table. The film and the discussion that followed raised so many important issues I decided to write a two-part report.  My previous post focused on the film. This second installment will focus on the discussion that followed.

A Place at the Table opened at the Circle Cinema on March 8^th, and was followed by a panel discussion featuring three local advocates.  These three local experts were:

• Eileen Bradshaw, Executive Director of the Community Food Bank of Eastern Oklahoma.
• Jan Figart, Associate Director of the Community Service Council; and
• Rev. Ron Robinson, Director of A Third Place, a grassroots organization serving neighborhoods in North Tulsa and Turley;

For a little over an hour, an audience crowded the lobby of the theater as panelists talked about the local story. The conversation brought home the fact that hunger is a disturbingly local problem. Despite the continuing efforts of local organizations, the panelists were not there to report they were meeting all the needs of their clients – they were there to tell us the need is still greater than their resources.  Here are just a few of the important points the panelist covered:

• Oklahoma is Among the Leaders in U.S. Hunger: The panel began with facts about hunger in our city and our state, and if you visit the Community Food Bank’s “Hunger Fact” page  it presents a similar foundation of relevent facts about food insecurity (The “Hunger Fact” webpage is no longer available.  You can visit Feeding America’s Map the Meal Gap and click on Oklahoma for relevent information instead.)  Here are two quick indicators that Oklahoma has a problem with hunger: 1) In 2011, the USDA ranked Oklahoma fourth

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Thoughts on “A Place at the Table,” Part One

A couple of weeks ago, in my previous post, I promised to write about the Tulsa premier of A Place at the Table and the discussion that followed.  It’s impossible to sum up every issue brought up by the film.  It is equally impossible to write a single post about the film and the discussion that followed; too many important topics to cover.  So this will be a two-part report highlighting some of the issues that I found particularly relevant.  For this first installment, I want to talk about the film itself, with the understanding this in no way represents the entire list of issues raised by the documentary.   

A Place at the Table draws its power from the personal stories of people struggling to afford healthy food.  Experts on nutrition and hunger push the message further by explaining the negative effects long-term food insecurity has on a person’s health, education and potential. After watching this documentary, it is impossible to avoid the conclusion that this problem is bigger than any one charity can tackle; it is bigger than the current funding of our social safety net can address. These are just three of the reasons why:

• The rate and requirements of SNAP benefits are out of sync with the cost of living.  As the film tracks the story of Barbie, a single mother in Philadelphia, this fact becomes clear. Barbie loses her SNAP benefits entirely when she begins to earn more money, but despite a slightly higher paycheck her overall financial situation has not improved. Her children are still eating canned noodles instead of a balanced diet and their mental and physical development will be impacted as a consequence.
• The school lunch program, launched under the Truman administration, was a great idea but is currently underfunded.  The film points out that less than a dollar a day per child is actually spent on food for lunches, and then demonstrates how it is impossible to make a quality meal that meets dietary needs on that budget.

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Giving up on Black Friday, Embracing ‘Giving Tuesday’

For the first time in years, I skipped Black Friday.  I’m usually out there with the best of them, looking for discounts and enjoying the chaos.  So no disrespect to brave souls who faced the crowds this year, but I couldn’t bring myself to tackle the early morning mayhem.  There were some perks to sitting it out.  It not only felt good to sleep in, but it gave me time to examine what I really wanted to do with my money and time this holiday season.  That isn’t to say I stayed home all day.  I was out that afternoon, visiting friends and tending to the necessities of life, like getting a tire fixed.  So giving up on Black Friday was not an attempt to fend off the approach of carols and decorations, so much as it was an effort to reprioritize things. I want to take part in the Season, but on different terms this time.

Then on the way to work yesterday, on the sleepy Monday morning following a four day weekend, I heard a story that renewed my interest in post-Thanksgiving traditions.  NPR was reporting on the first ever Giving Tuesday.  More than 1,400 groups are launching an event to kick-off the holiday giving season, and it starts today. While I am usually skeptical of “new” traditions, I hope this one catches on.  Corporate marketing has given us Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and even Cyber Monday, each an attempt to boost participation and bring in revenue.  However, the shopping casts a shadow on other priorities, so reinventing how we promote and practice the holiday tradition of charity is probably long overdue.

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