Philly Families Are Taking Charge of Their Own Food Security

Emily Nonko

June 15, 2021 |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

In 2014, the community organization Asociación Puertorriqueños en Marcha piloted a community-based Food Buying Club in Philadelphia. This initiative allowed local residents to buy food in bulk at wholesale prices. The goal was to strengthen food security and combat the lack of affordable and nutritious food in their neighborhood. Despite distributing over 62,000 pounds of fresh produce, the program shut down due to financial reasons. Now, after forming an advisory council and working on their business strategy with others in the community, the club is reopening and is looking to expand across the city.

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Art Teachers Are Teaching Girls to Code

Celeste Hamilton Dennis

June 10, 2021 |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Miami, Florida

Code/Art trains art teachers in a curriculum that combines art and coding, with the goal of inspiring girls to code. They also offer weekly clubs for elementary and middle school girls, a Future Female Tech Leaders program for high schoolers, and an annual conference to celebrate the girls’ achievements. Teachers who take the training can satisfy continuing education requirements by learning four lessons: an abstract art generator and donut maker game, coding self-portraits using JavaScript, and 3-D modeling. Facilitators are assisted by college-age interns, who are available to help in the classroom.

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Minnesota Repurposes Transit Buses to Give COVID-19 Vaccines to Communities That Need Them Most

Henry Pan

June 10, 2021 |

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Under 800 Words

Response Location: United States, Minneapolis, Minnesota

With extra buses available due to lower ridership during the pandemic, Metro Transit worked with key partners to turn six buses into mobile vaccination clinics. Metro Transit provided drivers and retrofitted the buses by removing seats, relocating stanchions, and ensuring buses could draw power from electrical outlets. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Minnesota provided staff and licensed clinicians to administer the vaccines. The health department provided funding that made it all come together. The buses prioritized areas with gaps in vaccine access, including low-income areas and communities of color.

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This Fitness Entrepreneurship Course Is a Second Chance for the Formerly Incarcerated

Kristi Eaton

June 09, 2021 |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, New York, New York

People who spend their time in prison getting physically fit might seek to turn what they've learned into a job as a fitness trainer, once they're released. But felony convictions act as a barrier to such jobs. A Second U Foundation, founded by a formerly incarcerated man who faced such barriers, provides an eight-week course in running a fitness-training business. Of the 200 people who have taken the course since 2015, three-quarters have been hired by health clubs, while the others started their own businesses. Foundations and grants foot the bill so that the training is free.

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Sustaining the Work of Artists With a Living Wage and Benefits In Western Massachusetts

Emily Nonko

June 09, 2021 |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Massachusetts

Artists at Work is a pilot project of THE OFFICE performing arts + film that paired artists with cultural and community partners to work on local initiatives. For their work, the artists were paid a living wage, including healthcare, which resulted in responses to issues like youth mental health, food justice, and COVID-19 awareness campaigns in communities that are marginalized. From empowering youth to build community through food and farming to engaging young queer people of color, the successful six-month pilot led to a new fundraising campaign to continue and expand to seven regions across the U.S.

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Cities Are Boosting the Economy by Rewarding Those Who Shop Local

Sakshi Udavant

June 03, 2021 |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Akron, Ohio

Akron, Ohio, is “creating a circular economy” in hopes of helping small businesses and encouraging residents to shop locally. A city-sponsored app, Akronite, is used by consumers to make purchases and earn reward points which can be redeemed for discounts and other perks. The app’s success is clear in the high return on investment, which shows $9 generated for every dollar invested by the local government. Other cities across the country are also adopting the initiative, tweaking it to their own communities.

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Boise Is Tapping Into Free, Sustainable Energy - and Other Cities Could Follow Suit

Shiva Nagaraj

June 03, 2021 |

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1500-3000 Words

Response Location: United States, Boise, Idaho

In the late 1800s a local water company found hot springs in Boise. They decided to build pipes and transport the water to some nearby homes and towns to heat them, creating a geothermal heating system. In the 1980s, the city replicated this model at a larger scale. Water from a naturally hot aquifer flowed through pipes heating 100 large buildings Downtown, equivalent to more than 6 million square feet. Geothermal heating is completely clean, it requires no fossil fuels. Currently, there's only 23 geothermal districts in America. However, one study estimates that by 2050 there could be 17,500.

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This Nonprofit Eliminated a Simple Barrier Keeping New Orleans Teens From Their Summer Internships

Emily Nonko

May 27, 2021 |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, New Orleans, Louisiana

Onerous paperwork and required legal documents keep many youth - especially those not living with legal guardians - from taking part in city internships, so YouthForce NOLA worked with the city to pilot an internship program with fewer barriers. The streamlined application included workarounds for common issues, like allowing public school records to certify residency, accepting approval from non-legal guardians, and providing a checklist with exactly what records they need and how they can get them. The added support reduced anxiety among the youth and significantly increased retention in the internships.

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People in Solitary Confinement and Volunteers Team Up to Garden, Imagine a World Without Prisons

Roshan Abraham

May 27, 2021 |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, New Orleans, Louisiana

The Solitary Gardens project started in New Orleans and has been copied in multiple other places as a combination art exhibit and therapeutic link between incarcerated people and the outside world. People on both sides of the prison walls collaborate in pairs to design a garden that grows flowers and herbs chosen by the incarcerated person. The gardens match the tiny dimensions of a solitary-confinement cell. The healing herbs are used to help others, and the exercise overall gives incarcerated people a sense of connection to the earth, part of the project's prison-abolition message.

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Young People Are Digitally Rebuilding Tulsa's Black Wall Street

Kristi Eaton

May 26, 2021 |

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800-1500 Words

Response Location: United States, Tulsa, Oklahoma

Urban Coders Guild provides STEM education opportunities to underrepresented communities and is working with local students to build websites for the businesses destroyed during the Tulsa Race Massacre. While none of the businesses operate today, the program builds awareness of the massacre while also teaching students coding skills to build websites. The course is also considered a “prep” course for the future because it teaches students how to interact with others as well as listen to and accept feedback from others. The group partnered with Tulsa Community College students to create the content and logos.

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