The beginning of this month's conversation around how trust building can help organizations enter communities in a socially just way.
How do we know it's okay to come in?
How do we justly enter communities?
My name is Jacqulyn Washington but most people call me Jackie. As a graduate student of social work, I am focusing on community engagement, revitalization and resilience. Here at Storefront for Community Design, I am researching how to justly enter communities. This topic is so relevant to us all because we all enter communities in some way. In just one day, I pass through 3 neighborhoods. Think about which communities you drive through on your way home. Have you ever thought about what impact you have or don’t have in those communities? What about your own community? How does your job or school intersect with surrounding neighborhoods?
I am not only researching how to justly enter communities by reading peer-reviewed articles and textbooks but I am researching in a truly active way. I am learning though meeting, talking, partnering and participating in communities. Over the next 5 months, I will be sharing this journey with you through updates on Storefront’s blog. The thoughts posted here will be an expression of my academic, professional and personal knowledge relevant to community work. I invite you to use this blog series as an interactive way for us to have a community conversation on ways to justly enter communities. Each month a new question will be presented followed by weekly posts on related topics. These can be found below.
Please leave a comment below on what justly entering a community means to you!
What's Next:
1. How do we know it’s okay to come in?
An overview of things to be considered before entering and how to recognize the “nod of approval” from the community
2. What does trust have to do with it?
Building rapport and taking care of relationships
3.How important are the strengths? How important are the needs?
Understanding why recognizing resiliency is just as important as identifying the problems when assessing a community
4.What is an intervention without community engagement?
Examining why community engagement is the basis for an effective intervention
5.How do you know if it worked?
A summary of ways to evaluate community interventions and practice.
Jackson Ward Community Garden Seeks Assistance
A year and a half ago in her Jackson Ward apartment, Jourdan James began dreaming about how to access more green garden space in her neighborhood. Now she is applying for non-profit status and furthering her plans for turning the triangular plot of land at 620 Chamberlayne Parkway into a community garden and educational space.
The plot is uniquely situated at a major gateway to the neighborhood, which sets it up to be a verdant usher into the neighborhood.
She is seeking assistance with a landscape plan of the 8,200 sq. ft. space, using approximately 4,000 sq. ft. for 12 raised bed gardens and the remaining space for storage, education, bee-keeping and leisure. The Jackson Ward Community Garden will be a space to learn about native flowers and vegetables as well as sustainable gardening practices. Some concerns she faces already include water access, fencing, and accessibility to all neighborhood residents. She also has plans for an updatable mural site for the dreary winter months.
For those who are interested, the scope of this work requires about 2 to 6 hours of your time. The deliverables are a site-plan and elevation rendering due by the end of October to help this forming non-profit raise funds and share their ideas for community green space and sustainability education.
mOb Design Session Fall 2016
We are excited for our fall semester's worth of design session projects. Read about them below!
ON THE STREET
A Sign of the Times
Use the frame of the "Stonestreet Diamond" sign on 209 East Broad Street to create a new sign for Walter and Urban Corps new development. "The sign doesn't have to/need to say anything, it should just be a sign of the times and fit in the existing frame." Walter Parks' vacant lot near the intersection of Foushee and Broad Streets is also available for improvement or action. There is a budget for improvements at both locations TBD based on proposals presented to Walter and his team.
Orleans Street
Transform Orleans Street into a 'great street' through a series of mOb-style interventions. The final terminal of the new Bus Rapid Transit System (completion scheduled for October 2017) will be located at Rockett's Landing. Orleans Street connects the community of the Greater Fulton Neighborhood to this high-speed transportation hub. The street requires urban / streetscape designs to transfigure the barren street into a more abiding space for pedestrians and neighbors.
VCU Honors College
The Honors College is looking to create a bolder profile by creating an unusual and inventive physical presence with their building. Work within their existing public spaces to create a striking and innovative connection between the street and the college. All elements of the building and public spaces are fair game.
FI Sky
Redesign an ignored outdoor courtyard space with FI Sky, a program that implements innovation for traditional classrooms. The site is on the southern side of Grace Harris Hall on West Main and Harrison. This project includes but is not limited to landscaping, plant selection, and educational spatial design.
IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD
Brooks Diner
Revamp the identity of an existing restaurant that is a beloved community gathering place. They will need interior design solutions but also are looking to expand and enliven their outdoor spaces through landscaping or an exterior dining area.
HI Richmond Hostel
HI Richmond Hostel is about a year old, and functions as both affordable overnight lodging and as a community center. HI Richmond is located in the old Otis Elevator Company building, which has also been used as a women’s prison from about 1980-1999.
Currently, the basement is unfinished, somewhat of an informal storage area, and not zoned for permanent use. However, the basement does get traffic: they have hosted wilderness medical training classes down there, community theater and comedy groups use it regularly as a rehearsal space, and they sometimes hold larger meetings down there.
They are looking for ways to activate and improve their basement in ways that both reference their building’s history, benefit the Richmond community, and speak to their larger organization’s mission (fostering a more tolerant world through travel).
Neighborhood Assistance Officers
Rebrand the identity—uniforms, logos, badges, perhaps even the name—of the Neighborhood Assistance Officers. These officers are non-sworn, civilian, unpaid volunteers who provide critical support in varying capacities to the Richmond Police Department.
RECOVERY & CONSERVATION
Richmond Behavioral Health Authority
Design sewn products using the research Kerrie and Cassandra have done over the past six months with hand-rolled custom fabric. This project will also require organizing workshops and further research.
- An article on Design Ignites Change about the program, Recovery by Design.
- Example of an outcome from last semester.
Giving to Extremes Medical Missions
Develop the visual identity for Giving to Extremes Medical Missions for their public media presence: professional and promotional materials across print and social media platforms. GTE is a group of physicians who conduct surgical missions in Central America, as well as train local doctors. They are a relatively new organization and don't have any visual collateral yet.
Clean City Commission
Develop a grassroots litter prevention campaign for Richmond. The campaign will focus on two areas, both North and South: Highland Park and along Reedy Creek. This project will focus on one of these areas and encourages innovative, active, and whimsical (read: non-slogan) solutions.
Storefront to open youth-led collaborative in Highland Park
Farmstrong Seeks Assistance with Shed Conversion
Farmstrong is an agricultural site in the east end located at 2300 Cool Lane on a property that is privately owned, and serves the community of Armstrong High School, which is located directly to the east of the site.
The site is currently not producing crops, but by spring will have a variety of produce, flowers, and cover crop. The Armstrong Green Team are the primary caretakers of the Farmstrong site. The Green Team, composed of 12 high school students who primarily live in the neighborhood of north Church Hill, Creighton Court, Mosby Court, and Fairfield Court, been working on the site for one year.
On the site sits a shed, which was once a refrigeration unit for a flower vendor on Cool Lane. The shed is functional as a storage area for tools, however, it needs help. It is dark, has the appearance of being full of spiders, and is not the proud shed that the Green Team aspires to use.
mOb Design Session Spring 2016
Every semester, Storefront's community design apprentices at mOb (Middle of Broad) take on community-initiated projects under the guidance of a professional mentor, VCUarts faculty, and Storefront staff.
Pop-up RVA Recap
Assist JRPS with North Bank Park Redesign
The James River Park System is seeking assistance with the development of a conceptual plan to improve the entrance to the North Bank Trail at the terminus of Texas Avenue in the Maymont neighborhood. While many improvements have been made along this portion of the North Bank Trail to improve connectivity to Texas Beach, the entrance is currently characterized by its parking lot, which leaves little room for paths that prioritize the many runners, cyclists, hikers that move through this entrance. We are seeking a team of landscape architects to re-envision this entrance. JRPS hopes to leverage the outcome of this consultation as they seek funding to implement this project.