About where I work: Peaslee Neighborhood Center

I was reminded recently that I have not written an update in a while, particularly about my new job, which is Administrative Assisting at Peaslee Neighborhood Center. Peaslee is a non-profit with a unique history. I love telling the story of Peaslee because it is about seemingly overwhelming odds and the incredible tenacity of those who challenged the odds. I'll quote from the "Peaslee-for-the-People-Project," a well-photocopied paper in the file cabinet here:
"In the summer of 1982 the Cincinnati Board of Education closed the doors of Peaslee School. That corner at 14th and Sycamore in Cincinnati's inner city had served the education of our neighborhood children for over a hundred years. An old school building had been torn down several years before leaving a vacant lot and a small, modernly equipped, newer annex we called Peaslee Primary...
"The school stood vacant for fourteen months...We felt that the loss of the school was connected with the beginnings of loss of the fabric of the neighborhood.
"But our neighborhood, called Over-the-Rhine, had faced losses before and the people who were hit would rebound to fight harder next time. Those fourteen months proved to be such a time...
"Parents who had fought for the school, community supporters, our Over-the-Rhine Community Council, and our neighborhood development corporation pulled together to work out a proposal for usage of the school and an offer for purchase. After negotiating back and forth (over six months) with the School Board we came up with the agreement that the community would put $15,000 cash down and be given one year to raise the remaining purchase price of $225,000 plus that year's maintenance cost. We envisioned a building that would belong to the low-income community and be used as an educational and cultural center for our integrated neighborhood. Community control of this building would also help to stabilize the low-income housing around it. But the $240,000 plus price tag made that look like an impossible dream. We knew our real work had just begun...
"Our community has an average annual income of $6000/year per family. One person in our group sat down and figured out how many people would have to donate $10 to achieve our goal. I think that's when the $225,000 price tag really began to hit home and we began to realize that we'd have to get outside our community for financial support and explain what Peaslee was and could become for us. We'd have to convince 22,500 people!
"One thing that helped was...we drew up a tentative timeline so that we could see how much we would need to have raised by March, then by August, etc. This helped set goals along the way and broke down the enormous sum to smaller attainable amounts...
"The fundraising committee was made up of about six core members. We decided to meet every week for a business meeting then follow with a work session. The business meetings were times to discuss ideas, divide up tasks, and keep in touch. For the work sessions we'd invite more people and do things like fold brochures, prepare bulk mailings, and write thank you notes. We wanted to have a large-group meeting inviting more citywide supporters every six to eight weeks. We were able to do this about three times and it was helpful for us to feel the broader support, as well as to have fresh ideas and new contacts...
"With the help of the development committee we put together proposals for several foundations. A great breakthrough for us was a grant support of $25,000 from the Greater Cincinnati Foundation. This grant legitimized us with the more conservative Cincinnati Business Community. From there we were able to get a listing from the Chamber of Commerce giving us business addresses and pre-addressed labels. We sent out word about our grant and asked each business to contribute $100. Because we had been able to keep our project in the media, both through newspaper editorials and television coverage of events, the businesses began to adopt us as a 'community working to improve itself' and that increased their monetary support...
"During our fight to keep the school open we had met radio, television, and newspaper reporters. We renewed those contacts with the media during this campaign by inviting them to events and press conferences. For example, on Martin Luther King Day we were able to get into the building and held a 'Clean Up/Fundraising Kick-off,' where we invited neighborhood people to come straighten up and mop down the building and read Martin Luther King's 'I Have A Dream' speech...
"As our last two months closed in we had to meet and assess where we'd come and how far we had to go...At this meeting we decided to approach the School Board, present the details of all we had done toward earning our money, plus all the positive things we had done toward education aside from Peaslee (work in other neighborhood schools, support of the tax levy, development of the Education Task Force at our Community Council). We were able to tell them that we were confident that we would have $200,000 in cash by the deadline...Because of our community's hard work and broader community support we were successful in having the purchase price reduced to $200,000 plus the maintenance costs...
"On December 14, 1984 we were able to turn over $209,239.13 to the Cincinnati School Board and received the keys for Peaslee School."
Dream the impossible dream.

Free Veggies

M. parked the box truck on the sidewalk next to St. E's at one o'clock in the afternoon. S. drove up in her car moments later. I could see it all from my window--the produce boxes stacked five high or more in the back of the truck, S. chatting with curious local folk.
S. works for an outreach at a church in the Cincinnati suburbs. They'd gotten a huge donation of veggies, way more than they could distribute, so she'd offered to take it here to Norwood where she knew the need was also great. Plus, she knew she could recruit people to do drive-by veggie drop-offs to friends and strangers.
All told, she'd brought half a pallet of potatoes, cucumbers and yellow squash--enough to justify the use of a moving van.
I came down from my apartment in time to see most of the potatoes go. There had only been a few sacks of those--nothing like the boxes upon boxes of squash and cucumbers. Local Vineyard folk showed up on bike, in cars, on foot, to take what they could carry and share it round. S. called or texted others she knew who hadn't shown up just so they wouldn't miss out.
When cars would pass, she'd shout like a carnival barker: "FREE SQUASH AND CUCUMBERS!" Many cars slowed and parked in response, and many a box disappeared from the truck via this method. Other cars' windows were rolled up, the drivers protected by a/c from the scorcher of a Saturday. I amused myself wondering what they made of the scene--a woman yelling something unheard, surrounded on all sides by produce. S. got me to put a notice on the chalkboard outside of church: "FREE VEGGIES." That ought to have cleared up some confusion.
I brought out some grocery bags I had stockpiled so people wouldn't have to take a whole box if they couldn't use veggies in bulk. After a few folk had made use of this option, S. said to me, "We're running out of bags." I played Elijah and assured her, "The bags aren't going to run out." Sure enough, M., another Vineyard bud from down the street, soon offered to bring bags from her house's stockpile.
S. works with a Hispanic ministry; she was occasionally switching off yelling "FREE SQUASH AND CUCUMBERS!" to its Spanish equivalent. Doing this caught the attention of a fella who was headed to a church in Northern Kentucky, a Hispanic outreach one hundred members strong. We sent him on his way with eight boxes or so. "God provides!" S. told him cheerfully in Spanish.
We were never overwhelmed with a horde of people all at once, but folks came in a steady stream. We heard the word was spreading through the neighborhood--squash-and-cucumber recipients passing the news on to people on their front stoops. My friend D. and I went knocking on doors to see if a delivery might be welcome.
By three o'clock the box truck was empty, and S. was beaming.
At Mass the next day, when the priest came to Jesus' words, "Take this, all of you, and eat it," I heard S.'s voice ringing loud and clear, "FREE...!"

About Dentists, Among Other Things

Mr. And Mrs. Our Glorious Leader helped me get to and from work today, for which I am very grateful. It rained yesterday, the rain turned to ice overnight, and then about an inch of snow fell on top of that this morning. Yeah. Our Daily Bread closed up shop at about 1 pm yesterday. I went on traffic.com at 4:30 yesterday afternoon, which is when I'm usually heading home, to see what the conditions were like. "Road hazard: downed power lines blocking all lanes," it said for the route I would have taken.
Things I enjoyed about today:

--Being greeted with a cheerful "Happy Valentine's day!" as I walked in to work this morning
--The little noise of glee made by the Coffee Lady when she saw the amount of her paycheck--she had come in to work a special event we had on Saturday, so she got paid extra
--How pretty all the ice-encased trees looked

Now then--about those dentists. A preacherman came in the other day and we got talking about what he sees as the top issues for the homeless/poverty-stricken in our area. He says one of the biggest problems is dental care--our people can't afford to go to the dentist, and there are no programs in place that he knew of that could help.
We've got a podiatrist that comes in to help people with foot issues--this man is a real saint, he goes to places all over and does this for free. Maybe that's what it would take--some dentist to decide to make assisting the homeless part of his mission. So, if there are any dentists reading this--here's a chance to do something great. This isn't just a Cincinnati issue, this type of help is needed all over.
Someone sent us this article recently. The article includes this quote: “Feeding the homeless only encourages more homelessness." I'm not even gonna begin to tell you what I think about that, because anyone using foul language will be asked to leave.