Hello Lorain, It's Me Again (!)

Don't worry, this blog is on my list of New Year's resolutions. Now for a short PSA:

I know it might be against company policy to socially network during office hours but I think this might be an exception: Facebook for a cause. 

As part of Walmart's $2 billion commitment to fight against hunger the chain has initiated a Facebook campaign inviting the 100 metropolitan areas with the highest rates of food hardship to compete for $1.5 million.  Each metro area has a community page. The community page with the most support will win and the next five highest pages will each be awarded $100,000. 

So... with just two clicks  (Click this link, Click "like")  you can support the Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor community page and support the local fight against hunger. Your minimal effort can have a big impact. Two clicks. 

Support the Cleveland-Elyria-Mentor community page!

Voices of hunger after the jump.

Potholes and Seagulls 2.0

I can't believe it has been a month since my last post. Fine. It's been over a month. It's really no wonder I only have four followers- even my uncle has stopped checking for updates. Well I'm still here, dear reader and I am still trying! In order to start fresh let's look at the posts I thought about writing in the past month but never did:  

•  The Tea Party Puppeteers: my reaction to this article featured in a recent New Yorker
• A Sesame Street Spoof
• My Birthday: only four more years until I will start feeling bad for relating to this
• When Minor Celebrities Write Books, Somewhere a  Librarian Cries
• Halloween 2010: Is Lorain Too Dangerous for Trick-or-Treating After Dark?
• Get out the Vote! (Glad I didn't waste my time on that one...)

Reading List

                              

I'm a Seed Wondering Why it Grows

I don't have any answers. For anything, really. And I think that is a good thing. People want answers because answers are swift, simple and let you off the hook for any further critical thought; if a problem's solved you don't have to think about the problem anymore. "And so it goes. " 


Lorain City School District has many problems including, but not limited to: a student poverty rate exceeding 80%; ill prepared kindergartners; overstocked classrooms with overworked teachers; no field trip opportunities for students; a projected budget deficit the size of an exorbitant Wall-Street salary;  a collective body of parents whose lack of involvement has caused PTOs to disappear throughout the district; students with poor nutrition/a lack of fresh foods; a lack of male teachers and mentors; a school board that inspires no confidence; an administration that has no confidence to inspire; and an unimproved state assessment status. These are the things that people tend to focus on when they think they've got the answers and the answers tend to be things like "Give up! Nothing's ever going to change!" or "We have to get back to the nuclear family!" both of which are not very helpful and are not very answer-like.  


The thing is there are lots of good things happening here too. Teachers still care; kids are still engaged; preschoolers are going to learn on I-pods; and community members are finally rallying to confront the multifaceted problems that face our city and our district. 

Two unrelated organizations are spearheading education issues this fall: Citizens for Lorain City Schools is a group that is organizing behind Issue #8- a levy for Lorain City Schools- and the Community Action Agency's Coalition for Excellence in Education (CEE) is bringing together a whole host of community agencies, parents, teachers and activists in order to establish a community wide education reform initiative. CEE came up with a questionnaire to gauge opinions about the state of education in Lorain- I've embedded it below. Please take the time to answer the questions and send the form back to me (s.flores84@gmail.com), I will forward it along to LCCAA. 


LCS Questionnaire

Reading List

Back in the Saddle Again

Hello readers (all six of you) I wish I could say that my close to month long hiatus was due to a vacation in South Dakota spent looking at clouds and grooming prairie dogs but.... I was here the whole time. I thought I posted last week. Apparently last week was three weeks ago.  Oh well. Stay tuned for my Summer 2010 wrap up as well as unsolicited opinions on the always engaging local political scene. 

Motivation Mondays (Tuesday Edition)

Along with the KFC Double Down the daily American diet consists of roughly 34 gigabytes of information. And that number is from a 2009 NYTimes story so let's just assume the figure is a little higher by now. Now I don't know about you, but my Google Reader hits 1000+ about an hour after I mark-all-as-read (thanks, BBC news feed) and between NPR on the ride home and a chapter of Twilight before bed my mind is buzzing and I end up dreaming about a Cullen-Totenberg rendezvous in northern Afghanistan. Well something like that. 

My point is: there's a lot of sh*t out there and sometimes it drives me crazy. Because a lot of times the shit is good. And my ability to retain information is not so good. So I recommend: a post-it/scrap paper wall of inspiration (mine is pictured at the left).  I don't have the time to memorize my favorite passages of essays, novels or Facebook memos so I tack them to my wall. I can muster up some minutes to glance at the quotes and slowly I begin to incorporate them into my long-term memory. It helps. Some quotes below.

•  "The writer is always tricking the reader into listening to their dream." - Didion
• "The big question is whether you are going to be able to say a hearty 'yes' to your adventure."- J. Campbell
•  "Give me enough time in this place and I will surely make a beautiful thing."- Dillard
• "At some point in life the world's beauty becomes enough. You don't need to photograph or paint or even remember it. It is enough." - Morrison 
• "Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies — God damn it, you've got to be kind." - Vonnegut

Volunteer (!): Produce Distributions

Your local food bank- for folks in Lorain, Crawford, Erie and Huron counties that would be the Second Harvest Food Bank of North Central Ohio - is right in the middle of produce distribution season. Our food bank's Farmers Market program is up and running and generally lasts from mid-summer through early fall. These events are direct on-site distributions of locally grown produce and are set up in parking lots, gymnasiums, grassy plains- anywhere we can fit thousands of pounds of produce to give away for free (read an article about a recent Farmers Market here). Second Harvest has almost thirty markets scheduled for this season- twice as many as they held last year. The fruits and vegetables vary from market to market but include things like cucumbers, corn, turnips, green peppers, celery, cabbage, radishes, lettuces, various squash, onions, peaches, apples, leeks, cilantro, parsley and tomatoes.

Washington Ave. Market (photo by Stefanie Flores)

Standing out in the sun handing out dirty turnips (dirty as in dirt as in fresh from the field (amazing), not dirty as in naughty (although I might like to contemplate what a naughty turnip would mean)) might not sound like a way you'd like to spend your afternoon, but i can assure you this is one of the best volunteer gigs I've had. Talking to people in line and hearing their stories always reminds me of how much all of us have in common.  Plus, if you are income qualified- and I am- you can go home with a brand new spaghetti squash or radish package.  Interested? Comment below or send me a message and I'll send you a schedule. 

For more information about your local food bank see Second Harvest's Summer 2010 newsletter below.  

Summer Newsletter 2010  

Motivation Mondays (Wednesday Edition)

Have you ever found yourself endlessly clicking through television channels looking for something of substance, a decent program that might actually make your time on the couch worthwhile? No. Well for that rare non-shark-week occasion when the choice is between watching that episode of Everybody Loves Raymond for the fifth time or watching some guy chow down on a Big Unit, turn off the television and turn to TED. I've spent a rather large amount of time trolling the internet for videos of presentations or speeches from my favorite authors and thinkers and no site fits this profile better than TED.com.  TED is a nonprofit dedicated to the spread of ideas. There are hundreds of videos- free to watch and free to disseminate- ranging in topics from the neurobiology of  choice to magic tricks and superheros to headphones that are controlled by brainwaves. The videos are broken down into categories like most jaw-dropping, most inspiring and funniest; some of them are less than 10 minutes but all of them are guaranteed to make you feel a little more engaged with the world, a little more connected to possibility and perhaps even a little inspired. 

"We believe passionately in the power of ideas to change attitudes, lives and ultimately, the world. So we're building here a clearinghouse that offers free knowledge and inspiration from the world's most inspired thinkers, and also a community of curious souls to engage with ideas and each other."

 

Motivation Mondays

I generally need a pick-me-up on Mondays and find that great stories work even better than strong coffee. The inaugural edition of Motivation Mondays is all about Clinton County, Ohio. Clinton County lost thousands of jobs when the DHL hub in Wilmington closed its doors in 2008 but since then they have used creative means to empower their citizens and push the entire county in a new direction. They now have an impressive, organized network of community gardens and farmer's markets and are leaders in the state for renewable energy, establishing the first Green Enterprise Zone in the country. See the videos below and follow the links to read more about these citizen led programs in Clinton County.

• Energize Clinton County
• Grow Food, Grow Hope
• Wilmington Ohio Benefit Bank

Gen Y Infused Politics

If you are looking for imagination, creativity and vitality in your politics look no further than Virgina's 1st district and the Krystal Ball campaign. At 28 Krystal would be the youngest person in Congress but is the oldest person on her campaign staff which has an age range from 19 to 28. She has raised an impressive amount of capital for an unorthodox campaign fronted by a first time candidate. Her choice to completely surround herself with young people is a risky strategy- one that I find refreshing and one that produces political gems like the video below.



Where are Lorain's young candidates? I would like to see a qualified 20-something mayoral candidate in the near future...

The Spread

Residents of Lorain know that a Wal-Mart Supercenter is slated to open in the Lighthouse Village later this year; there will be benefits to this but there will also be consequences for the community.  More on this in my next post.
 

Reading List

Micro Loan; Macro Impact

I became aware of the concept of microcredit when Grameen Bank won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2006 for its decades long work in Bangladesh helping the rural poor gain access to funds that would allow them to begin to rise above poverty. In essence microcredit consists of very small (micro) loans issued to impoverished people all around the globe for small entrepreneurial ventures. Since 2006 microcredit has expanded into microfinancing- a movement to ensure that all people, especially the very poor, have access to quality financial services such as credit, savings and insurance.

So why does this excite me and why should you care? Microcredit is exciting because it allows average citizens of average means to put their values in line with their purchasing power and make a big difference. For as little as $25 you can join an online philanthropic community and help, for example, a woman in Malaysia expand her clothing shop. So when you are feeling like you can't make a difference, think again:

I just loaned out my $25 Kiva fund to a woman in Lebanon who wants to expand her craft business. This is the third time I have loaned that $25- it's not much but it has helped a woman in Nigeria buy more sweet potatoes and a group of farmers in Peru acquire animals to sell. You can even make money through micro lending. Maybe its time to start thinking which purchases are really necessary and how small decisions, small actions really can make a difference. 

Adding to the Noise

Hello blogosphere, we meet again. The last time we talked I was determined to keep in contact, to write daily posts and to build up a vast following of dedicated readers who would comment on my insightful posts and send me tweets and/or treats.  Blogging? Easy!  Everyone does it! People’s grandmothers are doing it!  It only took about a month or so for my attempt to look like this:

 

Not exactly a Webby winner.  But. Here I am with another attempt: Potholes and Seagulls is me adding my bit of noise to the cacophony and I am good at making noise. I currently live and work in Lorain, Ohio- a city that also happens to be hometown- so many of my posts will be centered on local matters (or how I see local matters).  I plan to have videos, book reviews and bi-weekly standards: spotlights of volunteer opportunities and social service agencies as well as Story Corps inspired interviews with local residents. I believe that everyone has a story to tell and every story helps to explain the world. 

I don’t plan on my grammar being perfect 100% of the time; watch out for misspellings.  I don’t expect readers to agree with me 100% of the time, but I am hopeful for constant dialogue between myself and others.  So comment (or e-mail, tweet, facebook, send me a letter)!  Send me ideas for stories, profiles or guest posts.  Or: just navigate to this blog once a day so I can feel good when I read my Google Analytics report.

L’Chaim!