Bread for the City

>http://www.flickr.com/apps/slideshow/show.swf?v=71649

Between our blog’s launch and our birthday, Bread for the City saw a number of major institutional changes which were covered on our blog. The biggest, of course, was our recent decision to temporarily move off of Fridays, have staff take a 10% pay cut, and managers take a 12% pay cut. Those changes went through this past April 1st.

But let’s not forget the other monumental steps we’ve taken. Last year, Bread for the City started partnering with Claggett Farm to provide nutritious, fresh produce to the many people who come through our two food pantries. That partnership was so successful that it grew into a massive nutrition commitment on the part of our food staff. Starting September 1st, we vowed that we would provide fresh produce in every bag that went out our door. Working with a number of sources, we continue that commitment. Even more exciting, we’re currently ramping up to start sending volunteers out to local farms to bring back whole tons of fresh produce. Also in the mix, a group of donors combined their efforts in March to buy us eggs every month that we distribute through both our pantries.

Maybe you’ve also heard of our upcoming expansion! Due to a generous grant from the DCPCA and the DC Government, Bread for the City is going to be doubling the size of our medical clinic!! Our groundbreaking was on March 25th, and we had a pretty great turnout.

Our Holiday Helpings program, through which we distributed a complete Thanksgiving meal to 12,214 families in need (our goal was 10,000, so we beat it by 20%!), was our most successful to date.

We also spoke with a number of our patrons, asking their opinions on certain issues, archiving their recollections of days past, and providing an insight into why we care so much about healthcare, teaching good nutrition, and a comprehensive approach to poverty issues.

Partner organizations helped us raise over $20,000 through the Help the Homeless Walk this past year–you can see some of those partners walking with us in our slideshow.

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Beyond Bread is 1 year old!!

I can hardly believe it! Our little blog is one year old tomorrow! It’s strange to think how much we’ve grown over the course of a year, and how much news we’ve covered.

And yet, as I reflect on all the work we’ve put into Beyond Bread so far, I have to admit that there is much more to do. With all of our programs serving more people, the anticipation of DC’s budget cuts for critical programs like Local Rent Supplement and Housing First, and the economy still in urgent need of repair, there will be much more expected of us in our sophomore year—and much more we will expect of ourselves.

Thank you to the many readers, subscribers, and guest contributors who have helped us get to where we are today; especially to the army of volunteers who helped me learn HTML in a week, and the other army that met with me a year ago almost to the day to give me advice on how to structure content. We are truly a volunteer and reader supported endeavor, so this is your blog’s birthday as much as it is ours. Please continue to send us your thoughts, suggestions, and impressions of how we can improve our blog. In the meantime, for the next couple of days, we’ll be running a retrospective of some of the many stories we’ve covered over the span of the year.

We’re at 367 posts and counting—thanks for reading!

>Some good news on the legal services front!

Yesterday, the DC Council Judiciary Committee voted unanimously to maintain funding for civil legal services for low income DC residents.

Under the approved budget, more than $3.5 million will be allocated for civil legal services (including loan repayment for eligible lawyers). This is essentially the same amount of funding that was allocated to legal services for the poor in the FY 2009 budget. Considering the fact that this funding stream is just barely older than the economic downturn, and given the scale of DC’s current budget crisis, it is no small beans to see the funding maintained.

The need for civil legal services in low income communities has always been vast – 97% of defendants in landlord/tenant cases lack representation. With the foreclosure crisis and economic turmoil, that need is only intensifying. The Judiciary Committee clearly recognizes how vital these services are to our community: its vote is in support of programs like the Court Based Legal Services Program—in which Bread for the City, the Legal Aid Society, and the Neighborhood Legal Services Program place lawyers on site in court to meet with tenants on the critical first day of litigation—and like Project HELP, the subject of this great recent WaPo feature.

And yet, this victory is not yet certain: the recommended budget must be approved by City Council. (The full Council will consider the budget on May 12th.) You can help by express your thanks to Chair of the Committee, Phil Mendelson, and the other Committee members: Mary Cheh, Jack Evans, Murial Bowser, and Yvette Alexander. In fact, take any opportunity to tell any Councilmember how important it is to fund civil legal services, now even moreso than ever before.

In the meantime, many thanks to Sunil Mansukhani, Executive Director of the DC Access to Justice Commission, for his great work on this issue, along with Bread for the City Attorney Su Sie Ju, who also sits on the Commission. (See our previous coverage of the Access to Justice Commission here.)

In other news, we’re excited for Patty Mullahy Fugere, Executive Director of Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, for winning the DC Bar’s 2009 Brennan Award. Congratulations, Patty!

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>It’s about time! We’ve just bought a shiny, burly new van for our food pantry. (Pictured here with shiny, burly Food Program Director Ted Pringle.)

Bread for the City’s previous van was more than eight years old, and in the process of carrying tens of thousands of pounds of food a month across the District, it was breaking down several times a year. We certainly wouldn’t have been able to use it for our new gleaning initiative slated for this summer.

But finally, we’ve been able to raise enough money to purchase a new one — this one larger than the last, and perfect for bringing the large amounts of free fresh produce that we’ll be pulling out of the region’s farms soon enough.

In the meantime, we’re still raising money for a new truck! Seriously: this thing–though rich in character–has a broken rear door, a faulty gas gauge, a leaking radiator, and no air conditioning. Summer is basically here; our drivers are anxious. You can help us help thousands of people by giving to the truck fund.

And while we wait for a new truck, there’s time for us to induct the van into our family. We are henceforth accepting submissions for a name for this van. Have any ideas? Email us or leave a suggestion in the comments.

PS: Many thanks to our donors who helped us seal the deal on this new van, including Rachel Levinson and Ariel Waldman, Vaughn and Marion Simmons, the Rotary Foundation, the Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation, and Counterpart International, and many others. Thanks to you, we are motorin‘!

PPS: Ted tells us that the new van came along with cargo containers that we don’t actually have a use for them. Do you, or someone you know? Take a look below, and make us an offer. They could be yours…

>~USA Today is reporting that community health clinics that accept patients regardless of whether they have insurance are under great strain as unemployment rises. Since health insurance is tied to employers in this country, being laid off means more than losing just a paycheck. I would argue that, especially in DC, the health safety net was under strain for years before the economy fell off a cliff. Bread for the City has been operating at capacity for a number of years (in fact, the lack of healthcare in our community is the reason we’re expanding our center in Shaw). Still, our medical clinic has since its inception accepted patients regardless of whether they have health insurance, and I’m glad community clinics are getting into the public eye more.

~The DC Fiscal Policy Institute’s blog had a nice follow-up to the stories we’ve been running about the Bag Bill. Though DCFPI has not formally endorsed the bill, they do point out that in Seattle (where a similar bill was passed) 88% of respondents with incomes under $25,000 told pollsters they were willing to pay a little extra for bags. Hopefully some person or group will field a similar poll in DC and dismiss the misconception that low-income residents care less about cleaning up their community than their more affluent neighbors.

~President Obama signed the much-lauded Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act this week, expanding a number of AmeriCorps programs. Though your correspondent is more concerned about what was left out of this bill than what is in it, the act certainly comes at the right time. Recent college graduates are going to have a hard time finding work in non-profits right now, and AmeriCorps is a good way to get experience while providing a very necessary support to direct-service organizations.

~I’m happy to congratulate the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless, a non-profit organization we work very closely with, on the fundraising equivalent of sinking a half-court shot. In only six weeks, a group of attorneys halved the organization’s deficit by soliciting donations from 330 attorneys in DC.

~Philanthropy Journal reports that newspaper foundations are putting a halt to their charitable giving.

>This week (our 5th installment of Helping Other People Help People, but who’s counting?) I’m pleased to introduce awesome community clinic Columbia Road Health Services. As with our Fit for Fun classes, Columbia Road Health Services believes that exercise and healthy living don’t have to be boring and tedious.

After a year of project development, CRHS Mental Health Counselor Debra Vekstein is now working with the first pilot group of Hermanas en Salud (Sisters in Health), through which clinic patients manage their stress, relax, and eat healthy food together.

Debra tells us that the program is “to get people to start thinking about making broader changes in their lifestyle, which are beneficial to both their physical and mental well-being.”

How can you help? Debra is seeking 12-15 yoga mats and pedometers for their bilingual yoga and exercise program. If you would like to donate, please contact Debra at debra.vekstein@crhs.org.

Special thanks to CRHS Development Assistant Colleen Hughes for the information- we are excited to help!

>Seeking a Development and Communications Intern

Description: As an intern at Bread for the City, the successful candidate will help give shape to an innovative communications platform through which we will tell critical stories about the dynamics of poverty, social service, and Washington DC.

This is a great opportunity to learn about non-profit communications, new media, social justice advocacy, and a wide range of urban policy matters. We can assist with coordination of academic credit for students.

Responsibilities:

• Daily analysis of major and local newspapers, blogs, and select magazines.
• Work with BFC staff and volunteers to identify clients and community members with compelling stories to tell. Conduct interviews of BFC staff, clients and community members in an atmosphere of dignity and respect. Transcribe interviews and compose for publication.
• Write posts for Bread for the City’s “Beyond Bread” blog. Outreach to local blogs.
• Engage with nascent Bread for the City network on Facebook.
• Twitter, even.
• Other tasks as assigned by development staff.

Requirements: Strong interpersonal skills and an ability to communicate and work with a wide variety of people. Working knowledge of media, both mainstream and online. Helpful but not required: experience with photography and/or journalism, HTML-literacy, proficiency in Spanish, and an ear for stories. Willingness to take direction and also to work independently; confidence, flexibility, and, above all, a commitment to social justice.

Interested people should contact Greg Bloom at gbloom [AT] breadforthecity [dot] org with a cover letter, writing samples, and links to and comments about a couple of Beyond Bread posts that you really like.

>The news roundup is back after a slight absence. Top of the list for this week, even though the report is a couple of weeks old by now, is the national March unemployment report, which puts the national unemployment rate at 8.5%. Although that’s up 3.4% in the last twelve months, this is the kicker sentence in the report’s summary: “Half of the increase in both the number of unemployed and the unemployment rate occurred in the last 4 months.” Half. There may be isolated bright spots in the national economic picture, but overall, it looks like we’re continuing to see the effects of earlier financial and housing collapses rippling through various sectors. Hawai’i can’t build planned homeless shelters, and Minnesota’s plans to end long-term homelessness are also threatened by budget cuts. Although the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development continues to award grants, it remains unclear whether these grants will be sufficient to replace the funds that localities and regions have lost in the current economic climate.

>Saturday was a fun day at Bread for the City. Volunteers–many of whom are members of our monthly giving program, “The Bread and Butter Club“–came to help out in our food pantry.