So I was planning on starting a blog when I head off to Spain in September, but figured that this summer is very exciting and I want to share my experiences and not forget it all! I am new to this whole blog thing, though, so it may take a while for me to get used to it. This post will probably be just an overview of what this summer will be like and some of what has happened thus far, so bare with me on this long post.
Back in mid-May, I said sad goodbyes to my dear friends at Gettysburg College, knowing I may not see some of my closest friends until next January. It was a bitter sweet goodbye, knowing how much I have been blessed with to look forward to this summer and in the fall but at the same time knowing I will miss everyone!
It was a very quick but somehow somewhat relaxing less than 48 hours before I moved into my dorm at the University of Rochester, where I would be spending the next ten weeks in the Urban Fellows Program. To take the words of the program itself, the goal is: “To learn about the history, politics, demographics, and the sociology of urban systems and to gain an understanding of and appreciation for cross-cultural issues and urban life.” There are twenty of us in the program and each student has to be either a native of the Rochester area or a student at a Rochester area college. The majority of the students are from U of R (15) but 5 of us are from other schools, including SUNY Geneseo, St. John Fisher, Ithaca, Swarthmore and of course Gettysburg! Each of us have been assigned to work at a nonprofit organization or agency in the city, such as Habitat for Humanity or Foodlink. We will be working with our agencies Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Fridays. On Wednesdays, we have daylong seminars that address a specific urban issue, such as education or transportation. Each of these workshops also include an on-site visit, conversations with community leaders and group discussions about Rochester’s current issues.
We had a two day orientation that helped us get to know each other as a group that will be growing a lot together over the summer. Everyone comes from a unique position in life with different opinions to bring to discussion, making everything that much more interesting. I am really looking forward to a summer with such a fun, loving and passionate group of people!
Personally, I am working with NeighborWorks Rochester, which is a nonprofit organization that helps first-time homebuyers through education, loans and grants, which have no income limit. They also work to create sustainable and desirable neighborhoods through services such as lead paint inspections, home improvement loans and energy services programs.
I'll be working with their Healthy Blocks program, which seeks to strengthen, sustain and promote city neighborhoods by collaborating with people and partners. Through their services, they help residents in transitional neighborhoods make exterior home improvements, address quality of life issues, support business development and assist with neighborhood marketing and branding. They are really striving to make certain city neighborhoods a desirable place for people to live and improve the image for both the residents as a sense of pride but also to outsiders as a respectable place to live. Their main focus is on transitional mixed-income neighborhoods that are showing signs of decline but also show potential to be a great place to live. Since they are not entirely destroyed, these neighborhoods are often overlooked by the government and nonprofit programs. The Healthy Blocks program tries to prevent a future decline in the value and image of these neighborhood through various assistance programs such as grants to help improve curb appeal. Right now, they are working on two specific areas in Rochester, one in Brooks Landing and one in E. Main St and Atlantic Ave area, referred to as the “Pocket” within the North Winton Village area. They recently finished Swillburg in 2010, which was a very successful 5 year project, their intended time frame to spend in one neighborhood before they are capable of developing the neighborhood independent of NeighborWorks. They have seen their house market values increase by over 10%, while many other neighborhoods have not seen such dramatic changes in this economic recession.
Our topic for last Wednesday was urban education, which I found extremely interesting. Even though I grew up in a suburb school system and go to a small town college, education in general is something that really hits home to everyone because, at least for the students in the program at this point, it has consumed more than half of our lives. We visited the Rochester Early College International High School, which is just finishing up it's first year as a school that emphasizes that college is an expectation that everyone can reach. I think it is so important for this type of education and expectation to begin at an early age. We ate lunch with some high school students from Edison Tech who are in a special leadership program. It was beneficial for both of us to spend time together because we were interested in hearing about their experiences and expectations as students of the Rochester City School District. In exchange, we were able to tell them about being a college student and an Urban Fellow. It was interesting to hear their different opinions about college, most saying that they would like to go, but some also saying that it should be because you want to go and not because others want you to attend college. Their opinions may be a bit biased, though, since the high school students we were interacting with were part of a leadership group, so they were distinguished individuals who may be more inclined to seek higher education. Research and various data have supported that high school drop out rates are higher in the City of Rochester than in the surrounding suburbs. In 2007, 14% of students at East High School passed the NYS Physics Regents Exam, while in the same year, 92% of Pittsford Sutherland students passed the exact same test. Growing up in the Pittsford School District, I am troubled by these and other statistics. I feel determined to figure out why there are such dramatic discrepancies between the data. Yes, there are differences between the budgets for a city versus suburban school, but can that really account for differences in high school graduation rates or test scores? And if that really is the issue, should the city start to allocate more money towards education from its budget?
Yesterday our topic was transportation for our day-long workshop. There was a lot of interesting discussions, such as a potential high speed rail and its actual after effects. I feel like it won't really solve anything for this region because there isn't horrible congestion while traveling from Rochester to Buffalo or Syracuse, potential cities it would travel to. Also, once someone who gets to these cities, they will most likely need a car to get to their final destination within the city. I don't think the transportation systems of these cities is sufficiently built up to support that kind of travel. I think it'd be a hassle to try to navigate the city without easy access to a car or a better transportation system. As much as I think public transportation is awesome (and I wish I could use it more often), at times it has it's limits, especially in smaller cities such as Rochester. We can't exactly compare our system to that of NYC. It just isn't comparable.
Something interesting to think about that a speaker brought up to us yesterday is whether it is easier to change peoples' perceptions about transportation or actually change the whole system. Many people, specifically in Rochester, simply do not want to take the bus downtown because of a stigma placed on it. If we can get this and other perceptions changed, perhaps more people will realize how beneficial, easy and affordable the existing system is. I don't know if I was necessarily shocked, but it was almost disturbing to know that 2/3 of all car trips made within Monroe County are 5 miles or less. This is a short-enough distance that people should bike, walk or take public transportation a whole lot more than we currently do. To close off the day, we were able to go on a walking tour in the squelching heat of the afternoon to see different downtown transportation locations and plans for construction of important roads in the city.
Back to NeighborWorks, one of my major projects is to plan a pop-up art gallery in a vacant storefront along Genesee Street in Brooks Landing, one of our Healthy Blocks. All throughout Rochester, there are monthly art galleries in various locations in the city on the first Friday of every month (called First Friday). I will need to recruit local and student artists who want to display their artwork in a temporary art gallery that I will be setting up for one night. I'm really excited about this project and I think it'll be really great to see it come together, assuming I can be in touch with a willing landlord and excited artists. We'll be promoting the neighborhood, as well as our organization, and hopefully we'll be gathering feedback from the guests as to what they'd like to see come into the storefront in addition to general comments about the neighborhood. I started scoping out potential storefronts today, but it's hard to picture such a sophisticated art gallery in some of these abandoned places that don't appear to be very welcoming. Nonetheless, I'm certain it'll all work out and be somewhat a success!
I'll try to be better about posting more frequently and keeping this updated, as I'm sure there will be lots more exciting things happening!
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