DC’s Salvadoran community aiding flood victims (Washington Post Local): “Salvadoran, Guatemalan, and Honduran communities in the Washington area have been collecting cash, new clothes and medicine to help flooding victims in Central America. Ten days of heavy rains this month destroyed crops and towns. According to the Associated Press, 105 people were killed in the deluge, which topped 60 inches. [Comunidades Transnacionales Salvadorenas Americanas] is partnering with the nonprofit CARECEN and other Hispanic organizations to raise money for the victims of the flooding.” Let us know if you’re involved!
7 Questions – Buzz Mauro & Deb Gottesman (Theatre Lab)
Today, we are welcoming not one … but two non-profit leaders to “7 Questions.” Buzz Mauro and Deb Gottesman are co-directors of The Theatre Lab School of the Dramatic Arts, which serves hundreds of youth and adults through its Life Stories program, and hundreds more through classes and summer camps in acting, directing, playwriting, and musical theatre .
1. What was your most interesting recent project, initiative, partnership, or event?
We are about to embark on a project that is one of our “big dreams:” a theatre and documentary film project by and about the participants in our Life Stories program for homeless women residing in N Street Village’s Recovery Housing Unit. Life Stories is our signature outreach program which trains people from typically marginalized populations to create original dramatic works based on their real-life experiences. We work with incarcerated and severely at-risk youth, seniors, critically ill children and their families, as well as with formerly homeless women. And we now feel that it’s time to share the work of the women from N Street on a larger stage. The monologues, scenes, poetry, and more that these women have created are so powerful and so well-acted that we want to make sure their voices are heard — not only by social justice activists, but also by people who love great theatre.
Catalogue First: Journalism
We always like to celebrate a “first ever” for Catalogue!
From the American Journalism Review (October 21, 2011):
Investigative reporting remains a major part of the mission for the mainstream media. But financial pressures have drastically reduced the watchdog capacity at many news organizations.
Nonprofit investigative outlets like ProPublica have jumped in to help plug the gap. But there’s still plenty of accountability reporting to be done.
Around Town: October 22-23
Good morning, Washington! Plenty for you to do this weekend at our non-profits …
Volunteer Fest @ Volunteer Fairfax (10530 Page Ave, Fairfax, VA)
A region-wide day of community service held in conjunction with National Make a Difference Day, Volunteer Fest mobilizes hundreds of volunteers to help nonprofits accomplish tasks that they would not have the time or resources to do on their own. Check it out on Saturday at from 9:00-4:00.
Fall Frenzy @ DC SCORES! (at Kelly Miller Middle School, 301 49th Street NE)
Do swing by for this celebration of the DC SCORES fall season filled with soccer games, relays and arts and crafts, and other activities on Saturday from 10:00-2:00.
Collaborating with Shakespeare
From “Shakespeare gives the latest strategy in anti-bullying in schools” in The Denver Post:
Shakespeare is the latest strategy in combating bullying in America’s schools, but the idea was not an immediate hit. “When we first told people, they said, ‘What? That’s weird. How do those two things go together?’” said Jane Grady, assistant director for the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence at the University of Colorado.
But after a month of performances of “Twelfth Night” in 25 schools across Colorado, which were followed by workshops in which kids talked about the character Malvolio and other bullies in the play, the results surprised the experts. [...]
In The News …
DC Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy (WUSA9: Brightwood): “Councilmember Mary M. Cheh and colleagues the DC Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy on the steps of the John A. Wilson Building for a press conference to highlight the continuing challenges the District of Columbia faces with teen pregnancy and its effect on the economic well being of our residents and the city at large. [...] Due to the work of groups like the DC Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, the District of Columbia has recently seen a reduction in the rates of pregnancies for teenage women aged 15-19 years old; however, rates in the District far exceed the national average.” In DC, the rate is 67 out of every 1,000.
Michael on Being Down for Da Struggle (People’s District): Michael, a poet, vividly desribes how Catalogue non-profit Free Minds Book Club & Writing workshop made a critical difference in his life. He recounts, “I eventually started getting into trouble with the law. Which also lead to me going to prison more times than anyone would ever want to. really helped me become more diverse and more open minded. I started to do a lot of reading; also, I became very intrigued by poetry [...] Every Friday, I would get up early to prepare to go to the book club because it was a way to free my mind. Free Minds Book Club gave me a positive outlet to express myself and has opened several doors for opportunity and success.”
Reading Early
From “More than 100 cities, counties agree to push early literacy” in yesterday’s Post:
Washington DC, Baltimore, and six communities in Virginia are among the more than 150 cities and counties across the country that are pledging to concentrate on early literacy efforts to ensure that children can read by the end of third grade.
The Campaign for Grade Level Reading is a collaborative effort by dozens of funders to make sure that all children, especially those from low-income families who often enter kindergarten already behind, learn to read. Signing onto the campaign are big cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston and Atlanta, and the entire state of Arizona. [...]
Mutuality
My conception of the audience is of a public each member of which is carrying about with him what he thinks is an anxiety, or a hope, or a preoccupation which is his alone and isolates him from mankind; and in this respect at least the function of a play is to reveal him to himself so that he may touch others by virtue of the revelation of his mutuality with them. If only for this reason I regard the theater as a serious business, one that makes or should make man more human, which is to say, less alone.
– American playwright Arthur Miller, born today in 1915
Around Town: October 15-16
Happy mid-October! We have plenty of cool places to spend your weekend, including …
Multicultural Career Intern Program (Columbia Heights Education Campus, 3101 16th Street NW)
Between 10:00 AM and 3:00 PM on Saturday, head over to MCIP’s 3rd Annual Booksale in support of the middle school and high school libraries at the CHEC — thousands of books in all genres at very reasonable prices.
Earth Sangha (at Occoquan Bay National Wildlife Refuge, 13950 Dawson Beach Road, Woodbridge, VA)
Help out with invasive plant removal, clearing invasive vines and grasses from Earth Sangha’s grassland site, from 10:00 AM to 2:00 PM on Saturday. Directions right here.
Moving Outward
From “The Suburbanization of Housing Choice Voucher Recipients,” published by The Brookings Institution on October 11, 2011:
Just as the suburbanization of poverty has gathered momentum, Americans who use housing choice vouchers (HCV) to help pay for their housing have increasingly moved into suburban areas as well.