An Open Book Foundation: Learning is Like Planting Seeds

“I never knew birdwatching could be so fun,” a student, and now citizen scientist, at Cleveland Elementary School exclaimed while on a nature walk around the school.

Earlier this May, students were visited by Lenora Todaro, sidewalk naturalist and author of Sea Lions in the Parking Lot: Animals on the Move in the Time of Pandemic, a children’s book containing twelve real-life stories of creatures around the globe who reclaimed their habitat during the COVID-19 quarantine. Over the course of three days, students brought the urban wildlife lessons from the book to life with discussions of the habitats they found around DC and how to make these more welcoming for birds. They also build seed bombs together – clay balls filled with dirt and seeds that can be tossed anywhere for wildflowers to grow.

In a previous residency, students worked alongside author-scientist Heather Montgomery to build model bridges that would conserve wildlife by helping them across busy expressways.

These hands-on activities are intentionally coordinated by the team at An Open Book Foundation, a children’s literacy nonprofit that just launched a new STEM residency program to connect different writers, scientists, and researchers with classrooms across the Greater Washington area. “Science tells us that the probability of learning something is (higher) when we’re actually doing it,” says Josarie Molina, their Education Director. “(That’s why) we’re creating opportunities that are concrete and experiential, and those are the ones that’ll most likely stick.”

As someone who’s melding her previous experience as an art teacher, school librarian, museum educator, and more in this role, Josarie knows how to create and iterate spaces that are collaborative, experimental, and, most importantly, joyous. “Stress is not conducive to learning or teaching. So, what An Open Book does is the total opposite. We’re creating spaces (where students are comfortable and happy), so they can just enjoy knowing each other, the books, and learning. I think that is certainly paying off.”

Inspired by another program they started during the pandemic that brought artists and illustrators into classrooms, these STEM residencies allow An Open Book (AOB) to excite students who are already interested in nonfiction and figuring out how things work while providing teachers with one more way to align with school curricula.

Prior to each residence, teachers and authors are invited to engage with each other so that teachers can share what their students are interested in, what the classroom culture is like, and what students have been studying recently, while authors can inform teachers of how to prepare for the residency environment. This ensures that authors can really connect with students and share their experiences from a genuine place.

The AOB team then assembles all the materials students will need into packages that they deliver to students at school. From the book students will read to pens and pencils to items like binoculars for the nature walk, no item is too small for these packages, which also come with a short letter telling students – in both English and Spanish – that these materials are now theirs to keep and use during the residence and beyond.

“This is another aspect that’s really important for the residence,” Josarie states. “There’s a vision and hope that students will pick up a practice that they can continue working on. With the (urban wildlife) residence, hopefully the students will continue using their binoculars and paying attention to all the city wildlife, looking at birds in different ways, and talking to other people about it.”

86% of students who participated in the STEM residence program said they’d like to learn more about science – a strong indicator that AOB’s experiential model makes an impact. In addition to giving students pre- and post-program surveys, the AOB team also collects quantitative and anecdotal feedback from the teachers and authors they work with to continually refine and improve their programming.

Most recently, students at Houston Elementary School connected with Tony Hillery, Founder and Executive Director of Harlem Grown, a nonprofit that inspires youth through urban farming, and the author of a book by the same name that tells the true story of students from an underfunded school who turned a vacant lot into a functional farm. The AOB residence ended with students planting their own seeds that they can return to, and watch grow.

“I like to think these students will carry this as a positive experience throughout their lives,” Josarie shares. “We’re metaphorically and physically planting a seed. In my mind, that’s how I see the residence – it’s like planting something that will continue.”

You can support An Open Book Foundation by donating, visiting their website, and staying updated on their work through email, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Tenants and Workers United: To Organize a Community is to Walk Behind the People

“If your voice is very thin when you go to that management office, how about 30 thin voices altogether? They sound much stronger when we do that.”

Paintings of the community courtesy of Elsa Riveros.

What does it mean to organize a community? For Elsa Riveros, a Community Organizer with Tenants and Workers United (TWU), the day-to-day looks like door-knocking and running meetings but underlying all of that is empowering community members to tell their stories.

“Asking a person to speak and say something (sounds) so simple, but how far from the truth is that?” Elsa asks. “When you’re eating with your children and you see mice and roaches running up and down your apartment, it has a lot to do with your self-esteem. We have been on our knees, and when you’re on your knees, everybody’s much taller and bigger and stronger than you. So, just stand up and say, “I am demanding this because the law protects me.” And it’s beautiful to see that’s collectively what we’re doing.”

Formerly a professional singer in Colombia, Elsa joined TWU after finishing her studies in political science to organize the largely Latino community in Arlandria – affectionately dubbed Chirilagua by its residents – around the Living Wage campaign. After four years of intense work, their efforts helped to create a living wage law in Alexandria that resulted in the total wage increase of $450,000 for the lowest-paid municipal and outsourced workers in the city.

“It was a beautiful campaign – marches on the street with hundreds of people,” Elsa shares. “One of them told me they can now quit one of their jobs and go home to help their children with homework instead of taking another job. See what you can do when you have a campaign and you’re organized? It’s just unbelievable.”

In addition to organizing for workers’ rights, immigrants’ rights, and police-free schools, one of TWU’s large issue campaigns centers on affordable housing. Even before Amazon announced its new Northern Virginia headquarters more than three years ago, rising rent prices had already been steadily displacing low-income residents. Amazon’s arrival only exacerbates the region’s decades-long affordable housing crisis. To address some of these fears, Amazon created a $2 billion Housing Equity Fund but, as Teo Armus reported in the Washington Post, only 215 units of more than 4,100 units they’ve funded so far will be set aside for residents making 50% or less of the Area Median Income (AMI).

A 2019 TWU survey conducted in the neighborhood revealed that 95% of residents earn less than 40% of the AMI. “Amazon’s investing in housing development here,” Mia Taylor, Development Lead at TWU, states. “But not for the communities we work with, who have lived in Chirilagua for decades. We are facing the threat of mass displacement.” Furthermore, 48% of the households they surveyed are paying 50% or more of their yearly income in rent. These are residents who, on average, have been in the neighborhood for more than 12 years.

“For people who have a lot of money,” Elsa chimes in, “you never see them on the street saying, “We want a golf club, we want a tennis court, we want a pool.” When they say they need to have it, they’re going to have it and it’s okay. But why would you come to a neighborhood to make it more beautiful and then say that we don’t deserve to live here because we ruin the neighborhood? Now,?we have to shout, “We want to continue living here, we want to stay, we deserve to be here.””

TWU first organized in the mid-1980s to stave off scheduled mass evictions of thousands of low-income renters in the neighborhood, and their desire to stay and fight to improve their community has led them through multiple victories. At the heart of their work is building relationships. From tenants rights education to leadership development, TWU helps residents feel prepared to speak in public, run meetings, and tell their stories authentically.

“(Residents) would tell you, “I’ll never talk in front of people. I can never do it.” And I say, “Yes, you can,”” Elsa recounts. “I give them a mic and they give a speech any president around the world would love to give because it’s honest and sincere and beautiful.”

Together, this rising tide of voices has won the community more than $100 million in living wage jobs, health care, public education resources, and more. They have founded a democratically owned and operated housing cooperative, the only home ownership opportunity available for low-income people in Northern Virginia. They have eliminated over $1 million in medical debt for low-income residents, and they have launched a worker-owned and -operated business with more than 230 cab drivers.

“TWU is so loud despite how small we are,” Elsa says. “You’ve got a main campaign, but you have all these individuals making things happen. They lead the campaign. You’re just walking behind them. And these individuals all have stories.”

You can support TWU’s work by making a donation or volunteering your time. Stay informed about their ongoing fights for social justice by subscribing to their email list or following them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

Caring Unites Us
Greater DC Diaper Bank

Greater DC Diaper Bank was founded by a caregiver, for other caregivers.

In 2009, Corinne Cannon had her first child – and was struck by how difficult it was, even with all the support in the world. What if she didn’t have the resources that allowed her to provide the basic necessities for her child? Thus, the Diaper Bank was born.

1 in 3 Americans face diaper need – the inability to provide an adequate supply of clean diapers to their child(ren). For infants, that averages between 8-10 diapers a day.

Greater DC Diaper Bank (GDCDB) addresses diaper need and supports vulnerable families in our region by collaborating with partners to distribute essential baby and hygiene products and expand access to critical services. With over 75 partners in the region working in fields from healthcare to education, our partners use diapers as a gateway resource to build relationships with families. Partners are already providing a multitude of social services to the community – by offering diapers to families, those families are more likely to come in for health checkups, meetings with their case manager, or to start conversations about other needs that they have. 96% of surveyed partners agree that offering diapers helps build trust with their clients, and 88% agree that providing diapers makes clients more likely to keep scheduled appointments.

At the core of our work are moms and caregivers. Moms can be made to feel guilty or inadequate for not being able to provide diapers for their children – a feeling that leads to increased stress and emotional turmoil, which increases risk for maternal depression. 98% of the families we serve agree that receiving diapers allows them to parent how they want to and reduces their stress as a caregiver. It also increases their children’s health by reducing diaper rash, improving sleep performance, and creating happier babies overall.

Healthy, happy babies lead to happier, healthier communities. Every child deserves an equal chance and no mom or caregiver should have to go without the hygiene essentials they need to care for their baby.

“Each time I received (the pack of diapers), it was just like a load lifted off my shoulders. It’s one less thing – and one less major thing – to have to worry about. It’s just pure sadness, really, having to try to decide where to spend your last $25.” – Jessica, diaper recipient

A story from one of our partners emphasizes the importance of the relationship between the Diaper Bank, its partners, and parents:

One of our partners, Bright Beginnings, is a childcare center for homeless families located in DC that offers childcare five days a week. They were working with a mother who was bringing her daughter in, but not on a consistent basis. The social worker overseeing the mother’s case spoke with her, asking why the daughter wasn’t coming consistently to see how they could help. Though the mother said she would look into coming more often, the same cycle continued for a while.

Then, we began partnering with Bright Beginnings so that they could distribute diapers to the parents at their childcare center. This mom was one of the clients who began receiving diapers. Suddenly, the little girl was attending the daycare five days a week and showing up every day. The social worker overseeing her case spoke to the mother to ask her what had changed and why she was suddenly able to come five days a week. “With you buying my diapers, I can afford bus fare now,” responded the mother.

This mother had been rationing her bus fare, stretching out the days her daughter could attend the childcare center, to save money for diapers. With the 50 diapers she was now allotted each month, made possible by Bright Beginning’s partnership with Greater DC Diaper Bank, she was able to put that money towards bus fare, and towards her daughter’s overall wellbeing. Her daughter was now getting three full meals a day, socializing with other kids in a safe environment, and getting her physical, mental, and emotional needs comprehensively taken care of through a community of caregivers – all essential components of a child’s development.

While this number of diapers may seem small or insignificant, to a parent struggling to ration that $3.50 roundtrip bus fare, it makes an immense difference. Providing diapers to parents who need them creates a positive feedback loop of overall care for their child, opening them up to further services and resources that are essential for their physical and emotional health.

“Imagine how the trajectory of a family’s life changes with one diaper… (It says) come, let us help you, let us serve you, let us strengthen you as a family.” – Centro Nia, GDCDB Partner

We are proud to serve moms and families with our work and, during this time of year, we want to recognize all the moms we serve, in all the forms that they come in – a mom, an auntie, a grandma, a sibling, a neighbor, those we are connected to through life and love, some who chose us, and some we chose – all part of the network of caregivers working to raise the next generation.

Throughout the month of May, Greater DC Diaper Bank’s Caring Unites Us Campaign is raising money to serve and empower mothers in DC, Maryland, and Virginia by providing hygiene essentials to families in need. Learn more about diaper need, including how to get involved, on the Greater DC Diaper Bank website.

Ahead of Spring Fest 2022 on April 23, the Catalogue team spoke with Dreaming Out Loud’s Founder and Executive Director Christopher Bradshaw and Operations Director Zachari Curtis about how they’re building a healthy, equitable food system. A Black-led Farm and Food Hub, Dreaming Out Loud builds supportive infrastructure and relationships on a grassroots level and is a vocal advocate for creating economic opportunities for our most marginalized communities through food.

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Catalogue: What led you to establish and be involved with Dreaming Out Loud?

Christopher: I had started an after-school program and that’s where we noticed a lot of issues around food in terms of healthy food access. It got me thinking more systemically to figure out ways in which we can intervene. The first intervention was a farmers’ market. I saw that farmers needed support – the community couldn’t afford price points that, say, first-generation Mexican-American farmers needed, and these farmers didn’t have access to markets in more affluent neighborhoods. The question was around why the structural arrangement wasn’t advantageous to anyone operating in the food system who wanted food or who wanted to start a food business. There were opportunities to change the food system for the better in ways that would benefit communities impacted by food apartheid.

Zachari: I’ve known Chris since before I worked with Dreaming Out Loud. We were both in a coalition I ran called Healthy Affordable Food for All. I was also an urban farmer, and I was really looking for more innovative business models. Chris was hunting for a supply chain manager for a food hub, an idea we’d talked about years before. I applied and my pitch was basically about the values that mattered, the fact that I understood that individuals are rarely isolated entities if they’re successful. There are structures and political movements that typically undergird what we think of as success.

Catalogue: How have things changed in the DC food economy since Dreaming Out Loud was started?

Christopher: More folks are working towards using food as a lens to examine different issues around social justice and a lot more folks are afforded opportunities as a result of policy changes. But these take time to change. We continue to see that ownership and cost structure is driven by speculative development, which creates unequal access for food entrepreneurs and communities.

Zachari: In classic, well-meaning form, I think the community is picking up on the popularity of equity, on the feel-goodness of it, but we aren’t at the point where we can wrestle with the differences between communities, between people who still haven’t been repaired from 256 years of chattel slavery, 150 years of Jim Crow segregation and mass incarceration.

I do a fair amount of policy work and it definitely feels like a win that there are funding initiatives that talk about equity and inclusion, but I think there are many communities that have benefited from affirmative actions in a way that the most deeply affected – those descended from chattel slavery – are still blocked from accessing.

Catalogue:?What are some of the challenges that Dreaming Out Loud continues to grapple with?

Zachari: Our food hub is still not out of the woods in terms of the challenges of operating in a space that’s dominated by the wealthy and by mostly white wealth. We’re working with a population that’s severely generationally under-capitalized and facing economic attacks, and we don’t necessarily have a whole coalition of folks speaking that same language.

We were in a moment during the pandemic with a mild uptick of support for organizations like ours who’ve been speaking very boldly about the need for transformative racial justice, reparations, and other things. But I’ll be honest – things are cooling off. People are done with COVID, done with thinking about the economy as staggered, as tiered. It’s interesting to see what conversations will be had in light of the deepening inflation and joblessness, and the deepening despair of most working-class communities in the United States.

Catalogue: How does Dreaming Out Loud advocate for BIPOC farmers and food producers in creating a more equitable food system?

Christopher: We are made up of, and deeply situated within, Black communities that have long been actors in the food system historically, but who have been excluded from the economic benefits. We see what the gaps and challenges are, which leads us to be able to advocate in a way that’s authentic to our own individual and collective experiences, and to the folks who we’ve worked to be impactful on behalf of.

We’re vertically integrated, so we touch multiple points along the food system. One vein of our advocacy might be advocating for labor rights and elevating the concerns and needs of workers. For instance, we worked with ONE DC to organize a food system worker panel. We also use our Black Farm CSA newsletter as an advocacy portal to communicate advocacy opportunities to folks signed up for the CSA. And we’ve included opportunities from other groups like Garfield Terrace, who were doing an action to get the DC Housing Authority to respond to conditions within their building, so we’re power-building in that way.

I feel that some of the progress we’ve made system-wide is now coming to fruition. Nourish DC is one of the things we’ve moved forward. It’s a fund aimed at resourcing underrepresented and marginalized community members in funding their food businesses. We’re part of that collaborative, led by Capital Impact Partners, alongside the Washington Area Community Investment Fund, Latino Economic Development Center, and EatsPlace. $400,000 has been issued in catalytic grants to food makers and we’re slated to have another round of this. It’s impactful and I’m really excited.

Zachari: There’s a way the conversation can get reduced to food access alone or reduced to conversations about increasing the welfare state, about representational issues – “Which brown face are we putting where on what label or logo?” Seldom are there distinctly different conversations about how many contracts were given to Black-owned businesses and how much of this recovery money actually made it to who it was supposed to make it to.

In the wake of a declared crisis, often, it’s very important to watch the money, to watch the emergency contracts get approved. There are deeply entrenched race-neutral barriers at this point. We should actually be talking in the language of policy lineage because nobody’s out there explicitly using vitriol to exclude people – it’s really in the lane of the fine print of business and in the fine print of policy or protocol or eligibility or non-eligibility.

We talk to our own peers and other people who descend from this policy lineage, and we say, “Your failure’s not your fault. We are not deficient or less business-savvy.” We talk to them about the municipality or state agency that’s going to place an agreement for local food purchasing with the intent to procure from socially disadvantaged farmers, so we can hold to it. There are just so many escape hatches and loopholes that are available to not address this lineage. So, participation and data gathering are important.

Being clear with our messaging is important, as well. There should be a hundred more Dreaming Out Louds and there’s no way I’m the only person from this lineage with this idea, but it’s very difficult to do the work we do because of systemic inequalities.

Dreaming Out Loud isn’t the government. Unfortunately, we’ve taken the role of government because of the vacuum there. We’re providing discounts at our farmers’ markets for produce that we purchased at an above-market rate because those farmers also need fair prices. No nonprofit or business can sustain this in a way that the government can. I think it’s consistently clear that there’s, in general, no will to allow Black American communities to thrive, no will to allow working-class communities to thrive. We’re not giving people what they need to get through this pandemic and this economic downturn.

Catalogue: How can people and organizations support Dreaming Out Loud’s mission and work?

Christopher: There are a lot of ways people can plug in. Dreaming Out Loud is a food hub, social enterprise, and food business ourselves. Folks can sign up to receive a CSA share. We have an incredible line of soup and granola. Offices that prioritize employee wellness can promote an office CSA to HR. Food businesses can buy from our wholesale list, which is a curated list of products from local and regional farmers that we can connect your business to.

Zachari: Our Food Hub employs people up and down the supply chain. We hire DC residents and train them – there’s no industry in DC giving people this type of experience and this type of job.

Chris: is one of the incredible ways to bring value beyond a donation that helps move our mission forward.

People can volunteer at The Farm at Kelly Miller. Follow what we’re doing with the DC Food Policy Council. Sign up for our newsletter for upcoming advocacy opportunities – we foresee lots of this with the Farm Bill, such as calling your Senator or Congressperson. And follow us on social media at @DOLDC.

Zachari: We do policy talks with people who want to get into this more. We do policy Mondays on Instagram.

I think I would like people to be more demanding of their political leaders. In general, we have to do better in terms of asking for the means for a just, dignified life from the people who can provide it. We have to demand more of people with more ability to make change than any one nonprofit.

ONE DC and the Washington Area Community Investment Fund, mentioned above, are two fellow Catalogue nonprofit partners that you can also learn about.