Youth In Charge Report 2010A project of Worcester Roots Project with funding from UMass Memorial Health Care

Our organization; the services it provides, and its mission:

Worcester Roots Project is a collective of youth and adult organizers on a mission to createopportunities for economic, social and environmental justice.

We send these roots of opportunity into our communities, sprouting up co-operatively run andgreen projects and initiatives that build toward our vision of neighborhoods that are safe forliving, working and playing.

Worcester Roots staff and board have adopted the following values:

• Environmental, Social and Economic Justice: We struggle for a world whereeveryone is able to access the necessary resources to live a healthy, dignified life,without prejudice, exploitation or toxic environments.

• Power of Youth: We acknowledge and support the power and potential that youthpossess. We proactively recognize and provide opportunities for youth as leaderswithin the organization and in the world.

• Cooperative Economics: We envision a new economic order that is based oncommunity need and cooperation, not on profit, competition, or disregard forpeople and the environment.

• Grassroots Movement Building: We nurture democratic, horizontal, and non-authoritarian relationships while ensuring ethical practices within our organizationand amongst community members. Our work is effective when it contributes tolarger movements for social and environmental justice.

• Anti-Oppression: We are against racism, sexism, ageism, and other forms ofstructural and individual oppression. We proactively encourage diversity andinclusivity in our work.

• Collective Liberation: We organize with communities by listening to peoples’experiences, identifying injustices, and valuing everyone’s voice in buildingsustainable solutions.

• Direct Action: We take action locally, bioregionally and globally for radical,systemic change.

• Participatory Education: We are committed to building learning environments thatrespect every participant’s experience and prioritize the voices of youth, people of colorand working class families and individuals.

Worcester Roots Project offers the following services to the community:

• Community organizing for community power on environmental justice issues; skills atengaging youth leaders and other traditionally disenfranchised stakeholders.

• Consulting and support for developing green & cooperative business.

• Lead poisoning safety support: soil testing for lead contamination, lead safetyeducation, lead safe landscaping services.

• Environmental justice and safety research.

• Media services: video production, press, radio and live performance.

Youth In Charge is a cooperatively run environmental health and justice group led primarily byyouth that is supported by Worcester Roots Project. The focus of Youth In Charge is the BellHill neighborhood in Worcester Massachusetts.

Youth In Charge addressed 3 problems:

a) Lead Poisoning

Lead damages the brain, kidneys, and nervous system and can lead to behavioral and learningproblems. Children are particularly vulnerable to the adverse affects of lead. In Massachusetts,1 out of every 35 children screened for blood lead has elevated levels. This rate is higheramong the urban poor and in communities of color.

Lead can enter one's system through inhalation and ingestion. Contaminated soil is a majorlead hazard in the old industrial city of Worcester. The majority of the contaminated soil nearpeople’s homes is a result of lead paint chipping or flaking off existing older houses, or leadpaint from previous houses that burned down and were not properly remediated.Contamination from leaded gasoline, commonly used in fuel until 1986, also has left severalareas of Worcester’s soils with high lead levels, especially near high-traffic roads and theinterstate that runs through many poor areas of the city. When children come in contact withcontaminated soil, they may inhale or ingest lead. It may also be brought into the home in dustform on shoes, pets, toys and food grown in or near soil containing high levels of this heavymetal. If leafy vegetables are grown in these areas and eaten, one may also become poisoned,though highest risk is through direct contact with the contaminated soil or lead dust.

Lead exposure is a big problem in Bell Hill: the hill is covered by Pre-1978 houses and Route 9and I-290 cut right through the community. In soils around homes in Worcester’s Bell Hillneighborhood we found lead levels that exceeded the current EPA hazard limit by 500%.

Youth In Charge has been addressing the lead issue through a community outreach andawareness campaign that has included speaking engagements, workshops, tabling and door-to-door outreach. Youth In Charge has been signing up residents of Bell Hill to access WorcesterLead Abatement Program (WLAP) funds to get grants to do the necessary lead remediationwork in and around their homes. Youth in the group have been providing free soil testing sofamilies can know if they need to bee concerned about lead in their yards. And Youth In Chargehas been providing lead safe landscaping services to residents in the area who want to maketheir lead contaminated yards safe to use.

b) Wintertime Walkability

It is difficult and dangerous for people to walk outside on icy and snowy sidewalks,particularly on the steep slopes of Bell Hill. Those who can often choose to drive, anexpensive, environmentally unfriendly mode of transportation, and one that has none of thehealthy exercise benefits of walking. Pedestrians often end up walking in the ploughed streetin the line of traffic as many of the sidewalks remain unshoveled after the storms; on largerroads like Route 9 traffic can be very fast and dangerous. Many simply stay isolated in theirhomes for the duration of the poor weather and slippery walkways, disconnected from theircommunity and cut off from the goods and services they need. For example, attendance at neighborhood schools is so low in the wintertime that over 50families within 2 miles of Belmont community school have been organizing with the City's andSchool Department to try to find funds for a bus so children can get to school. Unfortunatelythe funds for such school transportation will not be coming through any time soon; meanwhilefamilies with low attendance are getting CHINS (Child In Need of Services) infractions thatinvolve the family in the legal system.

Youth In Charge started its shoveling program because members of the group enjoy outdoorwork and the project expands our scope of landscaping work, giving us relevant landscapingskills that help our community year round. We started shoveling in the February focusing onareas that residents at the Belmont Community Crime Watch said would be particularlyhelpful. In the Fall the City of Worceser contacted us asking to list us as a sidewalk shovelingresoruce on the City's website. We became connected with the Worcester Senior Center whowant us to be on call for elderly and disabled people who have difficulty clearing theirsidewalks. This winter we are reaching out to youth beyond our 6 regular employees to getinvolved in clearing the sidewalks in their neighborhood.

c) Youth employment and positive community engagement

Summer of 2010 had the lowest level of youth Employment on record in the United States;people of color have been disproportionately impacted by lack of work opportunity (Bureau ofLabor Statistics). The stakes for young people in obtaining and keeping secure employmentare high. Work experience is extremely important in building a base for future advancement inthe work force. Without constructive ways to meet their expenses and give back to theircommunity youth may be pressured into risky, nonconstructive behavior. However, when youthdo have the opportunity to work in their community, youth have a vision, energy, sensitivityand creativity to address local issues with a unique approach that adults often lack.

Youth In Charge created summer employment and year-round after-school jobs for 6 youth andvolunteer opportunities for many others to be engaged in positive community work. Youth In Charge is proud to have provided positive work experience and constructiveeconomic opportunities to a number of at risk youth in the Bell Hill neighborhood, including ateen mother who is still in school and working to support her family, a high school dropoutnow working on his GED, and a number of youth who's lives are surrounded by gang activity.

III Youth In Charge set the following goals for the year of 2010:

Outdoor work

I. Snow shoveling: 12 hours of clearing sidewalks after 2 storms this spring. Additionalsidewalk clearing after 2 storms this coming winter.

II. Lead-safe yards: Complete 1 yard in spring, complete 3 yards in summer, complete 1yard in fall.

III. Soil testing for lead contamination: Test 5 yards in spring, 8 yards in summer, and 3-5yards in fall.

IV. Belmont Community Garden: Build 1 lead-safe raised bed made of pressure treatedwood, filled with fertile compost soil.

Community organizing, outreach, education, and engagement

I. Door to door lead education and Worcester Lead Abatement Program (WLAP)outreach: 20 complete WLAP forms submitted to the city by the end of the year. 2hours each week per person doing door to door outreach and outreach at communityevents.

II. Community concerns survey: collect 60 complete surveys, analyze results to identifytop health and social issues that Bell Hill residents think need to be addressed.

III. Bell Hill community meetings: Participate in monthly meetings led by Anna Rodriguesat Belmont Community School.

IV. Trainings offered to community: Lead 4 community trainings/workshops over thecourse of the year.

V. Youth jobs: Collaborate with youth from across the state on 3 events pushing forsummer Youthworks funding.

VI. Community events: Organize, table, and present at community events including SeeingOurselves Successful, cookout to celebrate new Lead Safe Yard by YIC at 120 EasternAve, National Night Out, Bell Hill Earth Day Cleanup, Plumley Village Cookout,Plumley Village Christmas Party, King St. Block Party, and others as the opportunityarises.

VII. Kindergarten countdown: recruit 10 teen parents. Participation in events by one YIC member every other week for 1.5 hours.

Internal capacity building

I. Hiring: Hire 1 youth in spring so that group is back to 6 members.

II. Internal trainings: Meeting facilitation, website skills, Google Sketchup designprogram, financial management/organization budget training, personal finances,teaching new youth to become a youth leader and lead safe landscaper.

III. Hours: Increase youth hours from 5 to 7 hours a week so that the group can getmore done, spend more time together and youth can earn more.

IV. Finances: Increase youth skills and participation in grant writing, donor cultivation,and business planning. 1 youth working with Worcester Roots Development

Coordinator bimonthly, writing grants for office equipment and more workinghours.

V. Publicity and networking: Create YIC web page, design and print business cards,finish sweatshirts with YIC logo.

VI. Office: Make YIC office a more efficient workspace by creating new systems oforganization and regular cleanups.

IV Youth In Charge Enhances Public Health: a) Decreasing elevated blood levels through reducing lead exposure: identifying yardswith increased lead hazard so people can avoid exposure, signing up families to accessWorcester Lead Abatement grant funding to get interior and exterior lead remediation intheir homes, and conducting lead safe landscaping in yards with lead contamination. b) Increasing walkability in the neighborhood by shoveling sidewalks: this makes iteasier for residents to exercise, connect with their neighbors and access the goods andservices they need without the risk of accident or injury on the sidewalk or street. c) Youth organizing jobs: youth leaders developing and sharing techniques for takingagency to impact the decisions that affect their lives and the health of their community.Youth employment in work to develop sustainable community-based solutions to localhealth issues.

Youth In Charge Advances Medical or Health Care Knowledge Communityeducation and outreach on the issue of lead.

V Target population?

• Jobs were targeted to youth (people 14 - 18 years old) living in the Bell Hillneighborhood with limited extra-curricular activities. Volunteer opportunities atneighborhood cleanups, lead-safe landscaping workdays and snow shoveling activitiesin the community were targeted to the same population.

• Lead education and outdoor lead remediation services were targeted to all residents ofthe Bell Hill Neighborhood, and to particularly residents with young children becausechildren are the members of the community most seriously impacted by lead.

• In the spring snow shoveling was targeted to dangerous walkways identified by thecommunity crime watch. This winter snow shoveling services will be targeted to allresidents of the Bell Hill Neighborhood who request our services, and we will also havea special focus on the walkways leading up to neighborhood schools to makewintertime school attendance easier for families without cars living within 2 miles ofthe schoolyards.

• All homeowners in the Bell Hill Neighborhood were targeted for free testing of yardsfor lead contamination.

• Homeowners with low income residents (households of 4 earning less than $61,500 peryear) were targeted for referral to the Worcester Lead Abatement program for grants toconduct indoor and outdoor lead remediation.

VI Program Description:

Outdoor work

I. Shoveling: 12 group hours (84 person hours) of clearing sidewalks after 2 storms thisspring in problem walkways identified by community crime watch, see the map on thenext page.

In the middle of the year we were contacted by the City of Worcester to and the WorcesterSenior center to expand our snow shoveling services this coming winter. We have beendoing more snow shoveling service outreach on the radio and face-to-face in thecommunity, and we have been recruiting youth to help us when the snow comes.

II. Lead-safe yards: Completed 2 lead safe yards in the Bell Hill neighborhood, one onEastern Ave, one on Rodney St. Both properties had yards with contaminated soil thatwere used by children under the age of 6 and particularly vulnerable to the impact oflead.

Illustration 1: Blue lines indicate walkways shoveled in 2010 by Youth In Charge

III. Gardens in the neighborhood: Built 1 raised bed made of pressure treated wood, filledwith fertile compost soil at the Belmont Community Garden. Also at the BelmontCommunity garden we participated in cleanups and raised vegetables including kale,collards, tomatoes and basil; produce was shared with neighbors and distributedthrough the Plumley Village food pantry. Cared for gardens in yards on Eastern Avenueand Gage St.

IV. Soil testing for lead contamination: Tested 23 yards for lead contamination in soil. Wewere alarmed to find that 70% of the yards we tested had areas of bare soil with leadlevels higher than the EPA toxicity limit of 400ppm! Please see the map of yards testedbelow.

Community organizing, outreach, education, and engagement

Illustration 2: Map demonstrates location of yards tested for lead in soil,and the result of the highest lead sample in that yard. Yellow indicates alead result below the EPA accepted "safe" concentration of 400ppm. Pinkindicates lead levels above 400ppm, below 1,000ppm. Red (!) symbolsindicate lead concentrations of over 1,000ppm. Yards were tested onAuburn St, Bernard St, Duxburry Rd, Eastern Ave(5), East Kendall St,Elizabeth St, Evarard St, Hooper St, Kendall St, Laurel St, Rodney St (4),Stanton St(4) and Windsor St.

I. Worcester Lead Abatement Program (WLAP) outreach: 16 complete WLAP formssubmitted to the city, forms solicited at community events and in door-to-door outreach.(After submitting 16 forms the WLAP program got so backlogged they asked us to takea break on referrals but to continue with lead safety education.) Please see the map onthe next page showing areas where Youth In Charge completed door-to-door outreach.WLAP outreach was combined with lead safety education information and informationat neighborhood schools, community meetings and events.

II. Bell Hill community meetings: Participated in monthly meetings led by AnnaRodrigues at Belmont Community School. In these meetings we learned of communityissues, shared information about our work, and got local residents' input on how best todo our work in the community.

III. Community concerns survey: Collected 60 complete surveys. We analyzed andcompiled results into a report demonstrating the health and social issues of greatestconcern to members of the Bell Hill community. Please see a summary of results on thenext page.

I. Important issues in the communityGangs,  Drugs,  Fights 85Unemployment 22Trash  and  cleanliness 18Racism 15Safety 15Health 12Lack  of  activities  for  youth 10Education 4

Major Issues in Bellhill

Gangs, Drugs, FightsUnemploymentTrash and cleanlinessRacismSafetyHealthLack of activities for youthEducation

II. Interaction with neighborsVery Well 15Well 18Normal 18 None 4Distant 4

Interaction with neighbors

Very Well

Well

Normal

None

Distant

III. Active in Bellhill CommunityYes 19Try   24No 17

Active in Bellhill Community

Yes

Try

No

IV. Major Health IssuesHIV 4Flu 4Obesity 3Nutrition 3Nutrition 3Smoke 3Diabetes 2Underage  pregnancy 2

Major Health Issues

Trash

HIV

Flu

Obesity

Nutrition

Nutrition

Smoke

Diabetes

Underage pregnancy

IV. Trainings offered to community: Led community trainings/workshops over the courseof the year:

1. Leadership training for Plumley Village Girls Group2. Environmental Justice training open to the public, organized in conjunction withMassachussetts Environmental Justice Alliance (MEJA)3.Workshop on Environmental Justice and Lead Safety at the US Social Forum in Detroit inJune.

4. Community gardening options presentation and discussion to Plumley village residentsthrough the UMass Wellness Center at Plumley Village.

In addition to the workshops stated above, Youth In Charge in conjunction with Worcester Roots Project will be hosting a series of community organizing trainings in neighborhood this winter featuring workshops led by community activists working for community health and social justice all over the state. These trainings will be free and open to anyone in the neighborhood and beyond.

V. Youth jobs: Organized with youth from across the state on 3 events pushing for summerYouthworks funding. Bussed our members and unrelated youth to march, rally and

lobby at our State Capital. We were successful in securing limited funds for ourselvesand many other youth to work this summer. In the process we learned about thelegislative system and about claiming our collective power to organize for what ourcommunities need.

VI. Community events: Organized, tabled, and presented lead safety information atcommunity events including Seeing Ourselves Successful, cookout to celebrate newLead Safe Yard by YIC at 120 Eastern Ave, National Night Out, Bell Hill Earth DayCleanup, Plumley Village Cookout, the Cyclovida premier, the Stone Soup Anniversaryparty, African Community Education events, StART on the Street (Lincoln Square) andmore. Participated in Bell Hill community discussions about rising violence.

VII. Kindergarten countdown: 10 teen parents recruited. Participation in events byone YIC member every other week for 1.5 hours in the spring and summer.

Internal capacity building

V. Hiring: Hired Valery Santiago in spring so that group was back to 6 members.Conducted another hiring process in December and hire Jailene Marcano to replace amember who got another job offering more hours. For the summer months we took onintern Shawn Foreman, mother of 4 from the Bell Hill neighborhood who is personallyaffected by the lead issue as her has been affected by elevated blood lead levels whichwere reduced after youth-led lead safe landscaping.

VI. Internal trainings: Meeting facilitation, Google Sketchup design program, financialmanagement/organization budget training, personal finances, electronic Dropbox filemanagement, Google calendar, landscaping safety and soil testing trainings wereprovided over the course of the year.

VII. Hours: Youth hours were increased from 5 to 7 hours a week so that the group couldget more done, spend more time together and youth can earn more.

VIII. Finances: Increased youth skills and participation in grant writing, donorcultivation, and business planning. Members of Youth In Charge participated infundraising presentation at Worcester Roots' Annual Meeting, presented to the NativitySchool Philanthropy team that went on to award us $750.00, wrote letters for snowshoveling equipment donations to local hardware and department stores. Members ofYouth In Charge sold sweatshirts and DVDs of our public service announcement atcommunity events. Since fall the group has been working on a business plan for arestaurant or food truck serving healthy food in the neighborhood.

IX. Publicity and networking: Finished sweatshirts with YIC logo. Brainstormed design forYouth In Charge web page, incomplete web work has been scheduled with web designstaff member from Worcester Roots Project. Youth In Charge worked with MusicMainia TV to create a 7 minute lead safety public service announcement featuring thelead-safe landscaping completed by Youth In Charge on Eastern Avenue in the Bell Hillneighborhood. The public service announcement is now airing on the local cable accessTV station, WCCA Channel 13. This public service announcement is soon to beavailable on YouTube.

X. Office: Achieved goal of making the Youth In Charge office a more efficientworkspace by creating new systems of organization with organized filing cabinet,electronic Dropbox file sharing system, stocking office supplies and scheduling andregular cleanups.

VII Collaborators:• We collaborated with Plumley Village East who gave Youth In Charge year-round

office space and computer access in exchange for gardening consulting and a $300.00donation. The Plumley Village Health Fair provided a venue for Youth In Charge to dosome lead safety education and youth recruitment. Youth In Charge appreciated theopportunity to participate in community discussions about neighborhood violence atPlumley Village.

• Toxic Soil Busters, another youth-led co-op affiliated with Worcester Roots projectoffered training workshops to Youth In charge and collaborated on interstate travel toconferences about cooperatives, sustainability and community organizing.

• We collaborated with Worcester Interfaith, the Worcester Youth Center, Oak Hill CDCand the Plumley Village teen center and a number of youth programs in Boston tomobilize youth to demonstrate successfully for funding for summer jobs for youth.

• We collaborated with HUD thorugh the Worcester Lead Abatement Program to getfunding for at least one lead-safe yard.

• The City of Worcester and Mass in Motion are providing institutional support andpublicity to Youth In Charge as a snow shoveling resource in Bell Hill to increasewintertime walkability and city-wide access to snow shoveling services.

• We are collaborating with the Regional Environmental Council, the Umass WellnessCenter and the TNT women's group to create a community garden on Laurel St. as partof our affordable rent agreement at Plumley Village.

• Worcester Roots is bringing collaborators from all over the state to provide communityorganizing workshops free of charge in the Bell Hill area. Topics of workshops shallinclude Environemntal Health and Justice Organizing, Power Mapping, the History ofCommunity Organizing in Worcester and much more. Collaborators include EPOCA,Stone Soup, Mosaic Culture Complex, the Regoinal Envoronmental Council, PleasantStreet Neighborhood Network Center, Igelsia Christiana de la Communidad and morebringing workshops, assistance in community outreach, financial contributions andorganizing experience to share.

• The North Eastern Climate Confluence, the United States Social Forum and theNortheast Climate Confluence all supported by involving our members in the creationof youth tracks in their conferences to make them more accessible to our representingyouth.

• The Caldwell Family worked with us to host a block party in their yard once the leadsafe landscaping conducted by Youth In Charge in their back yard was complete.Together we created a fun family event with food and live performances of music anddance: a great atmosphere for neighbors around Eastern Ave. to get to know each otherbetter and to see the attractive lead-safe landscaping services our group has to offer thecommunity.

• We have collaborated with the Worcester Green Jobs Coaliton to work city-wide foraccessible green jobs in our community that youth like the youth from Youth In Chargecould be involved in.

VIII Challenges:

A big challenge to our work flow this summer was a huge delay the city's Worcester LeadAbatement Program (WLAP) funding process. Over the past year and a half we haveoutreached to a number of homeowners in the Bell Hill neighborhood who are are eager for usto work in their yard but require financial assistance to cover the cost of the necessary work.We referred multiple eligible families to the Worcester Lead Abatement Program for funding sothat we could work on their yards. Due to under-staffing at City Departments the paperworkfor the WLAP HUD funding was not completed on time for us to do as many yards as weplanned. We called and emailed the WLAP offices with the aim of expediting the paperworkfor homes in our Neighborhood of interest to little avail. As a result of this WLAP funding andpaperwork bottleneck we completed 2 lead-safe yards instead of the 5 we planned to do.

With the time we would have spent landscaping we maintained a household garden in theneighborhood and conducted 5 more soil tests than we had initially planned to do (23 yardsinstead of 18), and we conducted a number of visual assessment surveys in conjunction withthe EPA to identify challenges to healthy homes in the neighborhood (such as chipping leadpaint, unsafe stairs and porches, deteriorated roofs, bare soil, etc.) We also supported residentsin the neighborhood organizing for more benches and trashcans for the community as well asmeeting about the rising violence in the neighborhood. We began to research otheropportunities for us to provide lacking opportunities in the community, and we researchedhealthy food services and a potential neighborhood food service business role for us in thefuture.

IX Funds Leveraged:

UMass Memorial Community Benefits funding to Youth In Charge made it possible toleverage the following funding:

• Nativity School Philanthropy Project - $750.00 used for extra landscaping materialsand equipment.

• North-East Grassroots Enviromental Fund (NEGEF) - $2,000 for travel to conferenceson sustainability, worker cooperatives and community organizing in San Francisco,New York and Detroit.

• Sale of Youth In Charge sweatshirts and Lead Safety Public Service AnnouncementDVD - $60.00 used for petty cash office expenses.

• Summer YouthWorks money - $3,500.00 for youth stipends to work during 6 weeks inthe summertime.

• Worcester Lead Abatement Program - $1,000 for WLAP outreach.

X Difference made and lessons learned:

UMass Memorial community benefits funding made it possible for Youth In Charge to provideyear-round jobs working for community health and safety to 6 youth from the Bell Hillneighborhood, and volunteer opportunities for many more. The funds allowed us to furnish anefficient office and purchase the equipment and materials required for landscaping, shovelingand outreaching in the neighborhood. These funds made it possible for possible for our groupto meet and exceed most of our goals for 2010 and leverage additional funding to expand ourscope of work in every area. These funds made it possible for our youth to be more of thechange they wish to see in their world.

Over the course of they year we learned the importance of repetition in community outreachand education: it may take multiple conversations and flyers and performances and workshopsand presentations before a family is ready to sign up to make a change in their yard or dailylifestyle regarding lead safety or any other issue. Our combination of door-knocking, schooloutreach, and our presence in the community bears more and more fruit the longer we keep atit.

Youth want to help in their communities and shoulder their own financial responsibilities.More work for youth is needed in our community: hundreds of Worcester youth were verypassionately engaged in in the lobbying and demonstrating for local youth jobs this year. Onlya small percentage of them obtained funded job positions. Moving from 5 up to 7 hours ofwork per week was a really positive move for all of Youth In Charge. Next year Youth InCharge hopes to move to 15 hours a week so that members with budget constraints can remainat this one job.

Our community concerns survey was very illuminating. To better serve our community wemust try to involve violence reduction and alternatives to gang activity in the work we do. Our work to create employment in the community was validated as important in theneighborhood as unemployment came in second-most important issue. Our work will be morerelevant to people if we focus on the most valued things in our community, such as safety,neighborhood upkeep, employment, and activities for kids.