Category Archives: Access

BE Accomplished: 6 months of Building Experiences

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I began an experiment about 6 months ago. I decided that I wanted to work with young people. I decided that I wanted to do it in ways that felt genuine to me. I decided that I wanted to interact with the young people as a mentor, friend, and unabashedly myself.

I surrounded myself with friends who share similar values and who are also creating the world they want to exist in. We are working to create an inclusive and supportive community for our young members. We made some mistakes, but mostly it’s been joyous and fun. It doesn’t fit into our normal non-profit paradigm. Thankfully.

Scroll down to read quotes from students, see some raw data, and some lessons learned.

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Comments from BE Youth Members

Community dinners are special to me because I get to meet new people, learn about their jobs and what they do. It’s fun and you learn about other people and you get to know them.
–H.P. CHS Junior

You were helpful because you were keeping us on track and you were there to help us go through personal and school related problems… you actually directed some of us to go talk to our professors  and advisors…and you never ever for once give up on any of us…some of the time when we push other people away they will stop coming but you were always there.
–F.O. PVCC student

Ms. Dolly spent her whole morning helping me edit my research paper that was due within couple of hours. I hate to admit it, but I usually do my work last minute. I hadn’t started on my research paper that was assigned on the first day of classes, until few hours before it was due. I got a B though. I don’t think I can ever forget the all-nighters I spent fretting, and how with the help of Ms. Dolly I got a B. We were not expecting that at all, but we were both happy.
–D.U. GMU student

Being a part of BE gives me the chance to help others understand that being a mother is not the end of the road.
–M.H. Certified Nurse Associate, and Pharmacy Tech

Having someone to give you honest advice about college and other things really makes a big difference. I’m blessed to have so many wonderful people like you in my life who I can turn to, ask advice about certain things and can be sure that I’m getting a honest answer.
–M.A. VCU student

You put smile in my face, make me think about my future. Ask me what’s going to be next step, every Monday and it feel neat to be asked. I am thankful for that.
–B.O. PVCC student

You were a means of support for me personally and academically. You are always there showing me the way and the steps I need to take to get there. I know I can come to you for help regarding anything, and I appreciate that you are always there to help and listen.
–G.N. PVCC student

Summary of Services

Building Experiences has worked with 35 students this fall. All services are free to students, and to date; all work has been done on a volunteer basis. Our income has been $1705 cash donations, and about $785 in in-kind donations. Expenditures have equaled $1,440.53. Please donate to support our work.

  • We have shared meals with 68 community members, including 26 youth members in the months of December and January.
  •  BE held 10 check in sessions at PVCC and reached 23 students, including a core group of 11 students who sought BE out each week. Topics of discussion included transferring to 4 year schools, dealing with financial aid, improving relationships with parents, peers and professors, and how to balance school and work.
  • BE has provided help to 10 students with editing papers, college essays, resumes and/or cover letters, sometimes even at the last minute.
  • BE has hosted 5 special events since August. We’ve enjoyed EpiCroqueTournament, a long distance, mixed terrain croquet game, held a “Tool Day” where we built birdhouses and carved in stone with a dremel tool, constructed natural wreaths, and attended a multi-day Youth Conference featuring bookbinding, knitting, car-care, college prep and a falcon(!). We celebrated the MLK Jr. weekend by having a delightful walking tour of local, downtown businesses. 17 students have participated in these special programs.

Lessons Learned/Guiding Principles

This has been a glorious experiment, with no end in sight.

  • Reject the “rules” I’ve been instructed in my professional life to establish boundaries, keep my distance, be equitable and fair. And yes, in many ways these are sensible, protective measures. But they are so limiting. There are young people who need hugs, young people who need money, young people who need rides, young people who need to be told what is up. I think many of the rules put into our institutions are based upon fear. I reject that fear.
  • Play the long game Fiscal and academic years lull us into measuring progress with met outcomes and completed classes, but ultimately we’re raising people. People who need to know their stories, understand their strengths, and have a network of supporters. Sometimes there are issues that can’t be resolved in one month, one semester, or one year. There are so many people that we can gain inspiration from who kept persevering. We must give ourselves permission to slow the pace of our aspirations, and honor those who work towards goals years in the making.
  • Don’t let shiny gadgets distract you from the true magic  I wanted to be famous. I wanted to be an old school professor. I wanted to be an avant garde artiste type with shaped hair. I wanted to be a thought leader. What I love to be now is a connector of people, someone who helps dreams come true, people become their best selves. Occasionally I get offers or suggestions that divert me from that passion. Fame, prestige flickers enticingly. And then I remember that that is false promise, and what makes me happiest is knowing that I made one of these young people see and realize their potential. Finally I have found the focus that eluded this jack of all trades for so many decades.

Thank you to BE’s Partners, Volunteers, Donors
Blue Moon Diner
Frazier Family Foundation
The Local Restaurant
Virginia Organizing
Gibson’s Grocery
Camp Holiday Trails
Whole Foods
Denise Interchangeable Knitting and Crochet
Peggy Harrison
Sammy Kaplan
Vu Nguyen
EcoVillage Charlottesville
Mudhouse
Hedge
Cha Cha’s
Frozen Motion Glass
Taiwan Garden
Join our over 50 individual donors, volunteers, and supporters, Give Today. 

Building Experiences Steering Committee is
Laura Galgano, Ellen Krag, Mia Logan, Davina Fournier and Marissa Turner-Harris.

Dolly Joseph is the Chief Facilitator.

 

What are we going to do about college expense?

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Dear Langston,

From beyond the grave, can you revamp your poem? Can you tell me about a dream half-attained? A dream that is invested in, quasi-delivered, and then sabotaged?

In the past few weeks, I’ve had 4 students tell me these stories of heartbreak:

  • 3 semesters of Criminal Justice at ODU, 1 semester of PVCC. $26,000 dollars of debt. ODU won’t release transcripts, won’t allow 1st generation, immigrant student to register. Student is treading water, taking classes at PVCC that probably won’t transfer.
  • 3 semesters of Social Work at VSU. 1st generation high school graduate/college student has dropped out partly because of money, partly because fears that the school won’t maintain accreditation.
  • 2 semesters at VCU. Another 1st generation college student receives bill for $6,000 for this semester. Her CHS teacher writes a personal check for $3,000. Student returns for spring semester, not knowing how to get the remaining $3,000 before the end of term.
  •  5 semesters in North Carolina. 3.4 GPA. There’s no more money for this semester. This junior is taking classes at PVCC. As an upperclassman, what can she possibly take that is helping her complete her degree?

Our system is broken. These 4 African American students have done what they are supposed to do. They’ve gotten good grades. They’ve stayed out of trouble. They’ve done what our schools have told them to do. They’ve followed the American Dream of pursuing their education. And now they’re returning home. Without degrees. Enslaved to a debt that will not be released by anything except their death.

We let them down. We’ve sold them a false bill of goods. We’ve failed them.

Here’s what I know:

  • In the past weeks, I’ve talked to every college professor, every financial aid officer, and every scholarship manager that I could get hold of. None of them have had any hope of a solution for these students. Well, kinda one:
  • I will be writing ODU a polite, but embarrassing, letter threatening to expose that they billed a student $5,000 for housing for a semester he didn’t attend. He’ll still owe $21,000, but I suppose that’s a start.
  • All of these students were encouraged (some required) to apply to multiple 4-year colleges.
  • All of these students, and their families, were unprepared to deal with the financial shenanigans of the schools and the federal government.
  • If I were in their shoes, I wouldn’t have a clue how to proceed. And I spent 10 years prostrate to the higher mind.
  • This is not their fault. This is not only their problem. This is OUR problem.

Here’s how to be horrible:

  • Push kids through a K-12 system that doesn’t adequately prepare them,
  • Stigmatize them if they don’t go to college,
  • Tell them the only way to get out of the ghettos we’ve created is to go off to college,
  • Have them sign notes for thousands of dollars, that’s not quite enough to cover all expenses,
  • Create an unhelpful bureaucracy that penalizes for any slip up (in fact seems to be facilitating slip ups),
  • Blame them when they are not successful,
  • Accept that they’ll be making minimum wage in the service industry.

What are we going to do about this? Some suggestions:

  • Develop a relationship with, and advocate for, a particular student,
  • Demand more funding for state universities,
  • Destigmatize attending community college,
  • Demand tuition decreases,
  • Stop degree inflation (does every job really require a master’s degree?),
  • Stage national student and instructor walk-outs,
  • Take education seriously as a human right
  • Question who does it serve to keep our youth (particularly our youth of color) uneducated and broke.

Building Experiences Youth Conference 2015

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This past weekend we had an amazing time at the first ever BE Youth Conference. Over 3 days 11 youth and 15 adults, one baby and one falcon came together to:

  • Make pizza
  • Bind books
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  • Design a personalized flag
  • Set goals and expectations
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  • Discuss college and career

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    With Permission from Peggy Harrison

  • Share life stories
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  • Explore available scholarships
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    With Permission from Peggy Harrison

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    With Permission from Peggy Harrison

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    With Permission from Peggy Harrison

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  • Learn to knit and crochet
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  • Begin saving for the new year
  • Learn about car maintenance
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  • Share meals
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  • Hold a falcon
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  • Meet new friends
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  • Share cleaning responsibilities
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  • Hug and Laugh

It was magical.

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Thank you to Peggy Harrison for sharing her photographs.

Unpacking my White Privilege

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Tuesday night, I attended “I Can’t Breathe”: An Open Forum on Black Pain, Racial Justice and Healing. A breadth of speakers spoke about their experiences, specifically in our town and our university. I am writing in response to that great meeting, and as a challenge to my readers, particularly my white, Charlottesville-dwelling readers to Do More, and Be Better.

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A Week (+ 1) In Pictures

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When my brain is too full of words to process, I must resort to pictures. This week has been so amazingly full, inspiring and life-affirming, I haven’t even been able to begin filing it appropriately. Enjoy these pictures of so many amazing people!

High school sophmores and juniors receive French tutoring from UVA French major.

11/10 High school sophomores and juniors receive French tutoring from UVA French major.

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Motivation: It’s a continuum, not a dichotomy

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I remember happily nodding along with the platitudes about intrinsic and extrinsic motivations during grad school. The information fit within my ideals about learning for learning’s sake. Intrinsic motivation– the motivation to learn and perform for a feeling of internal satisfaction– was in my mind the golden standard. Rewarding students, a form of extrinsic motivation, was detrimental to the health of the learner, would sap their love of learning, and would create generations of lab rat-like students performing their tasks for a stipend of sugar-laden M&Ms.

After all these years, my understanding of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation is quite different, Continue reading →

College Essay, How I Love Thee

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Ugh, college essay time! Right? Wrong. I love the process of writing the college essay. The college essay serves lots of purposes. It can explain away a period of poor grades. It can personalize all the numbers. It can provide context for afterschool activities. Most importantly, though, it is the student’s story, as told by and understood by the student.

Writing a college essay can allow students to see themselves differently, to recast their stories, to gain confidence and to feel entitled (in the best way) for the educational opportunities they are pursuing. Grade school has become such a disparate series of parts, that it can be hard for a young student to understand the process and his or her role in it. Oftentimes, the students I work with have experienced some sort of failure or aren’t as competitive as their peers. The college essay allows them to explain the circumstances, and to highlight how they excelled even in the face of adversity.

What’s a string of Bs and Cs in general level classes in the face of the struggles I see? The stories of students I work with are complex, and sometimes heartbreaking. A 20 year-old mother who was impregnated by rape at 13, and is raising the baby, alone, and in a foreign country. A daughter who cried as her father was dragged out of their home and shot dead. A boy who has been responsible for paying for his school supplies and clothes since he was 13 because his family needs any available money for food. A young woman who is the product of generations of rape. A young man who fled his home place because his father was kidnapped and held for ransom. You could meet these students 100 times and never know these things about them because they present as strong, and resilient. And they are strong and resilient, or they wouldn’t have survived.

But their grades are so-so, or their SAT scores are just average, or they haven’t done enough extra-curricular activities to be competitive. The college essay can contextualize that so-so high school performance and demonstrate that that performance, given the pressures, the obstacles, the hardships that were faced, was in fact exemplary, and outstanding, and that young person asking for more education and more opportunity would be an asset to the college.

When young people write their own stories, through the process of the college essay, they can see themselves as worthy, as hard-working, as heroes of their own stories. In turn, they enter a new part of their lives having a sense of their journey knowing that they have already overcome so much, and the challenges of succeeding in school are not insurmountable.

Transitioning Youth to College

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I love working with teens and young adults. They are outwardly brave and bold, but secretly vulnerable, still seeking approval and reassurance. They want to be independent and make their own decisions, but they also want to establish themselves on the paths to responsible adulthood.

I tend to work with young people who have circumstances that are different than my own, and maybe yours, at the same age. They are people of color. Or they are young parents. Or they are first generation college students. Or they immigrated to this country. Or they speak another language at home. Or they live below the poverty line. Or they practice a non-Christian religion. Sometimes the students I work with are described as “minorities”, “at-risk”, “low-SES”, “underserved”, “low-income”, “disadvantaged”, “low-achieving”, “under-performing” or any other term that sounds good in a grant application.

I hate using these terms, because it’s othering. These terms make these kids sound “needy”. All 16-22 year olds are needy. They need fully-grown adults to guide them, even when they are jerks, make dumb choices, and say they don’t want help. Conservative pundits talk about people pulling themselves up by the bootstraps, while their own challenging kids attend private schools, experience prestigious unpaid internships and are tutored in every subject.

Teenagers who grow up in homes of privilege, homes where the status quo is to go to college and get a professional job, are exposed to important support, knowledge and experiences that may not available to teenagers who are first generation college students. For example:

  • The expectation that they will go to college AND graduate from college,
  • The connection between difficulty of classes, GPA and SAT scores on college selection and acceptance,
  • Familiarity with college campuses (including visits to alma maters of family members)
  • Understanding implications of financial aid such as loans, scholarships, grants, etc,
  • Differentiating between for-profit vs traditional colleges,
  • Awareness of and importance of a major,
  • Knowledge of connection between major, graduate school, certification and ultimate job opportunities,
  • Familiarity with college support systems such as career counseling and job placement rates,
  • Awareness of the admissions, financial aid, and add/drop deadlines and that the onus is on the student, not the school.

Which of these did you implicitly know? Sure, maybe like me you regretted a few choices but also maybe like me, you had access to and the resources for the following opportunities (privileges):

  • Sufficient reading, writing and thinking skills to be immediately successful in college
  • A “Gap Year”
  • Travel
  • Extracurricular classes and Camps
  • A home base to return to
  • A car
  • An allowance or parental loans
  • A support person to nag you onto track
  • A quiet place to apply to college
  • A strong network of entrepreneurs and business owners (I can name at least 5 jobs that I had before the age of 22 that I got because of my network of family and friends)
  • Enough financial security to delay entry into the workforce through undergrad and grad school
  • The same skin color and cultural background as the majority of business owners and patrons in the lucrative downtown mall district

There are many programs that are doing a lot to help students transition successfully to college: Upward Bound and AVID are two Charlottesville programs that do a great deal to help students, but we can do more. We need to do more.

Building Experiences

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As I transitioned out of my role as Program Director at Computers4Kids, I wanted to make sure that I didn’t lose contact with a number of students who I had formed especially close relationships. I had a group of them out to my house on Sunday to “build stuff” as they requested. I provided ingredients for lunch, computers for looking up plans, lumber and simple building tools. Fatuma, college freshman, was our documentarian. Her words and pictures are below.

Fatuma was trying to make this small beautiful doll house, but it kinda didn't work out, so instead she making a bird house:)

Fatuma was trying to make this small beautiful doll house, but it kinda didn’t work out, so instead she is making a bird house. 🙂

July is look for bird house design on the web! P.s the bird house she made was amazing! The little birds will love it!

July is looking for bird house design on the web! P.S. the bird house she made was amazing! The little birds will love it!

Fatuma trying to get started with her beautiful bird house, there were time when she really wanted to give up but Miss Dolly kept on motivating her :)!

Fatuma trying to get started with her beautiful bird house. There were times when she really wanted to give up but Miss Dolly kept on motivating her! 🙂

July plan for the bird

July plan for the bird

Miss Dolly helping july with her bird house plan! If it weren't for Miss Dolly, nothing would have went right! Thanks Miss Dolly, we love you

Miss Dolly helping July with her bird house plan! If it wasn’t for Miss Dolly, nothing would have gone right! Thanks Miss Dolly, we love you!

This is now what I call girl power! Fatuma helping july saw her wood for the bird house!

This is what I call girl power! Fatuma helping July saw her wood for the bird house!

Now this is what I call a amazing teamwork! July helping Zarny with the Dremel to help it curve better!

Now this is what I call a amazing teamwork! July helping Zarny with the dremel tool to help it carve better!

This is another amazing teamwork! Htoogaye help Abass saw the wood!

This is another amazing teamwork! Htoogay helps Abass saw the wood!

Htoogaye love her stick figures! She is using the slate rocks! This is beautiful! H +A=♡

Htoogay loves her stick figures! She is carving the slate! This is beautiful! H +A=♡

July and Htoogaye showing Abass how to saw the wood! Girl power!

July and Htoogay showing Abass how to saw the wood! Girl power!

Zarny slicing the chicken apart! P.s he slice ot first and than he asked if he should all cena the chicken into pieces lol

Zarny slicing the chicken apart! P.S. he sliced it first and than he asked if he should all cut the chicken into pieces! lol!

Yummy, Zarny cooking the world best grill cheese sandwich on the wood-burning stove! I was very delicious

Yummy yummy ! Everyone enjoyed It! They were the best :)

Yummy yummy ! Everyone enjoyed It! They were the best 🙂

Zarny is cooking for again and he is putting wood in the stove to keep the fire going! This chicken was yummy I love it! If I was a judge I would have selected Zarny and the stove for the world best cookers

Zarny is cooking for us again and he is putting wood in the stove to keep the fire going! This chicken was yummy I love it! If I was a judge I would have selected Zarny and the stove for the world’s best cookers!

The was a very unique idea! Zarny made this with a slate rock! It looks like our beautiful home Virginia!

The was a very unique idea! Zarny made this with slate! It looks like our beautiful home Virginia!

This is very beautiful and loving! Zarny made this piece for July!

This is very beautiful and loving! Zarny made this piece for July!

This is the world's best bird house! It's so delightful and welcoming! The bird will surely love it:) -Made by July Paw

This is the world’s best bird house! It’s so delightful and welcoming! The bird will surely love it:)
-Made by July Paw