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Health, Health disparities

A new community garden springs up after land group adopts health perspective

Alina Bokde, executive director of the LA Neighborhood Land Trust, stands in a community garden that's the result of new thinking about the health aspect of her organization's work.

Alina Bokde, executive director of the LA Neighborhood Land Trust, stands in a community garden that’s the result of new thinking about the health aspect of her organization’s work.

Alina Bokde, executive director the Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust, wasn’t quite sure how a new push to view her organization’s work through a public health lens would work.

She’s been acquiring open space in urban areas for years, with an eye toward conserving land, providing recreation and helping to mitigate climate change. But having a direct and significant effect human health? That was harder to envision achieving with small plots of land.

But her group had joined with dozens of other nonprofits in a bold effort to finally lift South Los Angeles, a poor neighborhood with familiar urban social ills – crime, poverty, high disease rates – onto a new trajectory that results in longer, healthier lives for residents.

The organization funding this major South LA project, which is called “Building Healthy Communities” and will run tens of millions of dollars over a decade, asked the community’s nonprofits to agree on common goals and best practices to increase the odds of achieving real success. The request of the funder, the California Endowment, reflects an emerging practice in philanthropy called “collective impact.” It asks that the many nonprofits tackling social ills in a community join together more tightly to achieve lasting change.

The nation’s 1.4 million nonprofits typically develop independent approaches to solving major social problems. But they’re “often working at odds with each other and exponentially increasing the … resources required to make meaningful progress,” wrote two authors in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.1

The newly-shared objective around health led to a surprising outcome for the LA Neighborhood Land Trust after it began looking for the human health potential of its work as well.

Armed with this  new way of viewing the organization’s work, one of Bokde’s staff approached an LA community health clinic, Clinica Romero, and asked the director – who hadn’t worked before with the land trust – if the clinic would develop a curriculum and nutritional guide for its diabetic patients, using a wished-for community garden at a nearby park to teach these lessons. The clinic director said yes, and Bokde then went to the Kaiser Family Foundation, asking if it would award a $50,000 grant to build the garden and help fund the development of the material to teach the patients more healthful living habits. It also said yes.

In the spring of 2012 the new community garden opened, with 19 raised plots – nine of which are reserved for clinic patients and the rest set aside for the community. The plots were awarded by lottery and there’s a wait list. Gardeners pay $35 a year. The fenced-in area, with a shed and its thickly-growing gardens, is a peaceful oasis off a busy LA thoroughfare. The clinic patients attend classes there, where they learn ways to cook the fresh produce. They also learn the most nutritious ways to shop for food and to cook it.

Bokde is thrilled with the outcome. “I’ve become a convert,” she said.  And at no point did she feel the collaboration toward improving community health was forced. “It was very natural.” Her organization is also working with another clinic to build and run a community garden at a South LA high school.

The Los Angeles Neighborhood Land Trust even changed its tagline to “Growing Healthier Communities Through Urban Parks & Gardens.” And the Land Trust Alliance, a national group, asked Bokde to speak at its October 2012 annual conference in Salt Lake City on the intersection between public health and open space acquisition. She got an enthusiastic response and the national group invited her back to speak on the topic this year.

A woman named Imelda leisurely watered her garden plot one evening last summer in a busy LA neighborhood.

A woman named Imelda leisurely watered her garden plot one evening last summer in a busy LA neighborhood.

At the one-third acre garden site in Los Angeles one August evening last summer, a woman named Imelda was calmly watering the tomatoes, carrots and chilies she grows for her family. (Gardeners with extra can sell at a farm stand at the garden on weekends.)

Her family loves the fresh produce, but she’s also enriched by the experience. Tending her garden “takes a little of the stress away,” Imelda said.

TAKEAWAY: When nonprofits working in the same community set shared overarching outcomes, such as reducing violence, improving health or economic revitalization, they can produce outstanding results. 

  1. John Kania and Mark Kramer. “Collective Impact.” Stanford Social Innovation Review, Winter 2011.   www.ssireview.org/articles/entry/collective_impact
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Uncategorized

Del Norte Parents Push for More Vocational Training

This "School Success Express" bus toured California to support a new law that gives school districts more say in how money is spent.

This “School Success Express” bus toured California to support a new law that gives school districts more say in how money is spent.

On a recent November evening, Del Norte County residents streamed into the Crescent City Cultural Center, a rustic-themed building with soaring wood-beamed ceilings that’s one of the Northern California city’s best gathering places.

A large yellow school bus also pulled up, with “School Success Express” and images of students printed on its side. It carried residents from Smith River, an agricultural community 14 miles north. Many riding it had no transportation there otherwise.

Healthful drinks on tap for Crescent City "School Success Express" event.

Healthful drinks on tap for Crescent City “School Success Express” event.

A free buffet dinner, catered by Perlita’s Authentic Mexican Restaurant, and free childcare made it much easier for parents to attend the Wednesday evening event, sponsored by the California Endowment. After dinner the serious business began of brainstorming ways to spend an historic new source of state money for schools in low-income communities, such as Del Norte County.

This wasn’t an idle exercise – feedback from parents on how to spend this new infusion is required by the law.

It’s called the “Fair School Funding Law”, and California Gov. Jerry Brown championed it through the legislative process. In a public ceremony, he signed it into law on July 1. It restores local schools districts’ control over funds that were previously earmarked for scores of state-mandated programs, and – critically – gives extra funds to schools with a high number of low-income students, English learners and foster youth.

For the Del Norte County Unified School District, that means the annual budget for educating 4,100 students will go from $21 million in the current school year to $31 million by 2020, or $1.5 million annually for the next seven years, said Don Olson, district superintendent.

It won’t end the big funding gaps between state school districts, with districts in wealthier areas getting more than $21,000 per student, while those in areas with lower property tax revenues get about $6,000 per student. (1)  But it narrows the gap.

After several speeches by local leaders, the crowd of about 250 broke into groups to discuss the most urgent needs for improving schools. Themes such as smaller class sizes were common here and in the other 11 other such community gatherings sponsored by the California Endowment. And some spoke of better college preparation.

Del Norte residents listen to Chris Howard, a local business leader, talk about the boon to the community from the new school funding law.

Del Norte residents listen to Chris Howard, a local business leader, talk about the boon to the community from the new school funding law.

But the value of the new local control of spending was clear inside that Crescent City meeting hall, when table after table also mentioned the importance of vocational training.

Jobs are scarce in the area, and for some learning a trade is a viable path toward a good-paying job in the rural coastal county, population 28,000.

One man said he got his pilot’s license years ago from the local high school. A woman talked about teaching students gardening and cooking skills, while others discussed agricultural field trips and teaching farming skills, such as learning to operate large farming equipment.

“Life skills” also came up, like teaching kids communication skills to do well in an interview, etiquette classes, setting goals and even simply counting change.

“Not all kids college-bound,” commented one man.

The new plans for the funds take effect July 1, 2014. I’ll report then on what the Del Norte school district, with parent input, decides.

(1) California school district spending and test scores, California Watch, June2011.
http://schoolspending.apps.cironline.org

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