The Event.

Well I would consider the event a success! Seeing the sense of pride within the attendees from the community and the firmness of their handshakes and hugs expressed such gratitude toward our work. Ms. Gayle hugged me twice and thanked me for all of the work put into the event, which was so rewarding. I loved being positioned at the door because I got to interact with people as they’d walked in and see their faces light up as they’d entered the venue, some because they knew what it looked like before and basked in its renewal or some just happy to see other members of the neighborhood. I heard several compliments throughout the day; some referencing how good the food tasted or smelled (Thank you Mrs. Wesolowski), how great the decorations were or how great the music was. I thought the tributes to Carol were wonderful and considered her speech thoughtful in that she thanked everyone else and recognized that she had not done everything alone. In interacting with her, she appeared quite modest which was refreshing (compared to her successor).

That (interesting) politician came, which I figured he would. I’d encountered him for the first time at the meeting that I, Reece and Joy had attended last Thursday. Poor guy, I suppose he wanted to badly to appeal to the community but talked himself silly in my opinion. He kept saying the wrong things, which made me want to eat more and more. Nonetheless, his presence was good I suppose.

I am very proud of us as a class, in working together to give back to this community. Missy also put so much work into it. Dr. King and your husband, thank you so much for all of your help as well!

Update.

As of this point, I feel as though our event is coming together nicely and our demographic group has a good understanding of the work that lies ahead. We have to document all of the findings from the census data from each decade for both Brooklyn and Curtis Bay. It is worth noting that in past years, Fairfield, Masonville and Hawkins Point show up at some points in the maps over the years and the tracts are broken up between them. Brooklyn was split up into different parts of Baltimore City according to our maps and sometimes appeared to be partly non-existent. Some of the keys that are displayed to help one identify the changes that have taken place in documentation from decade to decade are vague to the point that there is slight confusion but as a group, we are working to figure it out. We have each committed to a decade and will work on the remaining decades together. In terms of identifiable trends, we have seen shifts of racial and ethnic populations as the decades pass but need to collect all the data to note them completely. There is a lot of information within the books so we have realized that photocopying may work to our advantage. For employment, they documented very specific work including managerial positions, labor intensive and educational. Some years even had the ages of individuals broken down by year (i.e. 1 year old, 2 year old). In the 1980’s, there were more Irish people than Polish in Brooklyn. Curtis Bay on the other hand had large numbers of both.  I am interested to know exactly what created this shift in population. The way that the information was broken down began to show minorities but mainly Hispanic populations. They appear to be redundant in the displaying of the information as well. This coming week, we will be gathering the rest of the information together and looking for trends. So far there have been noticeable differences in population density for both cities between decades but we haven’t had the chance to compile complete listings.

In terms of our actual event, I feel as though we have great activities in store. As we piece together each piece, I get a bit more excited. The tickets, the t-shirt, the buttons..everything is coming together wonderfully. I dropped off our in-kind donation letter to the Wal Mart located in Landsdowne and hope to follow up with them this week. When I’d visited the Rita’s in Arbutus said that they do charitable donations but I would have to contact them when the owner is around which really depends on his schedule so I am going to try back on the times that they listed him as being available. 

Our visit to the school was wonderful, and I had the chance to talk to some of the children about their paintings as well as their school and home experiences. There were several sibling sets that I’d met. The environment was so positive and the children were so eager to engage in conversation with us. I hope that they are able to attend the event.

As the event approaches...

I feel a bit more confident about the event. I am excited that we are getting the home-cooked food added to the menu because I am also an advocate for its ability to bring people together. When we think about cookouts, they are usually hosted in backyards or other family based events so I feel as though we will attach that attitude to our event.

Our demographic work is still a work in progress so we will have more to report on that in a few days.

In terms of getting the word out, I have posted a few flyers in the American Studies hallway and talked about it in a few AMST classes but plan on tackling them all as the event approaches..as in next week or the week after. I just want to compile a list of what I will say as well as the benefits to attending our event to generate a buzz, sell t-shirts and tickets. I am excited all in all!

Demographics

I finally feel useful! The demographics portion of our experience seems to be tedious but very interesting to say the least. When visiting the basement of the library, I came across so many different categorizations of race and ethnicity adopted by our country for classification issues that I had previously known of, but just felt differently seeing it in front of me for the first time. I knew that actually interacting with these documents for the purpose of this class would be just as interesting; I may even get a bit aggravated.

The trends that we have noticed thus far were expected. The categorizations of what constituted minority groups shifted over time but nonetheless, kept Caucasians in larger numbers. We are still working on documenting information from each decade starting with 1940 so I believe that I will have more to say on the matter and our findings come the end of the week.

At This Point

In terms of generating attention, I want to hand out flyers on UMBC’s campus to ensure that students are informed about our event. I would also want to involve the UMBC webpage as well as the myumbc ticker. I would also want to take advantage of the open spaces on campus such as academic row where the Chick Fil A and Starbucks are in terms of advertising on campus either by posting ourselves there and creating a scene (with maybe music and flyers), the space in front of the library and also the Erickson field area. Advertising in the Commons would work to our benefit as well. For the donations of food from local vendors, I would prefer for us to go to the community beforehand and get acquainted with residents. This would allow us to familiarize ourselves with possible resources and people. The establishments that Rachel and I were able to visit had generally inviting atmospheres and the people appeared to be positively responsive to our presence with greetings and their overall demeanors.  At this point I still feel a bit detached from the event only because I feel that it is split down the middle with Art and History and with my expertise not necessarily residing within each of the two. But I do believe that I can still be valuable and contribute to either one. My grouping is now within the Art sector and I feel that our groups are wonderfully engaged and will incorporate each and everyone of us effectively. I see so much fun ahead of us!

1970 to 1980 and Demographics.

For my decade of 1970-1980, I was able to find a few articles in the archives of the Baltimore Sun. My findings for included obituaries, political campaign activity, industrial testing, a memorial pieces, demographic concern, and wedding announcements. The industrial testing articles spoke about the pollution in bodies of water that affected the water supply that was distributed to the neighboring communities. The memorial pieces consisted of a dedication to a retired Baltimore City policeman who had died of a heart attack and a member of the National Guard. The article on demographic concern referenced population movements between Baltimore City and Baltimore County, speaking of possible causes. The wedding announcements talked about brides to be and the tie to Brooklyn and Curtis Bay was that their families were from those areas.

The more recent publications referenced the movie filming of “XXX:State of the Union” which came to Baltimore City , political activity amongst communities and government officials and political activists’ working on facilitating community relations. The article about the movie spoke about how part of the city had to be shut down to accommodate filming and the article about community relationships spoke about the Chemical Industry Council of Maryland placing billboards throughout the city to "improve community outreach".

In relation to demographics and census data, I was able to find listings for both Brooklyn and Curtis Bay. Each chart contained valuable data with reference to population, ethnicity, income, age and all other viable pieces of information. I have both pdf’s printed out for reference.

Source for Demographics:

“Baltimore City NSA Demographic Profiles” Census 2000 data.

 <http://censusprofile.bnia.org/>

Rachel and I Visit The Community.

In terms of public relations and advertising, it appears as though there are several avenues available to our disposal within the community. The most viable, preliminarily in my opinion would be the bars. These appear to be attractive locations for getting the word out there. It is possible that the patrons within these establishments routinely visit and would easily see whatever advertisements we were to leave there on display.

Another thing that we noticed was that the people that we ran into appeared friendly.   This was a positive and led us to believe that we would not run into as many roadblocks as we had anticipated. Related to roadblocks though, we’d noticed that a few places were shut down or may have modified store hours, which were not on display for us to see, so we can only infer that they were not operating.

We were able to visit five establishments, two of them giving us their menus for us to contact them: Shirley’s Sunny Side Restaurant and Ultimate Pizza and Wings. After visiting the places that we were able to and generally scoping out the landscape, we decided the best way to interact with the community members to give them a feel for who we are and what we are about would be to go as a bigger group later in the day to visit these bars. It would be a great opportunity to interact with them in a laid back setting to meet common ground.

We're On Our Way.

I felt a lot of our feasibility studies had highly sustainable aspects to them. For example, the idea in Hillary’s project to join forces with their local schools works perfectly because it links us with students to promote scholarship and higher learning while in the process also helps out the community in giving the opportunity for being creative. Tying them into Earth Day would be wonderful too. Having them do easy projects with the guarantee of having an end product: a tree to watch grow is a great idea to have them feel a sense of belonging within their community. To know that their hands actually touched the soil right in there backyard, figuratively of course, could really go a long way. It would add a sense of pride to the community. I love the dirt cups idea as well because I used to do that in school and loved it. Brian’s idea of using trash was definitely original and I would love to also use stuff they already find amongst themselves to create our final project. But I am sure we do understand where difficulties would arise. Joy’s idea to project different images on different platforms is great and I believe the walking tour would be a wonderful touch. In terms of feasible projects, each project idea had do-able components. I definitely see us all collaborating effectively on what can be taken from each one to create our final product. I love the idea of having local vendors contribute but wonder if we are limited in that there are probably very few and of that few, them having enough to sacrifice may be an issue as well. Nonetheless, I know it will be easy to find donors whether they are local or outside of the community. I am so excited about us having the ball rolling and seeing everyone’s creative juices flowing!

This is random but I just wanted to throw in here that I love “The Good’s” as a title, it made me crack up :)

Feasibility Study

Title and Logo Are Featured Above. Our Logo reads as followed: "Footprints and Laughter Are What We Are After".

Mission Statement:

Restoring hope within and promoting awareness on behalf of the Curtis Bay Community in Baltimore City. There is a need for a sense of pride within this particular area due to it’s industrialized history and our family fun event pushes to assist in facilitating that.

Project Description:

We will host a three-hour event that is sure to incorporate the welcoming of younger individuals as well as older individuals. The whole idea behind our event will be to appeal to whole families; having something for everyone. Our event will take place in the Polish Home Hall and it’s yard. With the Hall’s desire to once again be a central part of the community, hosting our event would be a great way to promote that ideal.

For the face painting for the children, we will have four art students from local high schools earn community-service learning hours by working at our event. UMBC art students may volunteer their time as well. There will be four different stations dedicated to face painting.

There will be a tug of war contest to promote collaboration. We can pick sides at random to ensure that there is diversity and to steer individuals away from confining themselves to specific groupings.

For our karaoke stand, we will provide a karaoke machine rented from a Baltimore vendor. This will be hosted on the bottom floor of the Polish Home Hall.

We will have the opportunity for people to just listen to music or dance with one another on the upstairs level for an hour. We will have music from the past playing (1950’s until now, maybe even earlier depending on the feedback we get) to tap into a collective sense of nostalgia. We will have Internet access through a laptop and the proper cords available, giving us the opportunity to take song requests from different individuals. For the remaining two hours, we will   

With the three-hour time frame, we leave half an hour for both events for leeway in case the time for listening to music and dancing goes over the hour time limit. In that case, we will change that increment to being an hour and a half and then for the remaining hour and a half, have the storytelling event. For our storytelling event we will have a listing of individuals who were interested in speaking and depending on the number of volunteers, have their time limits range from five minutes to seven minutes. If our number is low enough, we may even have pre-determined speeches and imagery to enhance it. We can have them bring photographs in to be passed around or family albums if they desire to. In the case that we have several volunteers, which means over twelve, we will stick to a five-minute time limit.

Through generous donations, the food from our event will be provided by Chick-Fil-A, Papa Johns, Subway and Dunkin Donuts. Chick-Fil-A will also be providing their cow for us to entertain the children with. We will have volunteer photographers from school taking pictures of the children with the cow and doing other activities. After the event is complete, we will create a scrapbook with the photographs that were taken during the event. The scrapbook will be placed on display at the Polish Home Hall.

In terms of admission, we will charge adults $15.00 and children $7.00. If we were to get 100 adults and 100 children, we will make our grant money back and have $700 in surplus. Members of the community coalition will get a discount with the adults costing $11.00 and children costing $5.00.

The proceeds from our event will go toward the prom for the Senior Class at the local high school. We will speak with their planning committee and find out what reservations have been made already and if any sort of wish list exists. We will also find out what classes in the past have done and see if there is anything that has been done away with due to lack of funds or if there is anything that they have really wanted but could not afford.

Committee Structure:

Organizational Committee: This committee is designed to keep the event as a whole organized. Essentially, this is whom all other committees report to. They keep tabs on what still needs to be purchased, taken care of, picked up or dropped off. They also keep track of the money being spent and how much is left.  Also in charge of organizing who runs each game or activity at the actual event.

Purchasing Committee: This committee is dedicated to going out and buying the supplies needed for the activities. These will be all supplies that are not being donated such as the prizes that will be given away for the raffle being held.

Donation Committee: This committee is to make sure that each place that has agreed to donate something makes good on their donations. This group will probably be split up even further into sub groups just so that each place is always working with the same people just to make sure that there is consistency and less confusion.

Advertising Committee: This committee is designed to raise awareness and intrest about the event as a whole. In this they will be in charge of making flyers and advertisements.  They can also go door to door or hang out at local spots to promote the event and talk about its purpose and how they can benefit personally as well as their community benefiting as well. Essentially this committee is to make our event look as good as we know it will be :)

Budget:

We will reserve $600.00 for American Express gift cards to be used as prizes for a raffle. There will be four $5.00 cards, four $10.00 cards, four $15.00 cards and four $20.00 cards dedicated to the children’s raffle. For the adult raffle, there will be ten $20.00 cards, two $50.00 cards and one $100.00 card. In the case that we are required to pay an activation fee for each card, our miscellaneous account will have the funds to cover that.

From the KIPP online store, we will buy paint to be used for the face paint, which costs $5.99 per bundle. We will purchase four, which brings our total to $23.80.

From Amazon.com, we will purchase Snazzaroo brushes to be used for the face painting, which will cost $5.56 per pack of three brushes. The shipping will be free which will bring our brush purchase total to $22.24.

The Moon Bounce Rental will cost $165.00 plus sales tax and an additional $10.00 per extra hour, plus sales tax. This would bring our total for this rental to $185.00 plus sales tax, which was not readily available.

The Dual Lane Slip and Slide rental will cost $325.00 for one hour plus sales tax and $10.00 per additional hour. Our event will be held for a total of three hours, which brings our total to $345.00 plus sales tax, which was not readily available.

Ngeri owns a Banzai water slide, which we will borrow for the event for no fee.

We will rent a rope for tug of war, which costs $10.00 plus sales tax, which was not readily available.

We will also rent a Karaoke machine, which will cost $195.00.

There will be a miscellaneous account with $200.00 reserved for late fees, transportation costs and any other fee that may come about. This will be our just in case money.

That brings our total to $1,186.04. Should the sales tax for the items exceed our $1,500.00 restriction, we will do away with the moon bounce and just use both water structures. This would bring our total to $1,001.04.

Schedule:

All food donations are to be finalized by the end of March, Thursday, March 31, 2011. An inventory of just what food items will be provided needs to be done by that date.

For the rental equipment, those are to be finalized by Friday, April 8, 2011. This consists of the Moon Bounce, Karaoke Machine, Tug of War rope and

All online purchases including the face paint and brushes are to be made by Friday, April 8, 2011 as well.

The interviews for our story telling event will have to be completed by Wednesday, April 20, 2011. We will go door to door and speak to community members. With that we hope to generate a listing of those interested in speaking at the event and get a feel for what they would be saying.

Feasibility Statement:

Our goal is to raise a sense of pride within a community that seems to have lost hope in itself. We want the community to come together to laugh and have a good time, and remember how much more they can accomplish by helping one another and being there for each other. In class we talked about how the children view their neighborhood as opposed to how the adults view it. We want to actually create what the children already believe in. We want to give the students in middle school encouragement to finish high school through example and showing them the tools they have sitting right in front of them and their surrounding areas.

With that our event will connect children and adults one and the same to come and have a good time. They will be in the presence of people who care about their community and perhaps be encouraged to do the same. A relaxed and fun environment created right there in their community which some of them thought had nothing left. What could possibly be better than that?

Bibliography:

Hoponpops.com  Moon Bounce Rental, Dual Lane Slide Rental and Tug of War Rope Rental

Amazon.com  Face Painting Brushes

Kipptoys.com  Face Paint

Giant Grocery Store   Gift cards.

Coryoke.com     Karaoke machine rental.

Chick Fil A: Landsdowne, Md.                Food Donation

Dunkin Donuts: Landsdowne, Md.      Food Donation.

Papa John’s: Catonsville, Md.                 Food Donation

Subway: Catonsville, Md.                         Food Donation

Our Session With Missy.

I felt as though our session was very informative. We were able to get an even more in depth feel of her passion for the community. To know that her work with them stemmed from being in our situation at one point really made it feel more personal. It was good to hear the ideas from classmates and to get her viewpoint on them because she has a feel for what the community tends to respond to and what works best with them. I loved the ideas that we'd come up with because they all incorporated involvement amongst different community members. I also had the chance to envision some of our thoughts coming together. Missy brought up very valid points in terms of turning hope into a more concrete idea and also having the community not feel as though handouts are all that they should be receiving. Her point of saying that if she were to do the clothing drive again that she would have some sort of fee shows that she has gone through a process of trial and error with her first go being a success but learning from what was done and thinking about modifications to be made should an attempt be made to do the same thing again. Her spending time with us was very valuable because she serves as a liaison between us and the community members. She is also a good contact for us to use along the way even if just to run ideas by.

Seeing Baybrook

Visiting Baybrook was a wonderful experience. Having the opportunity to be in the spaces that we'd read about created a sense of eagerness, opportunity and uneasiness. I felt the urge to canvas the neighborhood and get a feel for what the residents had to say but understand that in time, I may be able to do that. I was at a loss of ideas in terms of what I wanted to do but in the same instances, saw countless possibilities all over. The Polish Home Hall seemed central to the community but even moreso was the water tower. From four different spaces that we'd visited, I could see it off in the near distance. I was also very curious as to what the inside of it looked like. Seeing the people along the streets also enhanced my desire to make an event that is inviting/welcoming to all. Missy was a great guide as to what the community was about, what it needs and how people respond to it. I hope to attend meetings within the community and hand out flyers door to door to get a feel for who lives there and also give them the chance to know who I am.

Biddy Mason.

A Home as History.

We have come to think of history as grand scaled events or being influenced by individuals who have figuratively moved mountains. Especially in our collective past as a country, African Americans have been pushed to the wayside when it comes to representation.

The homestead of Biddy Mason. It is understandable to debate why one’s home should and could be classified as a historic landmark or a place deserving of recognition.

It is important to realize what went on within the constraints of the home, what conversations may have been had, what occupations were practiced within the walls and who the people were that lived there.

Biddy Mason created a name for herself during her time. She was a figure within her community and personalized her space at 331 Spring Street in Los Angeles. There was a garden, space for her grandson’s businesses and her living quarters all contained by brick in a two-story layout.

It can be assumed that she may have felt that she was just living her life and providing for her family, but her role extended past her kin.

By 1986, this space had transformed to a parking lot where layers of asphalt hid stories of the past. Unsuccessful attempts had been at reviving the space in commemoration of its African American occupancy. Following her death, her grandson wanted to turn it into a community center in 1905. In the 1970’s, there was an attempt made to honor Biddy Mason’s hand in founding the church, but that too ended without progress.

The organization “The Power of Place” was able to secure a commemoration to Fire Station 30 and some firefighters and their families were also involved in the process. During some attention received in honor of Black History Month, the fire station was mysteriously burned down. No one knows if it was an accident or intentional, but nonetheless, it had an affect on how the space was used. Many felt their safety was compromised and the idea was abandoned altogether.

Biddy Mason was a Midwife and she helped found the Los Angeles AME Church.

Miriam Matthews, a retired librarian was a grand resource for all involved to pull information from. She’d had lots of materials on African Americans from the Los Angeles area. She had scrapbooks to show people as well.

She brought Biddy Mason to life, showing that she was not this grand figure, but a human being who accepted and excelled in her responsibilities.

Betye Saar, Donna Graves,Sheila Levrant de Brettsville who is an artist and Susan E. King who is also an artist successfully put on the display. Our book’s author Dolores Hayden also played a hand in creating the exhibit.

After reading this article and reflecting on the outcome, I thought about the Power of Place in connection with power in general. When African Americans made attempts, they got nowhere. It wasn’t until The Power of Place and it’s aides came into the picture that desirable outcomes were reached. Of course, I am not considering this a negative thing, just pointing out the politics behind our society in conjunction with this particular memorial. When individuals who’d had direct affiliations with the commemorated figure Biddy Mason attempted to honor her, their attempts were cut short but when individuals so far removed but belonging to the dominant race came fourth, they were successful.

In terms of our own project, I am a big advocate for having all hands on deck. Involvement of members of the community is key in all aspects. I would love to ensure that they feel their presence in whatever it is that we do. It is one thing to get ideas from them, interact with them and then put on a production…but another to have them active throughout the entire process; having them be hands on during the event as well. That would be a wonderful collaboration.

Of course I have said that I love family fun events that involve members of all age groupings. I love storytelling and realized in class that it would be fun to get the Visual Arts department on board to create something tangible to walk away from. From the aspect of ensuring all voices are heard, it would be great to videotape everyone saying something about the area, children included. For them may have a few questions to get them talking or who knows..they may just have something to say. But to create a documentary with snippets of what was said..maybe even two versions…one that has the conversations in full length and then one that could be shown in the background of our event or something. Either way, we would be able to generate income that way. Also another idea would be to have a big circle where we all sit around and tell stories. We could all sit down criss-cross apple sauce (yeah, I took it back to grade school with that, lol) and the storyteller would be in the middle pivoting around to make sure that everyone could see and hear them. We could pass pictures around and what not or just something to keep everyone interacting with one another and engaged. Another idea I have (gosh, all of these ideas that have generated through our discussions in class) is to have some of us tell snippets of a story from first person as if we have experienced them to show everyone that we are similar, that any story could be our story and then have the actually owner of the story stand up and tell the rest. For example, I could stand up and say “My home was right over there on such and such street, now all that stands there is garbage and shreds of metal…” and then say to everyone that not really, but that could be my reality. Following that, then we would have the actual person who that applies to stand up and tell their story. I don’t know..those are just ideas.

Skills Survey.

List skills you may have related to business planning or managerial experience.  Also, include how you envision your abilities as a leader.

While I have no professional experience in the business or managerial sectors, I have been a leader in several situations. Working in the daycare, I have been placed in a position to create plans for the children and guide them through activities. I have also been given the opportunity to train new employees for work.

In terms of my abilities as a leader, I envision myself utilizing my communication skills and love of people to find and/or create common ground and operate on that. I love working with people and ensuring they feel comfortable around me to guarantee positive experiences when interacting.

List any skills you have with research, preservation, and/or public history.  This may involve archival work, oral history, or compiling of secondary sources. 

I have acquired the skills to research a specific topic, work with a number of approaches and methods, cite the work that I have referenced to aide me as well as document what was done every step of the way through a number of courses that I have taken here at UMBC in the American Studies department. The most intensive being AMST 290 and AMST 496.

List any skills you have with creative production such as filming, video editing, publishing, and any other artistic productions.

I have a video editing program on my computer that allows me to create and edit videos. I have no professional experience with this but have played around a bit just to get a feel for what can be done with the software. I have created videos for classes before.

List any skills or connections you have with non-profit or other pertinent organizations in the area.

I have signed up to work with CASA, which stands for Court Appointed Special Advocate in Prince George’s County but due to work conflict had to resign and plan on reapplying soon.

List any knowledge or experience with the greater Baybrook region.

None past what has been mentioned in other American Studies courses and this current one.

 

List any other skills you have that may be pertinent to the class project.

I love working in groups and the ideas surrounding the notion of community. I also love helping and working with people who come from different backgrounds. I feel as though these qualities will help me maximize my experience with this class project.

List any ideas you have about the class project at this early stage.

I want the project to be family-centered to ensure that we have as many involved as possible. A great way to interact with people is to be inviting to all, as opposed to catering to one specific age group or gender. The “all are welcome” approach yields the most beneficial results.