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Word on the Street about . . . Sustainability
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The trend in sustainability seems to be doing these grandiose reports and staying in consultant land, talking about 2030. They're focused on these big plans. The plan is only 10% of the solution. We want to be sure there is implementation at the grassroots level.
We're focusing on what we can do in the next two years, which is a lot. Just one thing we're doing is community-supported agriculture, including helping people get onto "50 mile diets." We're providing a distribution network for small farms on Kaua'i, which makes them sustainable and gets back to community economics where people are supporting themselves. We're revitalizing a guava farm when it was going to be shut down.
Keone Kealoha
Executive Director
Malama Kaua'i
Kilauea, Hawai'i
Word on the Street from: Council on Foundations Conference
When Pete Manzo, long-time grantseeker and nonprofit staffperson, told us he was going to the Council on Foundations conference for the first time (two weeks ago), he sounded to us like a Connecticut Yankee anticipating going to King Arthur's Court--what really happens at this grantmaker gathering where nonprofit folks can't go except by invitation from a foundation? So when he returned we asked him what his impressions were:
Well, warm and intimate it wasn't. It was HUGE--more than 3,000 people. The Gaylord Resort was cavernous, very new and lacking in soul. As Lucy Bernholz said, it was disorienting to hear people talking about environmental issues in a setting that seemed to waste energy and water and to have been designed to siphon off revenue from the nearby DC urban area.
People look at your badge to see where you work. Mine said "National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy" (where he's on the board) which I assume branded me as a left-wing outsider. Some of the plenary things were quite good, especially a panel on human rights - which was said to be the first
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Word on the Street about . . . Animal Welfare
There's a lot of confusion between animal welfare on one hand and the rights of people who are pet owners. For example, the Golden Gate National Recreation Area wants to keep dogs out of some areas to protect the Snowy Plover. Unlimited access for dogs on the beach is not an animal welfare issue. Protecting the Snowy Plover's nesting grounds is.
If there's one big thing happening it would be that people are talking about it more, that is, animal welfare. The ideas are becoming more mainstream, such as thinking about the food on your plate and what suffering might have been involved in the production of that dinner.
J.R. Yeager
Animal welfare volunteer advocate and
former San Francisco Animal Control and Welfare Commissioner
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Word on the Street About: The Mortgage Crisis and Transitional Housing
With the mortgage crisis and all the foreclosures, most people expected us to have a lot more families coming in. But instead, the issue has been that it's harder to get people out [of transitional housing] into [permanent] housing. People that are getting foreclosures are moving into rentals. Rental rates have gone up, vacancies have gone down and landlords can be as selective as they want to be. So we can't find affordable places for our families. You know, when people think about a homeless person, they think of a grizzled man on the street. But homeless people work at Target, work at Starbucks, have families; the husband in one of our families is in the National Guard.
Cate Steane, Executive Director, FESCO Family Shelter, Hayward, California
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Word on the Street About . . . Financial Aid
When I was in high school I wasn't the best student and no one took the time to talk to me about college. I worked for 20 years until someone took me by the hand and showed me how to apply for financial aid, and I got my BA at age 46.
We give scholarships to first generation students on limited income. I don't like "low income" so I say "limited income." We give them to 8th grade students, then it's held in trust until they graduate high school and then they get the scholarship of $1,000 towards college. Their graduation rate was far above the graduation rate of their peers. We had a grant but it expired. We're helping our young people learn to do scholarship research.
--Marie Hiykel, AIM Institute Educational Grants Manager, Omaha, Nebraska
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Word on the Street About . . .Bicycle Parking
The technology! There are these new bike parking machines that are bike carousels, 3 - 4 stories tall. You swipe your pass; the pass corresponds to a parking space. The machine turrets you and your bike up this concrete structure - which is really secure; no one's going to get through that! - and stops at your space. A door opens. You put your bike in, the door closes behind it, and it takes you back to the ground. We don't have them yet in the U.S., but they're coming.
Steve Mathis, Facilities Manager
bikestation
Long Beach, California
Bikestation is a nonprofit that develops and operates bicycle parking stations and related services with local partners.
Word on the Street about . . . Hospice
Two things. We aren't getting as many family volunteers as we used to. We still have so many volunteers--but fewer of them came from having a family member who died in our hospice. We've heard that from other hospices, too, but I don't know what it means. The other thing is that all the new regulations make it harder for volunteers. They used to be able to drive people, sometimes feed patients. Now they can't do those things.
Shaguna Wilkes
Volunteer Resources Coordinator
Pathways Hospice Foundation
Sunnyvale, California
