The Learning Curve

Keeping up the Tutor Mentor Connection

2012-02-24T13:30:00.003-08:00

If you guys have been keeping up with our posts, you'd know that I mention the Tutor Mentor Institute more than any other organization. When I started working seriously with Femi Memorial Outreach, my first big non-profit conference was sponsored by the Tutor Mentor Institute. I think I learned more in that one, activity packed, day than I had in my first month as an administrator and program developer.

Many of our readers might not know this, but I'm only a college-student. So submerging myself in the culture of non-profits was both overwhelming and exhilarating. There is so much to learn, and so many obstacles to tackle. As a newcomer to the non-profit game, I'm sure the more well-seasoned participants roll their eyes at my naivete. Of course it's hard! The giant obstacles inherent in a non-profit are also what make it so dynamic. And, there's always someone out there more experienced and wiser to give you some advice.

Example: Here is the latest set of videos put out by the Tutor Mentor Institute and Becoming We The People. Taken from a panel discussion in Hyde Park, a couple of non-profit "experts" gave advice while participating in a panel on obstacles in non-profit business. Take a look.

You can find more here, as well as on Dan Bassil's, founder of the Tutor Mentor Institute, blog.

Fundraiser Wednesdays

2012-02-22T11:39:00.000-08:00

Hi there!

So, if you've checked our twitter in the last couple of weeks, you'd see that Femi Memorial Outreach has been getting ready for a big fundraiser in the next couple of months. We can't say too much about it now. However, all will slowly be revealed! I can't wait to write up the big post in May after it all happens, with loads of pictures and wonderful news.

As a blog, we are mostly targeted towards keeping the general Chicago public informed about what we do as an organization as well as the latest in education news. But, we are also an organization that strives to be a successful non-profit. Part of this job includes helping out other non-profits/ becoming a community of non-profits. (If you want more about becoming a network of non-profits, visit an older post here, or the tutor-mentor connection website). So, in an effort to help out other non-profits-- and generally educate the public and our lovely readers on what it's like to be a non-profit--I'm starting Fundraiser Wednesdays.

Every Wednesday, I'll be working on our fundraiser. After all the hard work, I'll let you, our readers, know step-by-step what I did. Since this is Femi's inaugural fundraiser, hopefully we'll all be learning something together. It goes without saying that I'm a newcomer at this. But, I won't hesitate to share mistakes, mishaps, and great accomplishments.

In our first installment, we'll be working on Picking a Venue.

The first step in planning a fundraiser is thinking about what kind of event you want to have. The second step ( and perhaps the more important step) is thinking about what kind of evemt you should have. What I mean is, Femi really wants to throw a lavish banquet and thank you dinner for all of our lovely donors and tutor mentors. Think jazz band, the South Shore Cultural Center, and big white bows wrapped around chairs lining a dining table the length of a ballroom! That would be thrilling, no?
But, we should be holding a less cost-intensive event where getting money is our main focus, not an extravagant set-up.

This was our first, shaky, scary, BUT firm decision: throwing a dinner, with no illusions about the fundraising aspect of it-- this includes ticket and table sales, as well as auctions and raffles. After all, there's a reason it's called fundraising. Until your organization is a big one, cinematic banquets have to be a pipe dream.

So we started looking for venues. This is a frustrating task. Most people turn to hotels immediately when thinking about an event. However, these are often very expensive. Not only do you have to rent a space, but you have to bring in individuals caterers and wait staff to host the event, as well as decorators to make it look pretty. Sometimes hotels will do two, or even three of these tasks. But, it's going to cost you. So what are other options? Restaurants? Gymnasiums? Auditoriums? Parishes? The options are endless and overwhelming-- to make matters worse, there's no comprehensive list of " Affordbale Fund Raiser Venues In Chicago" out there. Believe me, I've Googled.

My advice: work your connections. Most likely, your organization is affiliated with some space, somehow. Or someone on your board is, if the organization isn't. When you have a personal connection with someone they are more likely to offer you a deal on the space rental, or some other cost. Think about someone you know with a great space, no matter how far removed the connection. It may be an unlikely space, like a huge warehouse, or a small restaurant. But, it doesn't matter what the space normally is. What matters is how you can tailor it to fit your needs in a cost-efficient manner. If your organization is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3), this is going to be a little easier for you, and you should work that advantage.

Our main objective when looking for a venue was affordability, as well as streamlining the process (meaning bringing in as few outside parties as possible). Finding a place that does all three things (host a space, cater the food, and decorate) is the optimum venue extraordinaire. When you book a space that offers you the triple threat, they are likewise more easily convinced to give you a deal.

So-- the most wonderful and ideal venue location hosts, dines, and rents; is somehow affiliated with the organization; and will offer you a deal on at least one of your expenses.

If you're still reading I know what you're thinking. How can you find this!? But securing only one part of this ideal venue gives you a great advantage. This is an exercise in innovation, creativity, perception, and diligence.

Sounds a little overwhelming, I know. The first step is the scariest and the hardest. You'll keep worrying if it was the right one to take. The first week will be all phone calls and meetings. You and your Excel Spreadsheet will become best friends. But, don't fret. After this is gets (a little) easier!

Next Wednesday-- Looking for Sponsors!

Links for the Week

2012-02-08T12:11:00.000-08:00

Here are some good links, around the web about education, social issues, and the wonderful city of Chicago.

A sad, and bizarre take on the Chicago Father of the Year contest, which speaks a lot to the way we view fathers in society, and especially impoverished communities.

The war for the charter school is on in Alabama: click here, and here to read more.

Obama announces $1 million plan to train new educators.

The Chicago Tribune weighs in on the longer school day, Rahm Emanuel, and Arne Duncan.

And an article on Maurice Sendak, beloved author of children's book Where the Wild Things Are.

Happy middle of the week!

R.I.P Hull House

2012-02-08T11:28:00.000-08:00

For those of you unfamiliar with Hull House, here's the rundown:
It's old.
Started in 1889 by public intellectuals, authors and suffragettes Jane Addams and Ellen Gates Starr, Hull House began as a safe haven for feminist activism. Founders Addams and Starr worked tirelessly to provide shelter for neglected children, female victims of domestic abuse, and European immigrants.Under their watch, Hull House helped influence loads of legislation, from creating the local library branch system in Chicago, to child labor laws and immigrant rights. What started as a state-level project to ameliorate poverty, turned into a major political platform for the Progressive party on the federal level.

Jane Addams, co-founder of Hull House

Hull House was created out of the founding tenants of Americanism-- hard work should yield equal rights and opportunities. Its mission was the kind of thing we only hear presidents talk about now, but never fully feel the effects. I mean, here's an inspiring tidbit: Starr taught Shakespeare, Browning, and Dante in the slums of Chicago before "reading initiative programs" even existed!

The original Hull House building

Over time, Hull House grew out of its physical namesake house, and into a larger umbrella organization offering social welfare services across the city of Chicago.The association had over 50 programs in 40 sites, serving around 60,000 individuals, in families and communities every day. Late last month, however, with little warning, Hull House employees were handed their last paycheck. Few knew the organization was in financial trouble, let alone filing for bankruptcy.
The words "too big to fail" didn't seem to hold true in the banking industry-- but where does this leave non-profits?

The social issues that moved Addams and Starr to start Hull House haven't drastically changed in the last, oh, 123 years. Addams wrote in her book The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets (1909), that she feared the urban life had a negative effect on children, harming the spirit of youth ( as the title suggests). Art, drama, and foreign language, and free-speech were valued above all. In her public speeches, Addams strayed from academic language, hoping to inspire and reach an audience without an education. This is a pre-World War ideology we're talking about here, where the practice of democracy trickled evenly into the realm of ethics, immigration, and most importantly, education.

What does a non-profit strive to do now? Provide economic empowerment options, better educate youth, and facilitate social mobility-- these objectives don't seem too far from our predecessors' (Addams and Starr) initial dream. So how can something so deeply embedded in an American and Chicagoan history, just go away? Why does Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac get bailed out, while Hull House slowly sinks into a watery grave?

I already mentioned earlier this week that we had to say goodbye to one of our locations after our after-school coordinator was let go from Hull House. Although this is something that personally hit our organization, it's more shocking that I was one out of 60,000 individuals in Chicago affected by the Hull House. So what is there to say?

The slums of yesteryear, aren't distant cousins from the urban housing projects of today.


Chicago Slums 1890s

Chicago Urban Housing 2012

I feel like everyone in the non-profit game wanes in enthusiasm from time to time. Education outreach or urban renewal, more than any other philanthropic sect, seems to be the hardest-- a constant battle upstream. Because donors are rarely from lower-income themselves, there isn't the same humanist and subjective impulse to donate, as there is, say for cancer research. Changing lives is an amorphous goal, especially in today's world where evidence, results, and science feel like the only ways to actually demonstrate progress. Is it the inability to chart progress, through human lives, what keeps the education reform movement stagnant?

But, what about these photos? Can we say there's been progress? I think there's definitely been an increase in the quality of education since the 1890s-- but in a much different way than Starr and Addams probably envisioned.

Does the mere structure of American society ensure that "urban housing" or slums will exist? With all the help from non-profits, how can we still feel like we are getting nowhere fast? Which of us are too small to fail, but too small to make a real difference, too?

A belated Happy New Year, and other glad new tidings

2012-02-01T11:34:00.000-08:00

Happy Belated New Year! I know, we're a bit late. Although we've been on the downward slope on keeping up the blog, we still haven't forgotten about our internet community. Stories have been buzzing around my head, and I can't wait to get back into the swing of things.
Would you believe it if I told you we've been busy this year?

2012 has already brought so many wonderful opportunities.
First off, we've partnered with a new school site to begin tutoring. Welcome McNair Elementary to the world of Femi Tutoring. Valerie and I went in early December to the site to do a walk-through and preliminary safety inspection with the head of Off-Campus Employment at Dominican University. We recruit tutors predominately from Dominican to work in our sites on the West Side.

McNair was one of the most inspiring sites I've been to since working with Femi Outreach.
Since the West Side is a transitional neighborhood, the school has had to work hard to keep up with the ever changing flux of students. Additionally, Chicago has one of the most under-funded and attended mental health and disabilities programs for children, especially in the inner city. (For a great article on WBEZ about this, click here.) Principal Shirley Dillard has gone far beyond the call of duty in fully equipping her school to cater to the needs of handicapped children, grades K-8.

Each floor, comprised of long, tiled sparkling hallways, has designated classrooms divided into grade, and level of disability. Here, students ranging from simple hearing impairments to severe learning handicaps are able to receive the right amount of attention, with trained specialists and in a class room of their peers. McNair doesn't exclusively have a handicapped student population-- all types of children roam in and out of the school day, with toleration and acceptance always at the top of the lesson plan.

I want to welcome McNair today, but also congratulate the Femi Team! It's an honor to be able to work with such a virtuous institution.

However, with the ushering in of a new school, sadly comes the goodbye to another. Unfortunately, we no longer can claim John Hay Elementary as part of the Femi mission. Earlier this week, the fall and bankruptcy of the Jane Addams Hull-House brought the organization to an end. Our participation in John Hay relied heavily on the presence of Hull House, who staffed an after-school supervisor and extra-curricular coordinator for many years. Without the Hull House, we are unable to continue serving the students there.
Later in the week I hope to write more about this. Look out for a post.

To close, here is a picture taken by Valerie of one of our senior tutors, Kristine, whose been with the organization since her freshman year of college. She works in one of our Park Districts on the North Side.

And look at that forecast! Hello Chicago!

Lastly, some links to things going on around the internet today, along with interesting education articles.
Goodbye Hull House
Obama on drop out rates
10 Tips for traveling with kids
Some great stories by kids over at the 826 writing gallery, and here
Article by bullies, for the bullied
A great organization in Chicago for girls, and finding their confidence

That's all!
Happy Wednesday.

Tutor-Mentor Conference

2011-11-08T15:47:00.000-08:00

This past Friday I went to the Tutor-Mentor Conference. There was an outstanding turnout from various different education and mentor programs from across the Chicago area. I don't think I fully realized the impact and breadth of education non-profits throughout the Chicago area until Friday.

On the surface, the scene looked like a group of regular people, sleepy eyed, and pounding back cups of coffee as the 8a.m conference began. But, throughout the day people slowly removed their shell and opened up about their projects: executive directors, media relation managers, tutors, and people with projects so new, they hadn't even started yet. The level of enthusiasm was unending.

I know that before I became directly affiliated and invested in a non-profit, all these efforts seemed the same. It appeared that everyone was trying to end poverty or fix the public school system. The conglomerate of good natured, human rights activists had it all handled. Isn't it easier to sit back and let those bright smiling Greenpeace canvassers do all the work? Aren't there, like, people who eat this kind of thing for breakfast, never growing tired?

The answer is no! We are all so tired! It is so hard to be a non-profit, especially in the current financial situation (a phrase that can be applied to anything! What if your business or company solely relied on the kindness of others? What kind of business model is that you might ask? The non-profit kind!)

A big theme of the conference was unity among non-profits; lending a hand to multiple causes instead of just trying to pursue your own organization's best interest. In learning to become a community we can form an umbrella of service to Chicago.

So here's the main point: there are individuals in this world that actually change things. The rhetoric of "impact" and "social consciousness" does not come close to doing justice to the back-breaking, tiring work it takes to make a non-profit run. We do not operate on a massive corporate level. There are individuals in the totally American sense of the word, seeking out other individuals and offering a hand. Sometimes that hand is not graceful. Often it is overworked and underpaid.
The non-profit worker does not explode into inspirational song, with Cinderella's animated birds tweeting over their shoulder as they save lives and "make a difference."
Often they just talk to the community. Or read to a fourth-grader whose mom can't. Or take someone out to lunch for the day. And sometimes they embark on those life-affirming missions. It all takes time.

I thought I'd post a list of some of the organizations I learned about to better promote this sense of community, and recognize the stunning individuals who are helping make Chicago dynamic, safer, and bewitching in its contradictions and beauty:
The Black Star Project
The East Village Youth Program
Becoming We The People
And of course there's always our organization Femi Memorial Outreach.

And here is a little picture of Dan Bassill, the progenitor of it all, with one of his first mentee's Tramaine Ford. Tremaine grew up in Chicago's infamous Cabrini Green. Mr. Bassill worked with Cabrini Connections at the time. A video-making program initiative at Cabrini Connections handed Tramaine the camera that led to his career on Broadway, TV, and now his one-man show that is touring across the country at university campuses.

Get involved today! Comment and let me know what you think!

I'm Not Eating That

2011-10-21T16:35:00.000-07:00

Here's an interesting link I found earlier today:

Fed Up With Lunch

It's a website created by a Chicago school-worker who secretly ate school lunch for an entire year, photographed her meals, and then blogged about them.

She's creating quite a stir in the community, advocating for nutritional school lunch reform.
Here's a write up in the Chicago Sun Times.
And here's the link to her Flickr with all the photos! Look at those hamburgers!

When I was in elementary school there was nothing I loved more than square pizza. The more ranch dressing to dip it in the better. But looking at the pictures, school lunch has gone beyond grease. We've moved to shrink-wrapped, plastic covered, chemically modified territory.

Correlations between hormonal development in young girls and boys and chemically altered foods have often provided scary and unsettling results. In the majority of schools that Femi Memorial Outreach partners with, 90% of students are on the Free Lunch program. That means that not only are these lunches our student's only options, but they are also meals these children think are reasonable and normal to eat. Students learn all kinds of things at school-- one of them seems to be poor eating habits.

What should we do? Get involved with the Healthy Schools Campaign?

The Short of It: Longer School Day Program Halted

2011-10-21T16:10:00.000-07:00

Chicago has one of the shortest school days in all of the United States.
The bell ringing with just 5.14 hours of instruction per day, Chicago school systems have been under fire since Mayor Rahm Emanuel took office and started campaigning to add ninety more minutes to the public school day.
All in all, thirteen schools agreed to the new system, and slowly have been easing into the new school day (which allows a 30 minute recess most elementary students have never had the luxury of seeing).

That is until today when the Illinois Educational Labor Relations board sided with the Chicago Teacher's Union to halt the implementation of the longer school day.

Rhee's Time Cover

The fight between Labor Union and School System seems to be representative of something larger within the school system.

Think back a couple of years, when Michelle Rhee was blowing up the cover of Time magazine, saying forget tenure, teachers should be paid according to student achievement and accountability should be taken top to bottom. In her reign as Chancellor of the D.C. public school systems she closed twenty-three schools, fired thirty-six principals, and cut one-hundred and twenty-one office jobs. Rhee was heavily criticized during this time period, but continued to fight for tenure and teacher compensation reform. In 2010 she awarded up to 20% pay raises of $20,000-30,000 to teachers who fostered "strong student achievement."

I can't help but draw correlations between this present school-day legislation and the shocking approach Rhee took to "cleaning up" schools in 2007.
To what degree do we care about teachers' rights as union members? When do teachers stop being union members and start being the driving educational force of students' futures? How do we reconcile the two? As Chicago- Americans, we are in the heartland of Union support. But, we are also in the heartland of poor testing, enrollments, and overall academic turnout.

How can we think about labor and education relating to one another?

What do you guys think? Feel free to comment!

The Learning Curve: Mission and History

2011-10-21T14:48:00.001-07:00

Welcome to the inaugural post of The Learning Curve!

We hope this blog will function as a counterpart to the Femi Memorial Outreach program-- a way to keep our students, tutors, followers, and the residents of Chicago updated on our daily moves and progress as well as offering an innovative approach to interacting with the educational community.

So how did all of this get started? And why should you read our blog?
Part of our mission at Femi Memorial Outreach is to provide at-risk students in the Chicago area with top-notch tutoring and home-work assistance. We love working hands-on with our students, in the classroom. But we also believe there is more that we can offer to the Chicago education community.

I've often sat, scratching my head and wondering, where can I find reliable information and updates about education in Chicago? Where can I find breaking news about local legislation passed that directly influences our schools? Aren't we all "at-risk" students if we aren't educated about what's going on?
But, education isn't all politics, what about the kids? Is there a resource that gives personal classroom stories, or a website that posts interviews with students? Can we be the digital refrigerator door, showcasing our students' finest work and creativity? We hope so. This is what The Learning Curve is all about.

What's our history?
It goes without saying that the Learning Curve wouldn't be possible without the wonderful support and resources given by our parent organization Femi Memorial Outreach.

Femi Memorial Outreach is a non-profit after-school program dedicated to helping at-risk students throughout the Chicago area, with a focus on children who come from either immigrant families or low socio-economic backgrounds.

Femi Memorial was founded on October 1st, 2004 by Bob Pedro, a Nigerian immigrant who moved to the United States to start his family . The organization was founded in loving memory of Olufemi (Femi) Robert Martin Pedro, son of Bob Pedro, who died of a rare cancer at the age of seventeen. Femi Memorial Outreach honors Femi by providing students with the opportunity to enhance their educational accomplishments, realize their best selves, and fulfill their dreams.

Femi Pedro (right) with friends

Currently we serve Loyola Park in Roger's Park, Broadway Armory in Edgewater, Holy Angels in Bronzeville, Mahalia Jackson in Beverly, John Hay Community Academy in Austin, and Bret Harte in Hyde Park.

Students in the Broadway Armory in Edgewater

Our success can largely be attributed to the Federal Work Study program, a grant that provides financial assistance to college students by linking them with community service work for which they receive monetary compensation as well as a decrease in college tuition. By partnering with student employment centers at Chicago universities, our program enjoys increased sustainability and provides elementary students with bright college students who provide academic assistance and serve as role models. In this way, we feel our organization builds and opens dialogues between many types of students. Our university partners include Loyola University Chicago, University of Chicago, and Dominican University.

So watch out for us. Keep us bookmarked. We promise to bring good things in the future.