From Norwalk

From Norwalk, CT

On Saturday, I finally took the MCAT, and after months of preparing I have at least a few weeks of peace before I find out my score. After all that time studying during the evenings and weekends, now that I finally have that time free I almost feel at a loss as to what to do with it! It’ll be nice to finally be able to participate in all those things I’ve been missing out on for a while.

Work has been going well. As always, the workload has been cyclical, with periods of relative calm mixed with periods of greater urgency. Right now the tide is coming in as we work to submit a couple of data-intensive funding applications, initiate a couple of quality improvement projects, and continue to see to the desultory series of minor issues that come our way. A couple of the major projects include the implementation of a new online module that will allow us to generate, send, and capture referrals to outside specialists electronically, and the commitment to a more sophisticated and rigorous process of tracking key data on performance and quality. It is an exciting time because our efforts now will pave the way for a significant increase in the capability of the health center to provide high-quality care to its patients, and the continued expansion of the health center.

Meanwhile, we have settled into Norwalk. It’s by no means the most exciting town in the world, but it’s a nice little place. Its main avenue is like Nassau Street on the water, hosting a fine array of bars, restaurants and stores. I have my set of favorite places to eat, I know the owners, and I know where to go to exercise and find a decent pickup game of soccer. On the weekend, the city still beckons.

Princeton Basketball in Philly

Last night, Princeton alums in Philadelphia went over to The Palestra to cheer on the Tigers as they took on Penn. Even though we were not victorious over the Quakers, it was still an exciting game and a good opportunity to meet some new fellow Princeton alumni.

Putting the Fun in Fundraising

Working in development definitely has its ups and downs. When I arrived at Angelwish, the organization had very little experience applying for grants, and as a result one of my primary jobs has been to lay the groundwork for our grant-seeking activities. Initiating something that will affect the organization for years to come was both an exciting and daunting prospect at the start, and after taking an invaluable class at the Foundation Center I dove into my first grant. However, once I finished that first grant and moved on to the next one on our seemingly endless list of potential funders, the sense of excitement quickly wore off. One of the hardest things for me to adjust to at that point in my fellowship was how monotonous grant-writing can be. It was not like Princeton at all with varied assignments for different classes, but rather I was pretty much writing the same thing over and over again with slight changes in format and length.

Nevertheless, I recently noticed that my attitude towards grant-writing has shifted again. I'm not quite sure what sparked this change, but I now approach grants as if it's a game and I need to "beat" the foundation by convincing them to fund our programs. Disclaimer: I am not actually "anti-foundation." - in fact I think collaboration between foundations and non-profits is very important to have effective and efficient programs. However, approaching grant-writing as a form of competition has definitely spurred me to make more tweaks than usual and really work to tailor each grant to its corresponding foundation, all without getting frustrated or bored. In addition to grants, I have also been working on planning some new fundraisers such as cornhole tournaments and events with high school students. Having these extra projects to work on is probably part of the reason my approach to grant-writing has improved- it's nice to be able to take a little break and refresh my thoughts. Angelwish was also recently chosen to be the beneficiary of a Grammy After Party in LA, and we are invited to go meet and greet the guests and tell them about the organization, so that should definitely be another great way to put the fun back in fundraising!

Has anyone else encountered this frustration with the monotony of grants? If so, any other suggestions for how to get past it?

Happy January!

In celebration of the new year (and in anticipation of colder weather to come, hopefully- it's been awfully warm this winter in Philadelphia!), I present a delicious recipe for stout gingerbread that I tried out over the holidays while back home in Seattle (which has proven to be a decidedly more wintry locale this year than my current place of residence).

This recipe is from a 2009 edition of The New York Times. Due to my sister's not liking lemon, we didn't make the lemon glaze, but I'm sure it would be delicious. The stout gives the gingerbread a nice denseness. Enjoy!

Butter for greasing

2 cups all-purpose flour

1 tablespoon unsweetened cocoa powder

2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder

1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/8 teaspoon nutmeg, preferably fresh

3/4 teaspoon salt

1 cup, packed, dark brown sugar

3 tablespoons turbinado sugar

2 1/2 tablespoons finely grated fresh ginger (a 2-ounce piece, peeled)

Grated zest of 2 lemons

1/2 cup grapeseed oil

1 large egg

3/4 cup stout beer

3/4 cup molasses

1/3 cup brewed coffee

3/4 teaspoon baking soda

1 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted

2 tablespoons lemon juice.

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Grease an 8-inch springform cake pan and line bottom with parchment paper.

2. In a bowl, whisk flour, cocoa, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Set aside. In a large bowl combine brown sugar, turbinado, ginger, zest of 1 lemon and oil. Beat in egg.

3. Place beer, molasses and coffee in a deep pot, at least 3 quarts. Bring to a boil. Remove from heat and stir in baking soda. Mixture will bubble up. Allow to cool 5 minutes.

4. Whisk flour mixture alternately with beer mixture into brown sugar mixture, in 3 shifts. Pour batter in pan and bake 40 minutes without opening oven. Give pan a 180-degree turn and bake another 15 minutes, until cake is springy and a tester comes out clean. Cool on a rack. When cool, remove sides of pan, invert briefly to remove bottom of pan and paper and set upright on a plate.

5. Place confectioners’ sugar in a bowl, whisk in remaining zest and salt, then lemon juice. Spread over top of cake, allowing glaze to drip down the sides.

Working on a Saturday

Well it is a beautiful Saturday morning in New York City and I am currently writing this blog post from my office at ABC. Now normally I don’t work on Saturdays, but today is a special occasion. One of my biggest projects so far has finally come to fruition. In the beginning of January, I received information in a newsletter about the American Italian Cancer Foundation’s Mobile Mammogram Van. The AICF provides free breast cancer screenings for women, including those who are uninsured. I thought that our community’s population in East Harlem would greatly benefit from such a service, so I scheduled a visit.

Little did I know, this would turn into an enormous project. I had to arrange a minimum of 30 appointments, and the women had to be over 40 years old. Considering my main contacts in the community are the parents of our Head Start students who are all very young, I soon realized that I was going to have to step out of my comfort zone and reach out to the wider community.

I started slowly by posting flyers at local libraries, laundromats, and schools. When we were still short on appointments with less than two weeks to go, I realized I had to get more involved. I went to the local Salvation Army building, reached out to East Harlem’s City Council representative, and formed linkages with several of the other service organizations in the area. I went back to the laundromats, libraries, and schools, but this time I tried to engage any women I met there. I learned their stories and they helped spread the word through word-of-mouth in the very close-knit community. Suddenly, the appointments were pouring in.

Before this project, I was definitely an outsider in East Harlem, but now I feel genuinely connected to the community. It has been a really special experience in my fellowship and totally worth coming into work on a Saturday.

Loan Advisory Committee Meeting

Today we had a Loan Advisory Committee meeting, where the LAC approved a new loan for a health center in New Orleans. New Orleans is an exciting place for investment; in Louisiana there remains a market ready for new projects but folks are still recovering from Katrina all these years later. Remarkable. Friday capped a busy week of sending funds to borrowers, revising some closing documents for another health center loan that is closing in February, and reviewing the financial performance of the loans in our portfolio. Thankful for a great week.

Life at CEP with a New Boss!

Here we are, midway through our fellowship years, and I feel like I can finally say that I have fully adjusted to working a 9-5:30 schedule. However, my routine at the Character Education Partnership has been shaken up quite a bit over the past month with the arrival of our new President & CEO, Mark Hyatt! It has been quite interesting to have the opportunity to directly compare the two very different leadership styles represented by Mark and Joe, our former president. Joe was a very detail-oriented, hands-on leader--always in the office, making sure everyone stayed on task and represented CEP in an exemplary manner. Mark, on the other hand, is more of a big-picture, visionary leader. He has a seemingly endless number of ideas and projects that he wants to see CEP take on, and he is usually in the office only three or four days per week so that he can go chat it up with potential donors to fund these proposals.

I am working with Mark much more closely than I ever worked with Joe, mainly because he has essentially filled the role of my old boss (the Director of Resource Development) in addition to serving as President (Joe has stayed on in a part-time capacity to help him keep track of the details). And, so far, I am happy to say that I am really enjoying working with him. He has been so receptive to my ideas for how CEP can further its mission, and he has really emphasized to both Carol and me that he wants us to use our fellowship year to pursue our interests and do work for CEP that we find engaging and, when possible, relevant to our future career path. For example, Carol and I went to a panel this week that reported on the progress of the DC Promise Neighborhood Initiative, which was inspired by the famous Harlem Children's Zone. While it wasn't directly related to CEP's work, I found the panel to be a fascinating opportunity to learn more about early education and child development in an urban setting. And in general, I am extremely grateful for the effort Mark has put in to get to know all of us on staff and to make each of us feel like his equal, and I sense that the future fellows at CEP will have a large say in how they want to contribute to the organization.

That being said, I am also very appreciative for the time I had working with both of my other bosses. I feel like I am having almost two different fellowships in one, because while my role has stayed the same in some major respects (I still do a lot of writing for grant proposals and other fundraising efforts and I am still planning the Exhibit Hall for the Forum), I am working with new people and learning to adapt to their writing styles and their expectations as supervisors. For instance, Mark has encouraged me to pursue my interest in working more directly with students, so I came up with a rough proposal for an essay contest that would bring more students to the Forum--an idea that he is now trying to find a donor to sponsor. I am also working closely with Arthur Schwartz, one of our newest Board members and the former #2 at the Templeton Foundation, to research organizations that serve parents so that we can expand our own outreach efforts to this highly influential but underutilized population in the field of character education. Learning to work closely with and for all of these different people has been a significant opportunity for me to grow as a professional, and I'm looking forward to seeing how my fellowship continues to change and offer new experiences in the months ahead.

January update

Hi everyone,

It is approaching the middle of winter (although the 50-degree weather makes it hard to tell) and I can't believe how quickly this year is going! I guess part of living in New York is being CONSTANTLY overwhelmed with things to do--and since I have very intense FOMO (fear of missing out) I tend to overbook myself rather than risk missing anything. But I love it and would much rather be too busy then bored.

In addition to having a pretty busy life outside of my job, work has definitely started to pick up recently. I don't know why--maybe there has been an increase in arrests overall or maybe the judges have begun to prefer our program--but we have an somewhat overwhelming number of kids in the program right now. It is actually kind of great for me because I much prefer being busy to having nothing to do--although I am getting a bit tired of doing intake interviews (I feel like I am going to start having dreams about describing consent forms). But I don't think we have ever had this many kids in the program before so it is definitely a new terrain for everyone at Choices.

Outside I've work I've mostly been focusing on upping my running mileage (since I signed up for a marathon, kinda gotta start training for that) and figuring out where I want to go for law school! More than anything, however, I am just trying to enjoy this year before I enter the terribleness that is the first year of law school!

That is all for this blog post! More later.

Steph

City Life

Having lived in suburbs all of my life, I've never been especially familiar with public transportation.  Yes, I've taken public buses before, and yes, I've taken trains to NYC and Philly, but I've always had to look up schedules and prepare a detailed itinerary before embarking on any trip of any distance.  I've always been impressed when my friends and family in New York City, for instance, were able to direct me to specific trains without skipping a beat.  While I've always liked the idea of taking public transportation, it just hasn't been a big part of my life. 

Until now, that is!  My brother (a past P55 fellow) visited me in D.C. over the weekend, and his visit brought to light just how familiar I am with both public transit and the city in general.  I was the one showing him around; I was the one who knew where the closest metro stop was; I'm the one familiar with D.C.

Surely many other car-less fellows have come to a similar realization at some point during their fellowship.  Still, it was exciting to realize that I'm really settled into my new city.  I've been here for 6 months but it feels like much longer--in a good way.    

January Update

I think that many fellows would agree (at least the friends in the program that I have spoken with have agreed), I seriously cannot believe that it is January. At Princeton, everything was on a schedule. I counted everything. This many days until this midterm. This many hours left to post a response. This many paragraphs required. This many hours to sleep . . . You get the picture. And I always ended up with the same conclusion: there is just not enough time at Princeton to do everything that you want or feel necessary to do.

On Saturday morning (clearly, post Princeton), I slept in as if I had nothing hanging over my head, no looming schedule with no time crunch. I woke up to a bunch of snow with the freedom to say: what do I want to do today? That simple freedom was invigorating, peaceful--I chose to go out and run in the snow like a kid. While admiring the snow, it finally felt as though the depths of winter had hit. And after the kid-like excitement rubbed off, I reflected upon the fact that I have worked for over 7 months. Time flies when you are not counting, not wishing time to fly by.

When you are content with your job, the projects that you are working on, and how you are allocating time, you worry less. Period. I know that this post is bordering on over-the-top. Maybe I have already passed that point. I am to the point in my fellowship that I am not nervous to approach my directors with a concern or thought (time permitting). I have a job that, overall, I feel as though I am providing and not taking from the world. I am learning and growing in my career aspirations. And I still have time to come home, regroup, and recharge.

January has been a good month.

Summer Service

I am planning to have a month off between ending my fellowship and starting medical school. I would love to participate in some kind of service that would be rewarding and fun during that time. I have considered everything from volunteering in NYC to returning to Ghana, where I did my thesis research. I have thought about projects that are health-related or entirely health-unrelated (Farming through WWOOF?). But now I need to start actually planning. Any ideas? Has anyone worked on a service project they really loved that might be a good summer project for me? Please let me know!

We Have Several Dreams

It's been a long time since I posted. The holidays are always a hectic (and sometimes stressful) time for the staff at the Carole Robertson Center, but we pushed through and now that we're back to our regularly scheduled programming I am regaining my sense of excitement.

Today I walked around the Center with a couple of the girls in the youth program asking kids, teens, and staff, "What's your dream?" and brandishing a voice recorder. We'd done the same thing, with a different series of questions, a couple months ago when we were building the documentary theater piece that we will be performing in late February; we interviewed participants and staff about their experience at the Carole Robertson Center, their hopes for the future, and their knowledge of Carole Robertson, the Center's namesake. The theater piece, which I'm directing, will be performed by a group of seven really enthusiastic girls and one earnest boy from the Youth Program, and will be part of our flotilla of Black History Month projects.

Back to "What's your dream?" In a couple weeks we're hosting a fashion show/performing arts showcase called Rip the Runway, which is a chance for the youth program participants to strut their stuff. Rip the Runway audience members will eat dinner at tables with centerpieces devoted to the dreams of each interviewee. Most of the kids we talked to described what they wanted to be when they grew up, and many wanted to be doctors, nurses, or teachers. When asked why, they said they wanted to help people. A couple of the staff members interviewed talked about what they would be doing if they weren't doing this (music, art, and writing, mostly, and I am definitely guilty of falling into this category), while others took the question more generally and told us that their dream was for world peace.

Nice. After the craziness of the past few months, that's my dream now too.

Glimpse of the UCSF Breast Care Center

Happy New Year everyone!!!

It’s been roughly 6 months since I started my project 55 fellowship at the UCSF Breast Care Center and I couldn’t have asked for a better way to spend my gap year between college and medical school. Matt and Alyse have done a great job of describing components of our job that we all share at the BCC, such as Decision Services, so I’ll talk a little more about some specific projects that I’m working on.

My position is sort of unique in that I work at two different UCSF campuses. For half of the week I am at Mount Zion with Matt and Alyse, and for the other half of the week I am at Parnassus, which is UCSF’s main campus. While being split between two different campuses can be at times hectic and crazy, I’m thankful for the different projects that I’ve been able to work on at the two locations. At Mount Zion, I work on two clinical studies, one of which involves consenting patients for collection of blood and bone marrow samples while they are sedated in the operating room. This is really cool because it allows me to have patient contact and view surgeries. I’m also working on some other projects looking into the role of the immune system in breast cancer and how the presence of different immune cells in the tumor may affect prognosis.

At Parnassus, I am working in a bioengineering lab, which is a completely new experience for me. I did get a MSE certificate so the engineering world isn’t completely foreign to me but there is definitely a steep learning curve. My project involves looking at the mechanical effects of intraoperative radiation therapy (IORT) on the tumor microenvironment. IORT is a relatively new procedure of delivering radiation to the patient while they are in the operating room. After the tumor is taken out of the breast, an applicator is inserted into the tissue cavity where radiation is then locally delivered. The applicator then comes out after which the surgeon can close up the incision. By using the tissue that the surgeon takes out from the breast right before and after delivering radiation, we can look into the effects of radiation on tissue composition and organization as well as changes in cell to cell signaling.

Besides the work I am doing, I am loving San Francisco and trying to take advantage of all it has to offer! The city is an awesome place to live with so much diversity and culture. Public transportation can take you anywhere in the city and there’s always a bunch of events that are open to the public on the weekends. I’m looking forward to further exploring SF and all it has to offer in the next 6 months and will update everyone again!

Mad about MADNESS

Happy New Year from the New Heights office!

This month has been incredibly busy for me and the rest of the New Heights team, as we figure out our strategies for growing and changing in the year ahead. Our biggest fundraiser, MADNESS, is coming up in a few months, and the entire team is already busy making plans for the venue and event. It’s amazing how much time and effort goes into the production of an event this large (we typically have several hundred people in attendance) and how much we all depend on one another to get everything done on time. I also think it’s really inspiring how much help we get from a much larger network of civically-minded individuals and organizations. At larger events like MADNESS, and other opportunities within the nonprofit community, it’s plain to see that there is a whole movement that is dedicated to ensuring educational equity and fighting NYC-area poverty. Knowing that I’m part of something that is so much larger than my individual position really encourages me to bring my all to my work.

I’ve been pretty impressed by how much interest and involvement there’s been from the larger New York community. Our event planning committees draw upon tons of different subcultures, from artists to business-owners to athletes, and each individual has their own reasons for getting involved and their own ideas of how they can contribute. Learning how others approach civic engagement and nonprofit work is, I think, a pretty crucial step in appreciating how my work creates meaning for myself in the world. The side conversations that I’ve had in the office and at fundraising events have been learning experiences that add a lot of depth to everything that I’m learning on the job.

MADNESS is going to require a lot of work from everyone in the office, but I’m really excited to see how everything comes together – and to hopefully meet some interesting new people in the process!

New Year, New Projects, Same Old Stereotypes

The new year has gotten off to a great start here in Southeast DC at Achievement Preparatory Academy.  Our brand new online application went live on January 2^nd and we’ve already got 10 applications for the 2012-2013 school year.  My old supervisor decided to leave the school, but my new boss is actually someone that worked here before and has just come back.  We’re already forming a great working partnership and I’m shadowing her on school tours for prospective parents so that pretty soon I can start giving the tours myself.  Tomorrow (yes, work on Saturday) we’re going to the DC Charter School Expo at the Washington Convention Center, so hopefully we’ll drum up a lot of interest and get some new applications in.  Exciting!  Recruitment is a huge task that lasts basically the entire first half of the calendar year (while enrollment / registration / paper work follow up / residency verification is the second half) and I’ll be playing a crucial role.  If my APA recruitment is anything like my recruiting new freshman for the Princeton University Band we’ll be sitting pretty for the next school year.

I want to share a story with you, avid readers of our blog, that my boss shared with us yesterday at staff close-out.  A man from an organization that might be giving a grant to our school was here visiting yesterday from California.  He was trying to catch an early morning cab from Dupont Circle, which is a super-ritzy fancy part of NW DC to our school, which is located in notorious Ward 8 of SE DC.  To be blunt, and describe the difference between NW and SE in black and white terms, NW is white, SE is black.  Three different cab drivers turned down the man when he asked to be taken over to Wahler Place SE.  One cabby even told him, “Why would you want to go there?  Nothing good ever comes out of that place.”  And this man, who hasn’t been to our school before but has talked extensively to our leader and founder, and read the press releases, defended our school and said, well let me tell you about this amazing school in this not-so-great neighborhood.  Clearly, you must not have heard of them if you’re going to say things like that.  So maybe nothing else good comes out of our seedy, run-down neighborhood in SE, but WE are a good thing.  A great thing.  Our DC CAS scores show that we have completely eliminated the achievement gap between our students and white students in DC, and gone most of the way towards eliminating that disparity in reading.  I feel like I constantly have to defend where I work to new people I meet, those who are shocked or worried about me for being a young white female working in this community.  And yes, I’ve endured shocking cat calls and harassment at the local gas station and Burger King, but the things that we do within the walls of this school make it all worth it.  I am so proud to be a part of this school and I’m excited to play such a role in the future of the school.  Because truly, the school would not exist without its students, so we need to get butts in those seats!

p.s.  Not to be outdone by Subha, check out my advisory’s entry into APA’s Holiday door decorating contest.  We got second place, but only because 1^st place used a Christmas card that plays music to enhance their door.

Highs and Lows of the Day

High point of the day: watching a foster baby I haven't worked with in several months walk confidently towards me! The last time I saw him a few months ago he could barely sit up.

Low point of the day: assisting birth parents in taking the right steps towards avoiding eviction. Just recently these parents received a notice stating that they must produce nearly eleven thousand dollars within the next few days or else face eviction.

And on a lighter note, Happy new year! This is an exciting time for Project 55 as a new round of applicants are entering the interview stage. Best of luck to everyone with interviews and upcoming finals!

Resolutions

Courtesy of http://moninavelarde.com/newyears/.

Have fun generating your own resolutions - and happy new year! :)