UTC

Section I: Organization Information

Agency Mission: The mission of the Urban Tree Connection (UTC) is to assist low-income communities in Philadelphia to revitalize their neighborhoods by transforming abandoned open spaces into safe and functional places that inspire and promote positive human interaction. We build community one vacant lot at a time.

Name/Title of Contact: Saul Wiener, Executive Director

Address: 5125 Woodbine Ave Philadelphia PA 19143

Phone Number: 215 877 7203

Website: http://urbantreeconnection.org/

Email: skip@urbantreeconnection.org

Total number of agency staff members: 6

Agency Budget: $339,475

Section II: Community Need

Please state in measurable and quantifiable terms the specific community need that the Philly Fellow will address, including the number of people in the community directly affected by the problem.

This project will serve children and teens from the Haddington section of West Philadelphia, a community where 43% of the residents, including 40% of all children, live at or below the federal 150% poverty level as compared to the 2003 Pennsylvania poverty rate of 10.5%. A larger percentage of the population in this area receives public assistance (18.6%) than the Philadelphia average (13.9%). It will also serve approximately 40 children and teens living in an impoverished neighborhood in North Central Philadelphia where up to 38% have only a high school diploma, and less than 2% have an undergraduate degree. The median income is below $21,000; 75% of the population have an income below the federal poverty level; 30% are on public assistance. The potential for self-destructive behaviors such as drug use and violence in children and teens raised in environments like this is quite high, and is supported in the City of Philadelphia through crime statistics and high school dropout rates. This risk can be greatly reduced by after-school and summer programs that provide youth with a sense of belonging to a positive, supportive group; meaningful connections with caring adults; development of self esteem; and community and civic participation.

Urban Tree Connection provides after school programming that revolves around greening and growing food. The City of Philadelphia is plagued by a level of food insecurity greater than that of the national average. According to the Philadelphia Grow Project (2003-2007), 13.6 percent of households and 7,600 children in Philadelphia were food insecure in 2006. Philadelphia has “the second lowest number of supermarkets per capita of major cities in the nation,” and the number of supermarkets in its lowest-income neighborhoods is 156 percent lower than that of its highest-income neighborhoods (Burton, 2004, p. 4; Johnson-Piett, 2006). We believe that by creating a youth led community greening movement, we are addressing both the critical need for positive, structured children’s programming and access to healthy foods.

Describe how your agency addresses this need, and how the new capacity created by this fellow will help alleviate the problem.

Currently the UTC is focusing most of its time and resources in the Haddington area of West Philadelphia that is bounded by 52nd to 63rd Streets and Market Street to Girard Avenue. We are working to create programs and activities that raise awareness and promote long term community action with a focus on health and environmental issues in relation to greening urban open space. The majority of our time is spent on the ground, working with children and teens in an after school capacity, during the growing season. We find that by providing an outdoor, hands on gardening program to youth in the neighborhoods we work in, we are able to engage whole families in our greening and food production activities. In addition, we are able to address the need for after school activities for children, providing youth with mentors, active learning, and a set of ethics that revolves around respect for the individuals in our immediate community as well as the land around us. We would like the Philly Fellow to help create and test a comprehensive curriculum for our after school programs, with specific educational outcomes developed around environmental education, health and nutrition, and peer leadership. This will allow us to take our after school programs to the next level, helping students make connections between the activities done as part of the garden program and the rest of their life – whether it be related to school, personal health, or social interactions. Additionally, as time allows, the Philly Fellow will be helping us to build and organize our volunteer base, an activity that will build the capacity of the organization to assimilate the large body of individual and group volunteers working with our sites and our children. This is essential to the structure of our after school programs, as well as building much needed relationships between individuals and organizations interested in urban greening and the communities we serve.

Describe the level of community involvement in the fellow’s project.

Older students enrolled in our projects will be directly involved in visioning and developing activities for the curriculum. This will happen during the fall of 2010, in a series of fellow–facilitated workshops geared towards our teen population. Community members currently serving as volunteers and advisors to UTC, will be present to assist with curriculum development and volunteer management.

Section III: Job Description

Please outline in list form the fellow's duties and responsibilities.

The fellow will be responsible for the following: Curriculum Development and Testing:
• Creating a written curriculum for after school garden programming. Curriculum should be age specific, continuous, and focused on topics developed with the help of the Program Director and older youth.
• Organizing an academic resource list which can be used to adjust curriculum on an as needed basis as programs evolve.
• Assessing current program evaluation methods as they relate to newly developed curriculum.
• Implementing curriculum with the support of UTC program delivery staff during the spring and summer of 2011.
• Keeping evaluative data collection sheets during the spring and summer of 2011 to document the daily success of curriculum as it is developed by the Fellow.
• Building and maintaining relationships with organizations that may be a resource for our students. Volunteer Development
• Building and maintaining relationships with organizations that have expressed interest in volunteering with Urban Tree Connection on a one time or ongoing basis
• Creating and managing a volunteer database and calendar
• Creating ongoing volunteer and intern positions within the organization that can be filled by individual volunteers and carried out over the course of one or many years
• Conducting volunteer intake interviews
• Monitoring and recording volunteer service hours and job descriptions
• Organizing volunteer service days with the support of UTC staff and community residents

Please outline in list form the skills/qualifications a fellow should have to succeed in the position.

The fellow should have the following skills / qualifications:
• An academic background in education, especially multicultural education, environmental education, or active learning based education.
• Some in classroom or after school based teaching experience, internship or degree related experience
• Experience using spreadsheet and database software, basic computer skills required
• Experience working with low income families, at–risk youth, and youth raised in an urban environment
• A high level of proficiency in communication and organizing others
• A high level of proficiency in writing
• An interest in working outside as part of a teaching team
• An interest in working in the field of urban agriculture, community greening, and youth leadership

Please describe your agency's plan to orient and train the fellow.

The fellow will work closely with Urban Tree Connection staff, including the Executive Director and Program Director in all matters. Office orientation will include training in relevant computer programs and activities and introduction to UTC staff and neighborhood volunteers. The workplace environment is informal enough that the fellow can ask questions and receive guidance as needed. The fellow will be asked to review staff handbooks and pre–existing curriculum materials. Orientation in the field will include shadowing the Program Director at community meetings, assisting with events, and spending the fall of 2010 acting as a program assistant and observer in order to prepare for developing a curriculum for the 2011 year.

Section IV: Project Plan

Please describe the proposed project goal(s) you expect the fellow to achieve. These should relate to your community need and reflect the long-term impact of the fellow’s project.

The fellow will create a comprehensive curriculum for the three ten week sessions of after school programming run by Urban Tree Connection annually. This curriculum will be designed to engage children between the ages of 5 and 10, in groups up to 20, with a staff to student ratio of 1 to 5. Topics addressed include environmental sciences, health and nutrition, youth leadership, decision making and conflict resolution. The fellow will create a resource database for use in adjusting and developing additional curriculum for future years.

The fellow will suggest improvements to the current program evaluation method which will help us to evaluate the effectiveness in running a more structured set of activities, aimed at specific educational outcomes developed by the fellow. The fellow will work with 10 all star students to track the amount of produce grown annually, survey 25 families regarding what they will consume from the garden and facilitate cooking demonstrations and nutrition classes aimed at adults and families. These classes will be held twice monthly, for three hours each session and will recruit 10 families to attend on an ongoing basis.

The fellow will create a volunteer database that can be used to communicate with and assimilate the approximately 800 volunteers who come through our organization annually. The fellow will work with the Program Director to create three permanent volunteer positions within the organization to provide support staff for our after school programs and address the community need for access to healthy foods. The fellow will recruit three volunteers to fill the above mentioned positions and develop a volunteer intake protocol which will be used by the organization on an ongoing basis.

Section V: The Nitty Gritty

Will fellow be working at the same address listed above?

Yes

Please describe the fellow's work environment.

Fellow will have a shared office.
Fellow will have their own desk.
Fellow will have their own computer.

Please list the name and title of the fellow's immediate supervisor.

Saul Wiener, Executive Director

Please approximate the percentage of time fellow will work:

Independently: 40%
As a team member in a group setting: 40%
As a team leader in a group setting: 20%

Travel:

Will the fellow be expected to travel as part of the position?

Will the fellow need the following to carry out the position?

A driver’s license: Yes
Their own car: No

Section VI: Supervision/Resources

Please briefly describe plans for supervision of fellow:

The fellow will be supervised by the Program Director, who will work alongside the fellow to run after school children’s programs and provide guidance and support in curriculum development and volunteer coordination.

What methods, information, or data will you use to evaluate the fellow’s success in their position and your agency’s success in meeting your community need?

Urban Tree Connection measures the success of our after school programs using an evaluative data collection sheet specifically tailored to each of our programs. These tick sheets monitor educational and behavioral progress in the children with whom we work. These, combined with end of year surveys given to the kids about the content of the program and quarterly exams to record knowledge retention, will help us to evaluate the impact of the curriculum developed by the fellow. The adult population we serve, as well as all volunteers engaged with Urban Tree Connection during the 2011 gardening season, will be asked to complete an evaluative survey at the completion of service.

Encore: Application wasn’t long enough for you? Please include any additional information you feel would be useful in evaluating your application.

In July 2009, Urban Tree Connection's produce distribution program, VeggieKids, was highlighted in the Philadelphia Inquirer. The VeggieKids program works with up to ten of our brightest youth in two garden locations to grow, harvest, clean, and distribute produce to neighbors for a nominal fee. Children in the program make decisions together about how to run the "business", create fact sheets about different vegetables, and distribute these along with recipes and produce to families in the neighborhood. Here is the link to the article: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/pa/20090908_Veggie_Kids_bond_with_nature__neighbors.html