Ricardo's story
City Hall Fellows experience. The majority of my year was spent developing and coordinating two new programs: CPI-Citizen Park Inspector Program and the Signature Program. The CPI program recruited and trained 13 volunteer citizens to submit an online inspection of their park each month through a new software purchased for this program. The Signature Program purchased and installed kiosks in over 62 parks citywide to inform citizens of their park’s mowing & delitter schedule along with the staff who maintain the park.I worked for the City of Houston Parks and Recreation Department (HPARD) Greenspace Division during my
Now I'm working for my hometown
local government, the City of Austin as a Program Coordinator for 10 juvenile
delinquency programs in my childhood neighborhood. We have served over 1600
youth in 2010-11. We are currently
planning to serve over 900 youth in 2011-12.
Without City Hall Fellows, I would not have gained the experience needed to
secure this position and begin my career in local government. Having had
a previous internship “on the hill” in D.C., I took this Fellowship to see how
policy is implemented I came to learn local government is where national
policies come into action.
Ricardo
Zavala, a Texas State University alum, was a member of
City Hall
Fellows' inaugural Houston class in 2008-2009.
Help us engage more young people like Ricardo in local public service:
Emily's story
As a Fellow, I worked in the Baton Rouge Mayor-President’s Office as a special projects coordinator. I got to work on a variety of projects – some directly serving residents, others that helped government itself operate more efficiently. I served on the Mayor’s Healthy City Initiative, promoting healthy eating and active living in the City-Parish. I facilitated the technical assistance program through the National League of Cities to curb childhood obesity in the City-Parish. I served as project liaison for the City-Parish’s contract tracking system design project, working with our tech staff and integral departments to create an efficient system that speeds up the time it takes for the City-Parish to process a contract. I also assisted the new Chief Service Officer in developing and implementing a plan to increase volunteerism and to target volunteers to address the city’s greatest needs.
I stayed on with the Mayor’s Office after my Fellowship ended. For the past several months I've mainly focused on the Healthy City Initiative. This includes facilitating monthly meetings with organizations dedicated to healthy eating and active lifestyles, applying for grants around nutrition and physical fitness, and coordinating events. For example, our medical partners will be donating staff and medical supplies for the Louisiana Marathon this January through our Healthy City Initiative. I also look for issue areas that we can take action on. For instance, I'm facilitating a food access meeting with about a dozen organizations this month to look into what folks in Baton Rouge are doing about food deserts and how we can leverage these resources into a common goal. I'm also about to overhaul our current website: healthybr.com.
I would certainly not have gotten this level of responsibility if I had just entered the workforce straight out of college. It is very humbling to be interacting daily with the leaders of this City – an opportunity I got because I was a City Hall Fellow. It’s also been great to have such deep background knowledge about Baton Rouge that I imagine even natives don't have! Again, I have City Hall Fellows to thank for that education.
If last year you had asked me what’s next, I would have said I’d be heading back to my home state of Virginia. Because of the Fellowship, however, I decided to stay in south Louisiana. I love working with the dynamic people who are making a difference in this community.
Emily Patrick was a 2011 Baton Rouge Fellow.
Help us engage more young people like Emily in local public service:
in it for the long haul: Kelvin's story
"All this will not be finished in the first one hundred days. Nor will it be finished in the first one thousand days; nor in the life of this Administration; nor even perhaps in our lifetime on this planet. But let us begin."
President John F. Kennedy spoke these words at his inauguration more than 50 years ago, and they still ring true today.
At a tour of the San Francisco County Jail recently, Eileen Hirst, Sheriff Michael Hennessey's Chief of Staff, echoed similar remarks. She noted that 32 years after taking office with a pledge to bring down the dilapidated jail, Sheriff Hennessey would finally be able to swing the wrecking ball on the old jail as he leaves office this upcoming January. As she finished recounting the lawsuits, court orders, bond measure efforts, and the other roadblocks in demolishing the old jail, she came to a point that we have heard repeatedly from many individuals working in government. Results rarely appear overnight. It takes a serious commitment to see real change happen, and even then it may take 32 years.
In some ways, it's a challenge to all of us Fellows to look inside ourselves and see if we are ready for the long haul. For the petitions from advocacy groups and the editorials in the newspapers. For the long nights and weekends of work that may be undone by a single decision that we have no control over. For the waiting for that golden policy moment. Are we up for the challenge?
Yes.
As discouraging as it may be to hear that we aren't going to change the world overnight, it is encouraging to know that there are so many people who are committed to seeing change occur. We know that the path ahead is not going to be easy. We know that there are going to be times when we feel like it would be easier just to stop. But, we also know that we are not alone.
This year I've had the opportunity and privilege to meet 10 outstanding individuals who are going to be the doers of tomorrow (and today). They're going to advocate for those without a voice, shape the policies of the future, and implement the programs that will improve the lives of everyone around them.
In his inaugural speech, Kennedy said, "Let us begin."
I have.
We all have.
Kelvin Vuong is a 2012 San Francisco Fellow.
Help us engage more young people like Kelvin in local public service:
Marielle's Story
This month, we are featuring a series of stories from our Fellows, in their own words. We hope you'll enjoy learning more about these remarkable young people, and how they are making our cities better places to live, work and play.
As a City Hall Fellow, I was
placed at the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, Power, Sewer), Waste Water Enterprise, under the Sewer System Improvement Program (SSIP) - a multi-billion dollar capital
improvement program. My main role was to coordinate the development of an
Urban Watershed Framework, which consists of guidelines for conducting
watershed assessments for all eight of San Francisco's watersheds,
identifying project opportunities for managing stormwater, a triple
bottom line approach for prioritizing projects and a stakeholder
involvement process. The framework is a process that facilitates a whole
new way
of doing business in the Waste water Enterprise. I was
acting project manager and helped this effort move forward as the Urban
Watershed Framework Coordinator.
With the completion of both my Fellowship year and the Urban Watershed Framework, I was given a new role in assisting with the development of the SSIP Strategic Communications plan. My focus is currently on developing the Urban Watershed Outreach plan which will involve outreach and communications with numerous community organizations, non profits and various other stakeholders.
City Hall Fellows provided me exposure and skills, leading me to an opportunity to build a career in public service that I am incredibly passionate about in a city that I love - San Francisco. I am LOVING my new role and the opportunity to work in alignment with my passion! Thank you City Hall Fellows!
Marielle Earwood was a 2011 San Francisco Fellow.
Help us get more young people like Marielle into local public service.
Minh's story
This month, we are featuring a series of stories from our Fellows, in their own words. We hope you'll enjoy learning more about these remarkable young people, and how they are making our cities better places to live, work and play.
Grit - "the willingness to commit to long-term goals, and to persist in the face of difficulty" - is necessary to be
successful, especially in public service. My experience as a City Hall Fellow
helped me embrace and develop my own grittiness. Without the leadership
development training I received as a Fellow, I do not believe I would have fully
understood my grit, my commitment to social change, or how I could make a
difference within the larger context of public policy and administration.
Before I became a City Hall Fellow, I knew nothing about city government
outside the televised City Council committee meetings I fell asleep to when I
was younger. The Fellowship taught me not just how to be gritty, but also how
cities work. It challenged me to become more resourceful, to take more
initiative, and to work harder for change at the local level.
This continues to be the mindset that drives me. Today I work in operations management as an analyst in the City of Atlanta’s Office of the Mayor. Essentially, my role is as an internal consultant to drive operational efficiency and effectiveness. I work closely with city departments to measure outcomes, coach departmental leadership, and drive projects and analyses that meet the Mayor’s priorities and improve city operations.
Every day, I
work hard to embody the gritty leader needed to push public service forward.
City Hall Fellows put me on this path and gave me the foundation to be
successful.
Minh Nguyen was a City Hall Fellow in Houston
in 2009-2010. Minh is a graduate of Davidson College.
Help us get more young people like Minh into local government.
Krishanu's Story
preoccupied by Occupy
by Ryan Wythe, SF 2011
As I sit here and write this, there could be tens or maybe
hundreds of nonviolent protestors setting up tents on the UC Berkeley campus. I
just got home from Occupy Cal’s General Assembly where the proposal to support
the use of tents as a form of civil disobedience was approved only a week
after several undergraduate students, graduate students, professors, and even a
Nobel Laureate were senselessly beaten by the campus police department (UCPD),
Alameda County Sheriff’s Department, among others. I encourage you to read this article and
watch the accompanying footage here.
In addition to Occupy Cal, I have been a participant in the
Occupy Oakland movement that is taking place only blocks away from my home.
Words cannot even begin to describe the extent of my contradictory emotions that
the Occupy movement has come to embody in my mind. However, I think that I am
most saddened with the positions local governments have taken to blatantly
protect the interests of the elite classes over the welfare of our most
underserved community members.
Before the proposal to support the use of tents as form of
civil disobedience passed at Occupy Cal, I participated in a really interesting
conversation with a group of about 20 other Occupy participants about the use
of tents as a symbolic and/or necessary form of protest.
On the one hand, pitching a tent was going to be in direct
violation of the University’s orders to those participating in the Occupy
protests. Some of the participants felt that the University was at least trying
to meet the protesters part way – they could protest however they wanted, so
long as they didn’t pitch a tent on campus grounds. On the other hand, and in the
words of one of the General Assembly’s speakers that so aptly put it, what’s
the big deal about a tent?
A point I brought up with the other participants of our
discussion group was how a tent might have symbolic meaning and material
meaning as well. I clarified that the choice to pitch a tent was a privilege in
of itself. If you had been to Occupy Oakland, you would have seen how in many
ways the tent community had served to provide the basic needs for many of
Oakland’s homeless, mentally ill, poor, and hungry. It was beautiful in a way
(well, maybe more the second time around), in how different committees came
together to try to meet the City’s public health, sanitation, disposal, and
safety standards in order to keep the space as hospitable as possible. The way
people organized a make-shift kitchen and fed hundreds of people for most hours
of the day; others devoted themselves to cleaning up trash and separating compost
and recycling; you could even see Occupy’s Medic Team walking around the camp
to make sure no one was hurt or in need of medical intervention. These are
examples of how planful, thoughtful, and empathetic people can be to try their
best to meet the basic needs of the community – all without much of the
infrastructure we’re used to in our daily lives. Also, it was entirely in the
public domain. I mean, out in the open, entirely visible to everyone who walks
by heart of Downtown Oakland.
The way in which I think the Occupy movement is so unique is
in how visible it is to everyone. Now
the City administration, the public, the tax payers, everyone has to look at
the homeless, the mentally and physically ill, and the poor who are camped out
right in front of their cubicle windows. Not that the ill, poor, and homeless
do not exist on Cal’s campus, its just most of the time their struggles are not
as visible to the general student body.
Pitching a tent is greater than just pitching a tent. It is also a way to make our struggles
visible to those in power who claim to have our (the voters’ or students) best
interests at heart.
I do not want to romanticize the encampment at Occupy
Oakland, either. I saw probably the biggest rat of my life scurrying across the
plaza, trash bins along Broadway were overflowing, and I didn’t necessarily
agree with many of the organizing tactics that were being implemented by Occupy
Oakland’s General Assembly facilitation committee.
So, what is the next step and what does it have to do with
local government?
I believe that if the student body at UC Berkeley is
planful, creative, and stubborn, they have an opportunity to create a much more
democratic and decentralized community. Let’s engage students in public health,
city planning, engineering, peace and conflict studies, etc. into putting the
ethos of Occupy and their theoretical knowledge into practice to yield
innovative alternatives to meeting the needs of our most undeserved community
members. Then, let’s invite those City officials in positions of power to study us, to learn from us, to take our
demonstrations and lessons learned back to their offices and use this as a
moment to really address the systemic inequality and violence that being waged
on the poor in our cities.
Just as cities made coordinated efforts to evict thousands
of Occupy protestors nationwide over the last two days, I believe that cities
can concentrate that energy into trying to incorporate and reflect the change
that the Occupy movement symbolizes.
weddings at City Hall
by Carla Hansen, SF2012
I have the privilege of working for the Department of Public Works within San Francisco City Hall. I’m two months into my Fellowship and every morning this building still takes my coffee breath away. The innovative, socially-responsible policy made here and the beauty of a building built in 1915 is, of course, powerful but I enjoy something a little different.
Cue the confession: I’m Carla and I’m a sucker for weddings. On a tour of City Hall during orientation, the Fellows were enlightened to the fact that six weddings an hour occur in the building on Fridays. But there isn’t a shortage of them on other weekdays either.
Whenever I’m walking into the building in the morning or skipping down the stairs at the end of the day, I can catch a quick ceremony. The wedding dresses, vows and even watching the awkward family photos bring on the water-works. Waterproof mascara can thank me for its boost in sales.
There is something about the “Tennessee Pink” marble, 52-step staircase and 23.5 karat gold dome that screams “get married here.” I’ve even come across a familiar marble column or two in popular wedding magazines. Not that I peruse those in my free time or anything, though.
I urge everyone to visit this “marble shack” as I sarcastically call it and creep in on a ceremony under the Rotunda. The future married folks don’t seem to mind. Also, if you’re thinking about your first or next wedding, bias aside, I recommend City Hall. Just be sure your photographer can crop out a teary-eyed, red-headed woman standing in all your portraits.
a small bite forward
This post was written in conjunction with Blog Action Day 2011. This year's theme is food.
There is more to food than what just reaches the senses. What you see on your plate encapsulates the very place and moment in which a meal is consumed. It creates a memory. Every meal I unregrettably devoured throughout my summer in Cape Town encompassed a part of the South Africa’s unique history, taught me a new lesson, and helped me create a stomach full of memories.
While studying abroad in South Africa, I had the opportunity to try all of South Africa’s notable cuisines: springbok, ostrich, curries, and of course, rooibos tea — a traditional and habitual South African afternoon treat. Every meal not only reminded me of where I was geographically, but also historically. I learned that as a vital port on the East Indian slave route, Cape Town became a hub of mixed cultures and, more importantly, a destination primed for centuries of colonial occupation. Nibbling on samoosas and boobotie in Bo Kaap helped me understand the deep influences of the Malay Archipelago and tasting fresh koeksisters reminded me of the ever-present Dutch colonization in the Western Cape. With every taste, came the afterthought of context — a feeling I often experienced in Cape Town.
While the food showed glimpses of the country’s struggled past, it also gave me a greater realization of South Africa’s current healing process sixteen years after the dismantling of apartheid. On a trip to Khayelitsa, a township with over half a million residents, our group visited a small soup kitchen owned by a woman named Rosie. Wearing an apron and cap, Rosie welcomed us into her kitchen and explained how she opened it to help her community. The space lined with wallpaper made from old magazines was small, but I could sense, filled with spirit. The kitchen served as a meeting point for women to spend their days cooking alongside others living in similar economic and social circumstances. Children relied on the kitchen for breakfast before going to school and sometimes to eat a second meal before returning home. After hearing about Rosie’s selfless dedication to her community, strangers from all over Cape Town stopped by to give her ingredients and small donations to keep the meals coming. Though her meals are not culinary masterpieces, to those living near her it’s more than a meal: it's a message. You give what you can, do what you can, and in the end, it makes all the difference. She explained, "People in Khayelitsha don’t have much to give, but time and appreciation is something she will always receive."
With over 90% black African residents, Khayelitsha is living proof that apartheid's inequities are ever so present. With inequality of housing, come more: education, employment, healthcare, and of course, the distribution of food. Most townships have little access to fresh produce and clean water and residents often purchase food from small shops or makeshift restaurants. To further complicate matters, with an astonishing 1 in 3 HIV prevalence rate, Khayelitsha’s HIV-positive population suffers from a greater lack of necessary nutrition. Students in my program worked with local NGO's like Abelimi Bezekhaya, Philani Child Health and Nutrition Project, and the Treatment Action Campaign to teach local agriculture, administer needed services, and advocate for better healthcare. However, like most circumstances in South Africa, more has to be done and the people of Cape Town are calling for it. In his autobiography, Nelson Mandela fittingly wrote,
I was not born with a hunger to be free. I was born free. Free in every way that I could know. Free to run in the fields near my mother's hut, free to swim in the clear stream that ran through my village, free to roast mealies [corn] under the stars.... It was only when I learnt that my boyhood freedom was an illusion ... that I began to hunger for it.
Despite its dark history, South Africa has come a long way in effort to counter the nation’s misfortunes since the Boer Wars. Seeing the civic participation in Rosie’s kitchen and the heartfelt dedication of community NGO's showed me that the people of South Africa and volunteers from all over the world are hungry for change.
At the recent 2010 FIFA World Cup, citizens waved their multicolored flag and sang the national anthem — in the country’s eleven official languages — with pride, and of course, with hope. South Africa has grown to acknowledge its past, mend its wounds, and embrace its diversity in the biggest and littlest of ways. On one of my last days in Cape Town, the eating scene at the world-famous Mizoli’s in Gugulethu seemed to sum up how far South Africa has come. Under a patio roof in one of Cape Town’s notoriously violent townships, sat hundreds of people of all colors and backgrounds sitting side by side to share a meal. Though the meat was juicy and tender, I had a feeling we came together for more than just the taste. The aroma of change was in the air.
homeless and hungry
This post was written in conjunction with Blog Action Day 2011. This year's theme is food.
When you are homeless, food is both a blessing and a curse.
During my Junior year of college, I spent my spring break on a homeless immersion experience in San Jose, California. We spent the week sleeping on the floor of a church community center and experienced what it feels like to walk 10 miles in a day to get from a food shelter to stand in line for hours waiting for shelter. We wore dirty, ripped clothes, and had no money, no access to showers, and no phones. One day, we were given a list of tasks for the day, including tasks like "get food from a food shelter," "apply for a job," "collect 100 bottles and cans," and "eat lunch at a Salvation Army." With the exception of our immersion director, no one knew that we were on an immersion trip. There were no directions, no guidance. Just go figure it out. And perhaps the one thing that I remember being most surprised about was that every obstacle and every opportunity was related to food.
Our first task was to get food from a food shelter. My mother used to help run a food bank, and I have spent many hours over my lifetime volunteering and giving out food. So to be standing in line, waiting to receive food, was a whole new perspective. When I made it to the front of the line, I was given a choice between one of two bags that was meant to last for two weeks: a "cooking bag" or a "non-cooking bag." I chose the non-cooking bag, as any homeless person without access to a kitchen would choose. I looked into the bag and had to remove any refrigerated items, since I had no access to a refrigerator. I also saw a jar of peanut butter, which I had to remove since I am deathly allergic to nuts and nut products. That left me with pop-top cans (I was especially grateful for the pop tops since I had no can opener), no fresh produce, bread, and no protein. Even though most nutritional food was missing, the bag was heavy and had no handles. I cursed the challenge that I knew would lie ahead as I carried around a heavy bag of food without handles, but I felt extremely blessed that I would have this food by my side, if nothing else.
My most valuable possession was a shopping cart that I found stranded on the side of the road. Often times, we see people with all of their belongings in shopping carts, with garbage bags tied to the sides of the cart filled with bottles and cans. But I did not truly appreciate the value of the shopping cart until I had walked two miles with a heavy shopping bag of food and still had to attempt to collect 100 empty bottles and cans. Being interested in law, I knew that possessing a shopping cart could be reason enough for a police officer to stop me. So I pushed the shopping cart down sides streets and avoided main streets whenever possible. To make matters worse, the shopping cart had one very squeaky wheel that attracted attention to it, as if a homeless girl walking down side streets with a shopping cart wasn’t conspicuous enough. I cursed the attention that the shopping cart drew to me and the potential trouble that I could get into, but I felt blessed to have this cart to help carry my essentials while I was homeless.
My next task was to apply for a job. I noticed a motel on the side of the road, so I carefully hid my shopping cart in a bush in order to protect my most prized possessions and walked into the motel lobby. As I walked in with my dirty baggy pants and ripped jacket, a women on her phone looked at me, quickly changed directions, went into her office, locked the door and peered through the blinds. I was furious. I had never ever been treated like that, and stormed out in a huff. It wasn’t until I got to a fast food restaurant that someone let me even fill out a job application. I cursed people who stereotyped me simply based on the way I looked, but at least one person at a fast food restaurant provided me a potential opportunity to get out of my current situation.
Another task was to find and eat lunch at a Salvation Army. We were not given any addresses, and definitely had no phones or GPS systems to find a Salvation Army. I had received a pamphlet from the staff at the food shelter about all of the homeless services in the city and where they were located, and I realized that the closest Salvation Army was a 4 mile walk through downtown and past San Jose State University. So I took my shopping cart with its squeaky wheel and walked in the beating sun past a police officer on his lunch break, past SJSU students who were my age, past people who pretended to be very involved with their phones/iPods/child as soon as they spotted me. When I arrived at the Salvation Army, I was a little nervous about the lunch they would be serving given my extreme allergies to nuts, but I was starving and eagerly hoped that there would at least be something that I could eat. Turns out that I arrived just as they were ending lunch service (since it has taken so long for me to push my shopping cart), but they gave me a white bread sandwich with (lots of) mayonnaise, ham and cheese, chips, and a small apple. I noted the lack of nutritional value of the meal, but was grateful for anything that I could eat. I cursed the long walk for a simple sandwich, but was blessed to have such kind and empathetic people around me who seemed particularly saddened that someone my age could be homeless.
Despite all of the obstacles that I cursed, I realized that any day with food was a highlight for people who are homeless. The search for food forced me to walk 10 miles a day, and that was in a city that had one of the better and more comprehensive array of services for the homeless. Out of everything, food, a shopping cart, and a fast food industry job directed my day, and I learned very quickly that my homeless experience would be solely controlled by luck.
But food should not be given only to the lucky. Food should be a guarantee for everyone, no matter if their luck has run out or not. Food is even more essential for those whose luck has run out. Food has the ability to comfort and bring hope to a seemingly hopeless situation, or it can be over-consumed and underappreciated. Food is not simply nutrients that we must consume in order to survive. Food gives us an opportunity to create a more equitable and just world by prioritizing those who need it most.
I should note that any food that was not eaten was donated back to the food shelter that we started at.
