Around the City

Urban affairs, neighborhoods, subways and the people who are affected by them all.

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December 20, 2010 | 12:55 PM | By

Tripling the Impact of a Donation to WAWF

Flickr: Thomas Hawk

Look at the amazing things you can do with money!

I think sometimes, people don’t give money to charitable organizations because they worry that whatever they give isn’t enough. Charity is for wealthy people, who donate thousands of dollars at a time, right? Alternately, I know people (myself included), who are amenable to the idea of giving and plan to do so, but are especially inspired by offers to have their gifts matched– who doesn’t want to see a gift doubled, or, in lucky instances, tripled?

I just received an email from the Washington Area Women’s Foundation– which works to improve the lives of local women and girls– with exactly that offer:

A generous donor has agreed to match every gift received from our year end campaign with a 2-to-1 match — up to $100,000. That means for every dollar you donate, our donor will give two dollars. A $100 donation will have the impact of a $300 donation. $500 becomes $1,500. And your gift will help fund our efforts to ensure that every woman and girl in our community has the opportunity to attain economic security and reach her full potential.

If the WAWF sounds familiar, it may be because of their Portrait of Women and Girls in the Washington Metropolitan Area, which was released this Fall.

If you know of other local non-profits or charities who have similar offers to match gifts, let us know. A donation in someone’s name may be the perfect gift for a hard-to-shop-for friend or family member (I’m looking at you, Mom).

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Non-profits, Philanthropy, Poverty
December 17, 2010 | 4:20 PM | By

On Today’s Metro Connection…

Rebecca Sheir/Metro Connection

While WAMU is nationally-known for The Diane Rehm Show, and locally-beloved for The Kojo Nnamdi Show, as of last week, I’ve found myself falling for WAMU’s other exclusive program: Metro Connection. I mention last week because last Friday, I listened to one of the stories from MC twice– and that was before I blogged about it. This week, I’m having driveway moments all over again, and just in case you missed it, I thought I’d spotlight two stories that DCentric readers may find interesting. First up:

A Legacy Of Education

Rebecca Sheir introduces us to Lynn C. French, whose African-American family has deep roots in the D.C. area… and a rich history/legacy of education. Her forebears include Emma Brown, who founded one of the first schools for African-Americans in D.C., and several of the early trustees of Howard University.

Plus:
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FILED UNDER: The People, History, Metro Connection, WAMU
December 17, 2010 | 2:13 PM | By

A Debate about Food Deserts

DCentric

Fast food: unhealthy, but delicious when you're too exhausted to travel for nutrition.

Postbourgie’s Nicole takes on “The Myth of the Food Desert“, by The Root’s John McWhorter. McWhorter wrote:

The no-supermarket paradigm discourages us from considering that human beings acquire — through childhood experience, cultural preferences and economics — a palate…

Culture, too, creates a palate — and to point that out is not to find “fault.” Example: Slavery and sharecropping didn’t make healthy eating easy for black people back in the day. Salt and grease were what they had, and Southern blacks brought their culinary tastes North (Zora Neale Hurston used to bless her friend Langston Hughes with fried-chicken dinners)…All of which is to say that our take on the obesity issue at hand cannot be that sugary and high-fat food is always the only food that is available to poor people within walking distance. It simply isn’t true.

Nicole responds:

I’ll lay it out for him. Obesity (along with hunger) is dramatically higher among poor communities. And guess what? If you are poor, your access to affordable, nutritious food is more likely to be limited…

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Food, Poverty, Race and Class
December 16, 2010 | 4:49 PM | By

“Start with friends and neighbors…”

Muffet/Flickr

While in the process of learning more about local charities and non-profits this week, I spoke to Terri Freeman, President of The Community Foundation for the National Capital Region as part of my research; I wanted to share part of her interview with you, because I think it illuminates a strategy for addressing one of the larger issues this blog was designed to explore– gentrification and the neighborhood tensions that come with it. I was merely asking Ms. Freeman for her take on “How to Help” this holiday season, but as she was speaking, I thought about how her words were just as relevant with regards to the changes that are remaking this city, block by block:

In addition to the five organizations you can give to or volunteer with, I would also suggest that people consider doing something nice for people in their own neighborhood. Be neighborly. If there are elderly people in your neighborhood, bring them something to eat (or help them with shoveling snow).

Believe it or not, in every neighborhood, there is probably somebody who can definitely use your help. You never know who might be watching what you say to somebody and the impact it can have on them.

I’m thinking back to several years ago when it was Christmas eve, and it was snowing. We were hit with Christmas spirit and decided to go caroling in the neighborhood…boy oh boy, did people look at us like we were aliens! And I think that’s because we have gotten away from doing those kind of community activities.

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FILED UNDER: The People, Non-profits
December 16, 2010 | 10:35 AM | By

D.C. by race, by block

The New York Times has a fascinating interactive feature up where you can browse local data from the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey by entering a zipcode or city. This allows you to see the racial breakdown of a place, census tract by census tract. Here’s what D.C. looks like– the green dots each represent 100 white people, the blue dots represent 100 Black:

http://projects.nytimes.com/census/2010/explorer

A city divided by green and blue...

You can also choose to “View More Maps” and then select for “Foreign-born population”, “Asian Population”, and more. Were you surprised by the numbers for your block?

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Gentrification, Immigrants, Race and Ethnicity
December 15, 2010 | 5:55 PM | By

What Five Local Charities Need, Right Now

Last week I mentioned that my favorite part of Thanksgiving this year wasn’t the eating or the eating– it was participating in the 40th Annual Trot for Hunger, benefiting So Others Might Eat. I know many of you feel the same way about trying to do good, especially around the holidays, so I thought it might be useful to compile a list of what five great local charities need, right now:

1) Sasha Bruce Youthworks. Addressing D.C.’s budget shortfall meant painful cuts which disproportionately hurt “safety net” organizations like this one, which works to help runaway, homeless and at-risk youth and their families. Sasha Bruce Youthworks was one of the first organizations that President Obama visited (and volunteered at!) after his inauguration. Jim Beck, Director of Development, said:

During the holiday season, the types of things we need are warm winter clothes: lightly used winter jackets, hats, socks and underwear of all sizes for young people. We also need gifts or toys for toddlers through teenagers. We are trying to have nice holiday parties for the kids in our care, who are not with their families.

Need more information? Call 202-675-9340.

2) Miriam’s Kitchen tweeted this wishlist, yesterday:

ON OUR WISH LIST: Sleeping bags, winter boots, coats, gloves, and socks. It's very cold outside for our guests, thank you for your help!
December 14, 2010 2:55 pm via webReplyRetweetFavorite
@miriamskitchen
Miriam's Kitchen

If you have questions about donating clothing, call (202) 452-8926 or check out their site.

3) Bright Beginnings is a “nationally-accredited child and family development center” which helps homeless families with children. Right now, they need two things, according to Joan Woods, Director of Development and Communication:

Grocery store gift cards or Metro cards in 20 or 25 dollar increments. Recent metro fare increases have hit homeless families especially hard, and we try to help these families get their kids to school. We can give a grocery gift card to a family in crisis, so they can buy medicine, formula, diapers, whatever they need.

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FILED UNDER: Around the City, Non-profits, Poverty
December 13, 2010 | 2:16 PM | By

Eric Sheptock has 5,000 Facebook friends and no home

Nathan Rott shares the story of Eric Sheptock, a self-described “homeless homeless advocate”:

Being homeless has become Sheptock’s full-time occupation. It’s work that has provided him with purpose and a sense of community. But it’s also work that has perpetuated his homelessness and, in a way, glorified it.

Sheptock, 41, wouldn’t take a 9-to-5 job that compromised his advocacy efforts or the long hours he spends tending to his digital empire, he says. He wouldn’t move out of the downtown D.C. shelter where he has slept for the past two years if it would make him a less effective voice for change.

Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Around the City, The People, Eric Sheptock, Homelessness
December 13, 2010 | 1:18 PM | By

“No Walmart! No Way!”

Kaliya

Walmart’s controversial arrival in the District has inspired newspaper articles, blog posts, tweets and now…a whole website. Check out “Wal-mart Free DC“:

As District residents, many of Ward 4 in particular, we are coming together to say “No!” to this; no to the the corporate takeover of our neighborhood, no to jobs that will be lost if Wal-Mart opens, no to the driving down of wages in other retail jobs that accompanies Wal-Mart, no to the closing of small businesses (current and future) due to Wal-Mart’s presence, no to the poverty wages that Wal-Mart pays their employees, no to the sweatshop wages that the workers that make many products for Wal-Mart stores are paid, no to the funding of conservative political candidates by Wal-Mart executives and PACs, some of whom oppose Statehood for the District, no to the tax burden that Wal-Mart adds by not paying its employees enough to afford the limited health care that it offers to some, no to the Wal-Mart’s discrimination against women, and on, and on, and on.

The most recent post is a call to march on “the Developer’s House” this Thursday.

FILED UNDER: Around the City, Gentrification, Walmart
December 10, 2010 | 3:12 PM | By

Remembering a fixture of Chinatown

Late in November, a 78-year-old man named Quan Chu was struck by a bicyclist in an alley near the Convention Center. We learned on Tuesday that the strike was fatal.

As NPR’s Andy Carvin points out in an affecting eulogy to “the Mayor of Chinatown,” his passing robs Chinatown of yet another vital link to its past. What’s left is for us to learn, and remember:

He and his family came to the U.S. from China in 1982. They lived in a rowhouse about two blocks south of NPR. For years he worked at the local Chinese restaurants to save up enough money to send their children to college. And several years ago he suffered a minor stroke. As part of his therapy, he would go for that walk with his wife each day.

I never got to know him. I don’t even know if he even recognized me each day in the same way that I always recognized him. But I feel a profound sense of loss with his passing — not only for his wife and family, but for Chinatown itself.

This isn’t just a story about how recklessness and lack of consideration can have huge and tragic consequences. It’s a story about the importance of the strangers around us, a reminder of how much we should treasure and respect each other. Condolences are due to Mr. Chu’s beloved – the kids he helped put through college, his wife who was also struck that day. But Andy’s right, the loss is all of ours.

FILED UNDER: The People, biking, Chinatown