AmeriCorps Awards $600 Million in National Service Grants

July 9, 2021 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized

An AmeriCorps member demonstrates a STEM project in a classroom to two surprised students.

More than 300 grants awarded to nonprofit and community-based organizations to support nearly 40,000 national service members

May 26, 2021 16:01 ET | Source: AmeriCorps

WASHINGTON, D.C., May 26, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — AmeriCorps, the federal agency for volunteering and national service, today announced more than $600 million in AmeriCorps funding, including grants and education awards, has been conferred to hundreds of nonprofit and community-based organizations across the country.

The federal investment includes $295 million in competitive awards to fund living allowances and program resources for nearly 40,000 AmeriCorps members, and provide up to $152 million in formula funding to governor-appointed state service commissions, which will make awards to support additional AmeriCorps members in those states.

“AmeriCorps is dedicated to creating a more united and equitable future for all Americans,” said Sonali Nijhawan, director of AmeriCorps State and National. “I’m proud to announce new funding that will elevate this work by AmeriCorps members across the country. I appreciate all our AmeriCorps members – past, present, and future – for their dedication. As an AmeriCorps alumna myself, I know tomorrow looks a little brighter because they pledge to “get things done for America.”

The total announced today includes up to $160 million in education awards for AmeriCorps members serving as a result of these grants. After completing a full term of service, members receive a Segal AmeriCorps Education Award of approximately $6,500 to help pay for college or pay back student loans.

This year’s grant competition, broadly focused on programs and initiatives spanning COVID-19 recovery, racial equity, conservation, public health, and education loss replacement, was highly competitive with requests for funding far exceeding funds available. Below are some examples of organizations selected for funding through this grant process, within the agency’s six key focus areas.

Disaster Response – Nearly 150 SBP AmeriCorps members will provide disaster recovery, home rebuilding, and opportunity housing services in seven states and territories. Through an AmeriCorps investment of $4,672,498, SBP will return more disaster survivors to safe, sanitary, and secure housing.
Economic Opportunity – 20 AmeriCorps members with the Utica Public Housing AmeriCorps program will help the long-term unemployed enter the workforce by providing job readiness training and placement services. An AmeriCorps grant of $281,740 will enable the AmeriCorps members to provide financial literacy education and help place those facing homelessness in quality, affordable housing by using an evidence-based, comprehensive case management approach to poverty reduction.
Education – With an investment of $4,319,500, College Advising Corps will place AmeriCorps members in 265 underserved high schools in 11 states in areas that include Detroit, Chicago, Atlanta, St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Kansas City. AmeriCorps members will provide college advising to low-income, first-generation, underrepresented students, increasing the college enrollment rates at the schools the serve.
Environmental Stewardship – Green Iowa AmeriCorps mobilizes AmeriCorps members to engage communities in environmental stewardship, neighborhood revitalization, and boots-on-the-ground resources for energy efficiency services. Their grant of $1,134,069 will support 114 AmeriCorps members to empower Iowa’s communities and school districts to make environmental, conservation-minded decisions and improvements.
Healthy Futures – Boston Health Care for the Homeless will receive a grant of $211,900 to support 13 AmeriCorps members who will provide care coordination and health education services to people experiencing homelessness in the greater Boston area. Their service will provide homeless individuals and families with improved access to health care, connects to health-supporting resources and social services, health education, and education to prevent overdoses and support substance misuse disorders.
Veterans and Military Families – Sponsored by the Washington State Department of Veterans Affairs, the Washington Vet Corps will place 50 AmeriCorps members to serve as culturally-competent peer mentors at veteran-focused organizations throughout the state. Through their service, supported by an AmeriCorps grant of $636,600, they will provide direct services to hundreds of individual veterans and their family members and deliver training to community members, while recruiting additional volunteers to increase veterans utilization of veteran services and decrease suicide among Washington state veterans.

A complete list of this year’s competitive awards can be found online.

Today’s announcement builds on AmeriCorps’ continued investments in the nation’s COVID-19 recovery. With existing programs in more than 40,000 locations across the country, AmeriCorps is uniquely positioned to bolster community response efforts. For the past year, thousands of AmeriCorps members across all 50 states and U.S. territories have continued their service, quickly adapting to meet the changing needs caused by the pandemic and have provided vital support, community response, and recovery efforts, providing support to more than 11 million Americans, including 2.3 million people at vaccination sites.

This funding is in addition to the $1 billion for AmeriCorps in the recently passed American Rescue Plan. The agency will use this investment to expand national service programs and increase the opportunity for all Americans to serve their country.

A growing body of research shows that service has an effect on more than just the communities served, but also on the members themselves. AmeriCorps alumni credit their year of service for developing leadership skills that bridges divides, solves problems, and opens doors to opportunities that advance their careers and education. In addition, research shows that alumni gain skills and are exposed to experiences that communities and employers find valuable.

This class of AmeriCorps members will prepare students for college, revitalize cities, connect veterans to jobs, fight the opioid epidemic, rebuild communities following disasters, preserve public lands, strengthen education, foster economic opportunity, and more. They will join the more than 1.1 million AmeriCorps members who have served since the program’s inception in 1994, earning nearly $4 billion in education awards.

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AmeriCorps, the federal agency for national service and volunteering, brings people together to tackle the country’s most pressing challenges. AmeriCorps members and AmeriCorps Seniors volunteers serve with organizations dedicated to the improvement of communities. AmeriCorps helps make service to others a cornerstone of our national culture. Learn more at AmeriCorps.gov.

Checklist of Documents

July 8, 2021 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized

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filling in forms cartoon with shopping and the caption Buy on-line - Fill in form, Fill in form again, And again, Lose form, Fill-in form a few more times, Give up and go to shop... by Grizelda

CHECKLIST TO COMPLETE PROJECT CHANGE MEMBER FILE FOR 2025-6

1)-Proof of Citizenship as in- Copy of Birth Certificate, Passport, Green Card,
2- Driver License, or some official Government ID with your picture
3- Copy of Social Security Card/ Pay Stub
4- Copy of High School Diploma/ College Transcript
5- Application Form –Answer 1-15: Sections where Resume material called for, write “See Resume” Plus, just add names and contacts of two referees.
6- Official Enrollment form
7-Resume
8. Background Checks- FBI. State of residence, State of service,
9. Signed consent form NATIONAL SERVICE CRIMINAL HISTORY CHECK (NSCHC) CONSENT FORM
10. PAYCE Financial Forms with voided check or letter from your bank- Schedule A and D
11. IRS and MD Tax forms- W507 and W4 and Homeland Security I-9
12. If you are not taking the AmeriCorps Health Insurance, Sign the form that asks that question or say Yes, if you need insurance
13. A copy of your own health insurance card.( if you are not taking AmeriCorps insurance)
14. If you need child care or not, sign that form.
15. Sign Photograph and Story release form
16. Sign the Confidentiality agreement
17. Certificate of completion of the Child Abuse and Neglect Course from MCPS
18-Student Loan Forbearance Form
19. A good portrait photo of you
20. A 100 word bio to go up public on the web site

Add-ons: Draft Training Timetable, Summary of Health Insurance, Copy of member Agreement to initial and review before signing.

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

Enlist the Young

July 7, 2021 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized

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By Jonathan Holloway

Dr. Holloway is the president of Rutgers University, a historian and the author, most recently, of “The Cause of Freedom: A Concise History of African Americans.” July 2, 2021 New York Times

This essay is part of a series exploring bold ideas to revitalize and renew the American experiment. Read more about this project in a note from Ezekiel Kweku, Opinion’s politics editor.

If we Americans listened to one another, perhaps we would recognize how absurd our discourse has become. It is our own fault that political discussions today are hotheaded arguments over whether the hooligans storming the halls of the Capitol were taking a tour or fomenting an insurrection; if we broadened our audiences, perhaps we would see the fallacy of claims that all Republicans are committed to voter suppression and that all Democrats are committed to voter fraud.

It seems like an easy challenge to address, but we lack the incentives to change our behavior. We are all, regardless of where we sit on the political spectrum, caught in a vortex of intoxication. We have fooled ourselves into thinking that our followers on social media are our friends. They aren’t. They are our mirrors, recordings of our own thoughts and images played back to us, by us and for us. We feel good about ourselves, sure, but do we feel good as citizens? Do we feel good as Americans? Are we better off? Is America?

There are many problems in America, but fundamental to so many of them is our unwillingness to learn from one another, to see and respect one another, to become familiar with people from different racial and ethnic backgrounds and who hold different political views. It will take work to repair this problem, but building blocks exist. A good foundation would be a one-year mandatory national service program.

Nearly 90 years ago, in response to the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt created the Civilian Conservation Corps, what was then America’s largest organized nationwide civilian service program. About 30 years later, President Lyndon Johnson brought to fruition President John Kennedy’s “domestic Peace Corps” initiative, the Volunteers in Service to America program, known as VISTA. Today, domestic civilian service is dominated by AmeriCorps and nongovernmental programs like Teach for America.

Taken together, these programs have been enormously successful at putting people to work, broadening the reach of basic social services related to education, health and welfare. Most important, they have helped citizens see the crucial role that they can play in strengthening our democracy. Given that we know service programs can be so effective in shoring up the nation in moments of crisis, the time has come for a broader initiative, with higher aspirations and goals. The time has come for compulsory national service for all young people — with no exceptions.

Universal national service would include one year of civilian service or military service for all adults to be completed before they reach the age of 25, with responsibilities met domestically or around the world. It would channel the conscience of the Civilian Conservation Corps and put young people in the wilderness repairing the ravages of environmental destruction. It would draw on the lessons of the Peace Corps and dispatch young Americans to distant lands where they would understand the challenges of poor countries and of people for whom basic health and nutrition are aspirational goals. It would draw on the success of our military programs that in the past created pathways toward financial stability and educational progress for those with limited resources, while also serving as great unifiers among America’s races, religions and social classes.

These are but three examples. A one-year universal national service program could take many other forms, but it is easy to imagine that it could be a vehicle to provide necessary support to underserved urban and rural communities, help eliminate food deserts, contribute to rebuilding the nation’s infrastructure, enrich our arts and culture, and bolster our community health clinics, classrooms and preschools.

Furthermore, because service would be mandatory, it would force all of our young people to better know one another, creating the opportunities to learn about and appreciate our differences. Speaking as an educator, I know that we get better answers to complex problems when we assemble teams from a wide range of backgrounds. Once these teams realize that they share a common purpose, their collective differences and diversity in race, gender, expertise, faith, sexual orientation and political orientation start to emerge as a strength. If you look at the state of our civic culture, it is clear that we have a long way to go before we can claim that we are doing the best that we can. The kind of experiential education I am advocating could change a life, could open a mind and could save a democracy.

A sensible system of compulsory national service would build bridges between people and turn them into citizens. It would shore up our fragile communities and strengthen us as individuals and as a nation. Compulsory national service would make us more self-reliant and at the same time more interdependent. It would help us to realize our remarkable individual strengths and would reveal the enormous collective possibilities when we pull together instead of rip apart.

At its core, we need to heed the call for citizenship. We need to take the natural inclination to help out our friends and families and turn it into a willingness to support strangers. We need to inspire people to answer the call to serve because in so doing they will discover ways to have their voices heard and their communities seen and respected.

This is neither a new nor a partisan idea. This call to serve and inspire is written into the preamble of the United States Constitution. When the founders sought to “form a more perfect union, establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty,” they were talking about establishing an ethos of citizenship and participation.

Compulsory national service is not a panacea, but neither is it a mere placebo. It could be a very real solution to a very real problem that already has wrought havoc on our democracy and that threatens our future as a nation, our viability as a culture and our very worth as human beings. This nation and its democratic principles need our help. We can and must do better.

Jonathan Holloway is the president of Rutgers University, a historian and the author, most recently, of “The Cause of Freedom: A Concise History of African Americans.”

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: letters@nytimes.com.

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A JULY 4TH SPEECH

July 2, 2021 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized

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While some Maryland towns have called off their fireworks and parades for 4th of July 2021, many communities plan to hold displays again.

Watch this rousing recital of a famous and controversial speech given in 1852 on July 5th by the amazing leader, Frederick Douglas. 169 years later, it still sounds so alive to our current challenges.

MCPS Update for 2021-2 Year

July 2, 2021 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized

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COMMUNITY UPDATE

July 01, 2021

Dear MCPS Community:

Here are five things you need to know about the June 29 Board of Education meeting and what’s ahead for the MCPS community this summer and fall.

1.The 2021-2022 school year will begin on August 30, with all schools returning to in-person instruction at 100 percent capacity five days a week. Watch this video to learn more about the fall 2021 vision for schools.

2.Mask guidance from the 2020-2021 school year will continue through the summer. Students and staff participating in summer programs are required to wear face coverings in school buildings; outdoors, mask wearing is not required, but is highly recommended and up to the individual. Tentative mask guidance for the 2021-2022 school year will be provided in August.

3.The deadline to apply for the Virtual Academy is July 2. We encourage all families who feel the program would be a good fit for their child to apply and to provide any available supporting materials. All applications will be reviewed and responses will be provided on a rolling basis.

4.MCPS will provide a new social-emotional learning (SEL) curriculum for students beginning in the fall. Staff have begun to receive training on the new SEL curriculum—the Leader in Me. The curriculum fosters a holistic approach to education, empowering educators with effective practices and tools to teach leadership to every student; create a culture of student empowerment; and align systems to drive results in academics. Implementation will be phased in over three years, beginning with these schools this fall.

5. MCPS elementary and middle school summer programs begin July 6, either in-person at the local school, in a special program, or through the MCPS all-virtual program. More than 53,000 students are participating in MCPS’ summer programming. For programs starting next week, families will receive details about what to expect in their emails by the end of this week. If you do not receive a confirmation for in-person programs at your school, please contact your child’s school. For the all-virtual program, if you do not receive a welcome message by the end of the day on July 2, please email CentralSummerMS@mcpsmd.org (middle school) or CentralSummerES@mcpsmd.org (elementary school).

Feeling Stuck? Five Tips for Managing Life Transitions

July 1, 2021 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized

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Whatever the wolf is that disrupts your story, here are ways to emerge as the hero.

By Bruce Feiler July 16, 2020 New York Times

The Italians have a wonderful expression for how our lives get upended when we least expect it: “lupus in fabula.” It means “the wolf in the fairy tale.” Just when life is going swimmingly, along comes a demon, a dragon, a diagnosis, a downsizing. Just when our fairy tale seems poised to come true, a big, scary thing threatens to destroy everything around it.

Today, for the first time in over a century, the entire planet is confronting the same wolf at the same time. In the United States alone, more than 130,000 families have lost loved ones; tens of millions of us have lost jobs, or may be rethinking our careers or where we want to live. We are reconsidering how we care for our families, what gives us meaning. The way we cope with such changes is called a “life transition,” and learning to master these challenging periods just may be the most essential life skill each of us needs right now.

I spent the last five years talking to people about the biggest transitions of their lives. Spurred by a back-to-back-to-back set of personal crises — a cancer diagnosis, a near bankruptcy, a suicide attempt by my father — I crisscrossed the country, collecting the life stories of hundreds of Americans in all 50 states who had been through wrenching life changes. I then spent a year combing through those stories, teasing out patterns and takeaways that can help all of us battle our wolves more effectively.

What I learned is that massive life disruptions — or “lifequakes,” as I call them — strike people in the core of their being. They create meaning vacuums, in which we feel frightened, overwhelmed and stuck.

A transition is how we get unstuck. A lifequake may be voluntary (we leave a bad marriage, start a new enterprise) or involuntary (we get laid off, become ill), but the transition must be voluntary. We must choose to take the steps and go through the process of turning our fear and anxiety into renewal and growth.

So what tools are most effective? Based on the patterns I found in my research, here are five tips that you or a loved one can use right now that will make whatever life transition you’re experiencing go more efficiently.

1. Start with your transition superpower

Once you enter a transition, you often feel either chaotic and out of control or sluggish and stuck in place. But my conversations suggest there is surprising order to these times.S

For starters, transitions have three phases. I call them “the long goodbye,” in which you mourn the old you; “the messy middle,” in which you shed habits and create new ones; and “the new beginning,” in which you unveil your fresh self. These phases need not happen in order. Each person tends to gravitate to the phase they’re best at (their transition superpower) and get bogged down in the one they’re weakest at (their transition kryptonite).

While 40 percent find saying goodbye the hardest, others are quick to shut doors. While nearly half say the messy middle is hardest, others relish it. Jenny Wynn, a minister in Scottsdale, Ariz., initially resisted the call to replace her senior minister at a previous church after he died suddenly. But once she accepted, she thrived. She took a sabbatical, began drawing, had his office repainted. “I needed time to transition my own thinking,” she said, “and I needed the congregation to transition how they thought of me.”

2. Identify your emotions

I asked all the people I interviewed the greatest emotion they struggled with during their transition. At 27 percent, fear was the most popular reaction, followed by sadness and shame. Some people coped with these emotions by writing down their feelings; others plunged into new tasks.

But nearly eight in 10 said they turned to rituals. They sang, danced, hugged, purged, tattooed, sky-dived, schvitzed. They changed their names, went to sweat lodges, got tattoos.

Following a brutal year in which she lost her job in Hollywood, had a blowup with her mother, and went on 52 first dates, Lisa Rae Rosenberg jumped out of an airplane. “I had a terrible fear of heights, and I thought, if I can figure this out, I can figure anything out.” A year later she was married with a child.

Ritualistic gestures like these are especially effective during the long goodbye as they’re statements — to ourselves and to others — that we’ve gone through a change and are ready for what comes next.

3. Shed something

Once we enter the messy middle, we shed things: mind-sets, routines, delusions, dreams. Like animals who molt when they enter a new phase, we cast off parts of our personality or bad habits.

After Michael Mitchell, a hard-driving urologist from Wisconsin, retired from four decades in medicine, he had to dispense with the idea that he should always be doing something constructive.

After Loretta Parham, a librarian in Atlanta, lost her daughter in a car accident and stepped in to raise her granddaughters, she had to give up merely indulging them and instead become more of a disciplinarian.

After John Austin stepped down from 25 years as a Drug Enforcement Administration agent, he had to get used to not having a gun. “Wait, now I have to persuade people to listen to me? I used to be able to compel them.”

Shedding is a way to clear out some unwanted parts of our lives to make way for the new parts to come.

4. Try something creative

In a pattern I didn’t see coming, a remarkable number of people I interviewed turned to creativity while undergoing the shifts in their lives. They start to dance, cook, paint; they write poems, thank-you notes, diary entries.

At the moment of greatest chaos, they respond with creation.

Sarah Rose Siskind, a firebrand intellectual from California, learned to play the ukulele while going through a depression after leaving her job as a writer at Fox News and renouncing her conservative views.

Dwayne Hayes, a computer programmer in Michigan, was so shaken after his wife gave birth to stillborn twins that he quit his job and started a magazine about fatherhood.

Helen Kim, who stepped down from teaching college biology in the wake of her stomach cancer, fulfilled a girlhood dream by taking classes in adult ballet.

What people seem to crave from these acts is what creation has represented since the dawn of time: a fresh start.

5. Rewrite your life story

A life transition is fundamentally a meaning-making exercise. It is an autobiographical occasion, in which we are called on to revise and retell our life stories, adding a new chapter in which we find meaning in our lifequake. The lifequake itself may have been positive or negative, but the story we tell about it has an ending that’s upbeat and forward-looking.

And that may be the greatest lesson of all: We control the stories we tell about our transitions. Instead of viewing them as periods we have to grind our way through, we should see them for what they are: healing periods that take the frightened parts of our lives and begin to repair them.

We can’t keep the wolves from interrupting our fairy tales, and that’s OK. Because if you banish the wolf, you banish the hero. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that we all need to be the hero of our own story.

Bruce Feiler is the author of The New York Times column “This Life.” This article is adapted from his new book, “Life Is in the Transitions: Mastering Change at Any Age.”

The Stories That Bind Us

July 1, 2021 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized

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By Bruce Feiler in the New York Times

March 15, 2013

Happy Families Cartoon Stock Photo, Picture And Royalty Free Image. Image 89410501.

I hit the breaking point as a parent a few years ago. It was the week of my extended family’s annual gathering in August, and we were struggling with assorted crises. My parents were aging; my wife and I were straining under the chaos of young children; my sister was bracing to prepare her preteens for bullying, sex and cyberstalking.

Sure enough, one night all the tensions boiled over. At dinner, I noticed my nephew texting under the table. I knew I shouldn’t say anything, but I couldn’t help myself and asked him to stop.

Ka-boom! My sister snapped at me to not discipline her child. My dad pointed out that my girls were the ones balancing spoons on their noses. My mom said none of the grandchildren had manners. Within minutes, everyone had fled to separate corners.

Later, my dad called me to his bedside. There was a palpable sense of fear I couldn’t remember hearing before.

“Our family’s falling apart,” he said.

“No it’s not,” I said instinctively. “It’s stronger than ever.”

But lying in bed afterward, I began to wonder: Was he right? What is the secret sauce that holds a family together? What are the ingredients that make some families effective, resilient, happy?

It turns out to be an astonishingly good time to ask that question. The last few years have seen stunning breakthroughs in knowledge about how to make families, along with other groups, work more effectively.

Myth-shattering research has reshaped our understanding of dinnertime, discipline and difficult conversations. Trendsetting programs from Silicon Valley and the military have introduced techniques for making teams function better.

The only problem: most of that knowledge remains ghettoized in these subcultures, hidden from the parents who need it most. I spent the last few years trying to uncover that information, meeting families, scholars and experts ranging from peace negotiators to online game designers to Warren Buffett’s bankers.

After a while, a surprising theme emerged. The single most important thing you can do for your family may be the simplest of all: develop a strong family narrative.

I first heard this idea from Marshall Duke, a colorful psychologist at Emory University. In the mid-1990s, Dr. Duke was asked to help explore myth and ritual in American families.

Myths and Realities about Culture and Families: Examples of Latin families - FFI Practitioner

“There was a lot of research at the time into the dissipation of the family,” he told me at his home in suburban Atlanta. “But we were more interested in what families could do to counteract those forces.”

Around that time, Dr. Duke’s wife, Sara, a psychologist who works with children with learning disabilities, noticed something about her students.

“The ones who know a lot about their families tend to do better when they face challenges,” she said.

Her husband was intrigued, and along with a colleague, Robyn Fivush, set out to test her hypothesis. They developed a measure called the “Do You Know?” scale that asked children to answer 20 questions.

Examples included: Do you know where your grandparents grew up? Do you know where your mom and dad went to high school? Do you know where your parents met? Do you know an illness or something really terrible that happened in your family? Do you know the story of your birth?

Dr. Duke and Dr. Fivush asked those questions of four dozen families in the summer of 2001, and taped several of their dinner table conversations. They then compared the children’s results to a battery of psychological tests the children had taken, and reached an overwhelming conclusion. The more children knew about their family’s history, the stronger their sense of control over their lives, the higher their self-esteem and the more successfully they believed their families functioned. The “Do You Know?” scale turned out to be the best single predictor of children’s emotional health and happiness.

“We were blown away,” Dr. Duke said.

And then something unexpected happened. Two months later was Sept. 11. As citizens, Dr. Duke and Dr. Fivush were horrified like everyone else, but as psychologists, they knew they had been given a rare opportunity: though the families they studied had not been directly affected by the events, all the children had experienced the same national trauma at the same time. The researchers went back and reassessed the children.

“Once again,” Dr. Duke said, “the ones who knew more about their families proved to be more resilient, meaning they could moderate the effects of stress.”

Why does knowing where your grandmother went to school help a child overcome something as minor as a skinned knee or as major as a terrorist attack?

How to trace your family tree | Financial Times

“The answers have to do with a child’s sense of being part of a larger family,” Dr. Duke said.

Psychologists have found that every family has a unifying narrative, he explained, and those narratives take one of three shapes.

First, the ascending family narrative: “Son, when we came to this country, we had nothing. Our family worked. We opened a store. Your grandfather went to high school. Your father went to college. And now you. …”

Second is the descending narrative: “Sweetheart, we used to have it all. Then we lost everything.”

“The most healthful narrative,” Dr. Duke continued, “is the third one. It’s called the oscillating family narrative: ‘Dear, let me tell you, we’ve had ups and downs in our family. We built a family business. Your grandfather was a pillar of the community. Your mother was on the board of the hospital. But we also had setbacks. You had an uncle who was once arrested. We had a house burn down. Your father lost a job. But no matter what happened, we always stuck together as a family.’ ”

Dr. Duke said that children who have the most self-confidence have what he and Dr. Fivush call a strong “intergenerational self.” They know they belong to something bigger than themselves.

Leaders in other fields have found similar results. Many groups use what sociologists call sense-making, the building of a narrative that explains what the group is about.

Jim Collins, a management expert and author of “Good to Great,” told me that successful human enterprises of any kind, from companies to countries, go out of their way to capture their core identity. In Mr. Collins’s terms, they “preserve core, while stimulating progress.” The same applies to families, he said.

Mr. Collins recommended that families create a mission statement similar to the ones companies and other organizations use to identify their core values.

The military has also found that teaching recruits about the history of their service increases their camaraderie and ability to bond more closely with their unit.

Cmdr. David G. Smith is the chairman of the department of leadership, ethics and law at the Naval Academy and an expert in unit cohesion, the Pentagon’s term for group morale. Until recently, the military taught unit cohesion by “dehumanizing” individuals, Commander Smith said. Think of the bullying drill sergeants in “Full Metal Jacket” or “An Officer and a Gentleman.”

But these days the military spends more time building up identity through communal activities. At the Naval Academy, Commander Smith advises graduating seniors to take incoming freshmen (or plebes) on history-building exercises, like going to the cemetery to pay tribute to the first naval aviator or visiting the original B-1 aircraft on display on campus.

Dr. Duke recommended that parents pursue similar activities with their children. Any number of occasions work to convey this sense of history: holidays, vacations, big family get-togethers, even a ride to the mall. The hokier the family’s tradition, he said, the more likely it is to be passed down. He mentioned his family’s custom of hiding frozen turkeys and canned pumpkin in the bushes during Thanksgiving so grandchildren would have to “hunt for their supper,” like the Pilgrims.

“These traditions become part of your family,” Dr. Duke said.

Decades of research have shown that most happy families communicate effectively. But talking doesn’t mean simply “talking through problems,” as important as that is. Talking also means telling a positive story about yourselves. When faced with a challenge, happy families, like happy people, just add a new chapter to their life story that shows them overcoming the hardship. This skill is particularly important for children, whose identity tends to get locked in during adolescence.

The bottom line: if you want a happier family, create, refine and retell the story of your family’s positive moments and your ability to bounce back from the difficult ones. That act alone may increase the odds that your family will thrive for many generations to come.

______________________________________________________________________________

“This Life” appears monthly in Sunday Styles. This article is adapted from Bruce Feiler’s recently published book, “The Secrets of Happy Families: How to Improve Your Morning, Rethink Family Dinner, Fight Smart, Go Out and Play, and Much More.”

History of Silver Spring MD

June 29, 2021 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized

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147th Anniversary of the Burning of Falkland Mansion | Silver Spring, MD Patch

Free Genealogy » Black Genealogy » Slave Narrative of Lucy Brooks

Slave Narrative of Lucy Brooks

Leave a Comment / Black Genealogy, Maryland

Interviewer: Guthrie
Person Interviewed: Lucy Brooks
Location: Forest Glen, Maryland
Place of Residence: Forest Glen, Montgomery County, Md.

References: Interview with Aunt Lucy and her son, Lafayette Brooks.

Aunt Lucy, an ex-slave, lives with her son, Lafayette Brooks, in a shack on the Carroll Inn Springs property at Forest Glen, Montgomery County, Md.

To go to her home from Rockville, leave the Court House going east on Montgomery Ave. and follow US Highway No. 240, otherwise known as the Rockville Pike, in its southeasterly direction, four and one half miles to the junction with it on the left (east) of the Garrett Park Road. This junction is directly opposite the entrance to the Georgetown Preparatory School, which is on the west of this road. Turn left on the Garrett Park Road and follow it through that place and crossing Rock Creek go to Kensington. Here cross the tracks of the B.&O. R.R. and parallel them onward to Forest Glen. From the railroad station in this place go onward to Forest Glen. From the railroad station in this place go onward on the same road to the third lane branching off to the left. This lane will be identified by the sign “Carroll Springs Inn”. Turn left here and enter the grounds of the inn. But do not go up in front of the inn itself which is one quarter of a mile from the road. Instead, where the drive swings to the right to go to the inn, bear to the left and continue downward fifty yards toward the swimming pool. Lucy’s shack is on the left and one hundred feet west of the pool. It is about eleven miles from Rockville.

Lucy is an usual type of Negro and most probably is a descendant of less remotely removed African ancestors than the average plantation Negroes. She does not appear to be a mixed blood—a good guess would be that she is pure blooded Senegambian. She is tall and very thin, and considering her evident great age, very erect, her head is very broad, overhanging ears, her forehead broad and not so receeding as that of the average. Her eyes are wide apart and are bright and keen. She has no defect in hearing.

Following are some questions and her answers:

“Lucy, did you belong to the Carrolls before the war?” “Nosah, I didne lib around heah den. Ise born don on de bay”.

“How old are you?”

“Dunno sah. Miss Anne, she had it written down in her book, but she said twas too much trouble for her to be always lookin it up”. (Her son, Lafayette, says he was her eldest child and that he was born on the Severn River, in Maryland, the 15th day of October, 1872. Supposing the mother was twenty-five years old then, she would be about ninety now. Some think she is more than a hundred years old).

“Who did you belong to?”

“I belonged to Missus Ann Garner”.

“Did she have many slaves?”

“Yassuh. She had seventy-five left she hadnt sold when the war ended”.

“What kind of work did you have to do?”

“O, she would set me to pickin up feathers round de yaird. She had a powerful lot of geese. Den when I got a little bigger she had me set the table. I was just a little gal then. Missus used to say that she was going to make a nurse outen me. Said she was gwine to sen me to Baltimo to learn to be a nurse”.

“And what did you think about that?”

“Oh; I thought that would be fine, but he war came befo I got big enough to learn to be a nurse”.

“I remebers when the soldiers came. I think they were Yankee soldiers. De never hurt anybody but they took what they could find to eat and they made us cook for them. I remebers that me and some other lil gals had a play house, but when they came nigh I got skeered. I just ducked through a hole in the fence and ran out in the field. One of the soldiers seed me and he hollers ‘look at that rat run’.”

“I remebers when the Great Eastern (steamship which laid the Atlantic cable) came into the bay. Missus Ann, and all the white folks went down to Fairhaven wharf to see dat big shep”.

“I stayed on de plantation awhile after de war and heped de Missus in de house. Den I went away”.

“Ise had eight chillun. Dey all died and thisun and his brother (referring to Lafayette). Den his brother died too. I said he ought ter died instid o his brother.”

“Why?”

“Because thisun got so skeered when he was little bein carried on a hos that he los his speech and de wouldt let me see im for two days. It was a long time befor he learned to talk again”. (To this day he has such an impediment of speech that it is painful to hear him make the effort to talk).

“What did you have to eat down on the plantation, Aunt Lucy?”

“I hab mostly clabber, fish and corn bread. We gets plenty of fish down on de bay”.

“When we cum up here we works in the ole Forest Glen hotel. Mistah Charley Keys owned the place then. We stayed there after Mr. Cassidy come. (Mr. Cassidy was the founder of the National Park Seminary, a school for girls). My son Lafayette worked there for thirty five years. Then we cum to Carroll Springs Inn”.

Slave Narrative of Lucy Brooks

http://montgomeryhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Vol12No1_MCStory.pdf

https://www.loc.gov/resource/mesn.080/?sp=4&st=text

https://montgomeryplanning.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/MPI_Cem_Form_Mt_Zion_Cem.pdf

https://mcatlas.org/filetransfer/HistoricPreservation/Cemeteries/327_River-Road-Moses_Bethesda/research/final2forgotten_african_american_community_of_river_road.pdf

content/uploads/2019/04/MPI_Cem_Form_Mt_Zion_Cem.pdf

https://cdn.website-editor.net/020d9c979f77483189db333592c7de7f/files/uploaded/History%2520of%2520Montgomery%2520County%252C%2520Maryland.pdf

https://bethesdamagazine.com/bethesda-magazine/november-december-2009/where-slavery-slept-2/2/

Recruiting 2021-11 Team

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SERVICE BRINGS THE COMMUNITY TOGETHER!

Project CHANGE Montgomery is the original Montgomery County MD program of AmeriCorps, America’s “Domestic Peace Corps” for more than 20 years. AmeriCorps members serve the county’s most under-served K-12+ students inspiring them to believe in themselves enough to achieve. Project CHANGE uses its own phone app called MYSCORE, the innovative SEL tool that allows students to self-assess their growth in the 5C’s and reach out to the members to help them grow more confident, curious, collaborative, courageous and career/future focused learners.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

BENEFITS
In return, AmeriCorps members receive:

300 hours of Training, peer-to-peer coaching, and professional development and mentoring
Living stipend of $18,000 per year
$6,345 educational scholarship
Health Insurance
Preference in hiring in many organizations and agencies
Child Care if qualified
Student loan forgiveness for the duration of the service
Lifelong friends who experience the challenges together
Invaluable experience of the local education/non-profit sector

Positions are full time (1700 hours over 12 months (August 2021 to August 2022) and some positions are Half Time (900 hours over a year.)S

MCPS

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) with 165,000+ Students enrolled, is one of the nations largest school districts and it grows every year. But since March 2020, all schools have shutdown, leaving kids cut off from their peers, depriving them of normal healthy social outlets. The virtual platforms of learning might be able to teach math or science but they cannot make up for losses in Social/Emotional learning, the very skills students need most to deal with the crisis. This is where you come in. “Back to Normal” is a misnomer given what so many students have missed out on.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Every child needs one on one attention, especially struggling students, who battle to believe in themselves. Project CHANGE is dedicated to the 5C’s curriculum that says every student needs to grow in Confidence, Curiosity, Collaboration, Courage and Career/future focused learning. Guided by internationally known teachers, the best narrative and coaching faculty in the region, the Project CHANGE 2021-22 team will serve together to tackle the COVID19 challenge to learning. By serving directly in schools and in after-school programs with leading non-profit organizations, AmeriCorps members commit to a year serving students so that they not just catch up, but “catch on fire” with taking the lead in their own learning.

For 20 years, AmeriCorps Project CHANGE Montgomery has combined a traditional AmeriCorps placement with the most innovative training and supervision drawn from the complementary disciplines of the narrative method and peer to peer executive coaching. 2021-21 will offer the same amazing faculty that includes Disaster Relief specialist Mary Fowler (Trauma informed teaching) performer and author Noa Baum, (on how to tell a story) Therapist Jonathan Zeitlin (Mindfulness and Zen) executive master coach Lynn Feingold ( the art of peer to peer coaching) Lockheed Martin retired manager John Dold (Building a Team) author and Professor, Dr. Jean Freedman ( How Improv can improve performance) Women’s Business Coach, Maria Mcelhenny (Financial Literacy) and many others. This outstanding team has been brought together under the leadership of world authority on narrative method and Project CHANGE director, Paul Costello.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

AmeriCorps Members are assigned to one of our outstanding nonprofit and educational organization partners:

YMCA Youth & Family Services (YMCA-YFS) – YMCA-YFS is a community-based, comprehensive social services branch of the YMCA Metropolitan Washington. YFS provides school and community-based prevention and early intervention services to at-risk and under-served children and families from across Montgomery County, MD. YFS programs address basic social-service needs, teach fundamental life skills and assist participants in making healthy choices. The YMCA coordinates after-school programs for children, K-12.

AmeriCorps members serve as program assistants and coordinators at Benchmarks, serving middle school students.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Family Learning Solutions (FLS) – FLS provides services at Neelsville Middle School and at Gaithersburg High School. FLS offers tutoring to students referred by school personnel and juvenile court professionals. There is a need for bilingual AmeriCorps members to ensure that students and households struggling with English can access needed services. FLS also offers a special mentoring program for girls (6 – 12 grades) to ensure that they are equipped with essential life skills to thrive in their lives, personally, academically, and professionally. A safe, empowering, and supportive environment is provided as students cultivate authentic connection with themselves and others.

AmeriCorps members can serve as a tutor for referred students and/or work as a mentor in the program for girls (6 – 12 grades).

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Arts on the Block | Montgomery County Volunteer Center

Arts on the Block (AOB) – AOB is an entrepreneurial nonprofit organization that provides a unique model of youth development and community engagement through public art. AOB is the only organization in the Washington, DC area offering youth of diverse backgrounds the opportunity to learn first-hand about the intersection of art, design, and business by engaging in real-world projects. Today, more than 100 AOB apprentice-created projects — from park benches to large-scale murals — grace public and private spaces throughout the area.

One AmeriCorps member will assist the AOB cohort of passionate individuals in providing opportunities for creative youth in Montgomery County and beyond. This is a perfect placement for a budding artist.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Montgomery Housing Partnership (MHP) – MHP serves more than 1,400 families in Montgomery County. They house people, empower families, and strengthen neighborhoods. Since 1989, Montgomery Housing Partnership’s mission is to preserve and expand quality affordable housing in Montgomery County. They advance their mission through three key strategies; by acquiring, rehabilitating, building and managing quality affordable housing, by developing and implementing community life programs to improve the quality of life and increase opportunities for our residents, and by collaborating with concerned citizens and businesses, public officials and community organizations to build strong, vital neighborhoods.

Two AmeriCorps members coordinate and supervise preschool and after school programs for students who live in these properties.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Student Services - Psychological Services - Montgomery County Public Schools, Rockville, MD

The MCPS Restorative Justice Unit – Restorative Justice is an approach to building community, self-care, and conflict resolution. It’s a social justice platform that allows students to:

Actively engage and problem-solve physical, psychological, social and disciplinary issues that affect themselves and the community.
Take responsibility for their actions.
Work with those affected to restore and/or repair the members and community who were harmed as a result of those actions.

Two AmeriCorps members assist The MCPS Restorative Justice Unit in preparing and engaging all stakeholders in restorative practices through meaningful trainings, school-level support, collegial collaboration, and supported community partnerships.

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) – MCPS is searching for classroom support to the teachers and students in the highest needs schools in the County, which include:

Kemp Mills Elementary School (Requires a Spanish Speaker)
Sligo Middle School
Jackson Road Elementary School
Thomas Edison School of Technology
Saturday School

Seven AmeriCorps members will serve as assistants in the classrooms and provide direct support to the teachers and students.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

\

George B. Thomas Sr. Learning Academy, Inc. - Saturday School | Montgomery County Volunteer Center

George B. Thomas Sr. Learning Academy (GBTLA) – GBTLA is often called Saturday School and is open to all students in Montgomery County. Saturday School is a sixth day of academic instruction with certified teachers in a nurturing and supportive environment. The Curriculum is aligned with that of Montgomery County Public Schools: Grades 1 through 8 focus on reading, language arts and math, Grades 9 through 12 focus on core subjects (English and Math); support for High School Assessments; HSA Bridge support available at select sites. College and career readiness is emphasized.

The AmeriCorps member is involved in student- parent outreach and communication with an emphasis on the Latino community which has not yet participated in large numbers in this Saturday learning opportunity.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Community Bridges – Community Bridges is a non-profit organization that helps empower girls from diverse backgrounds to become exceptional students, positive leaders, and healthy young women. Community Bridges envision an inclusive community where each person is valued and has abundant opportunities to improve themselves and the world around them. The following principles guide all their work. The organization believes in:

Endless Potential: Individuals are encouraged and given opportunities to explore limitless possibilities in order to actualize their dreams.
Strength-Focused Thinking: Everyone is in possession of assets that can be mobilized to promote collective action in schools and communities.
Resourcefulness: Barriers can be overcome by applying enterprising strategies to define resourceful ways to accomplish goals.
Multidimensional Approaches: The world is interconnected and whole-systems thinking ensures the success for those involved.

Three AmeriCorps members serve over 450 girls from Grades 4-12 in the after-school program, covering Elementary, Middle and High School.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Career Readiness Education Academy (CREA) - Montgomery County Public Schools, Rockville, MD

The Career Readiness Education Academy (CREA) – CREA is an academic and career readiness education program for older ESOL students in MCPS. Students in CREA are provided with opportunities to prepare for the GED exam, learn valuable work skills, and earn industry certifications. Students are referred to CREA if they are at least 18 years old and unlikely to meet all graduation requirements prior to turning 21 and/or if they are interested in pursuing an alternative pathway to a high school diploma via GED preparation. The CREA program is currently offered at both Seneca Valley High School and Thomas Edison High School of Technology as a full-day or evening program. Having these two program options provides students who need to work or care for their own children with an opportunity to continue their education in MCPS until they turn 21. Students who participate in either CREA program are considered full-time MCPS students.

One AmeriCorps members will assist in tutoring students and providing support to the program educators.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

MCPS Recovery and Academic Program (RAP) – RAP is a partnership between Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) and Sheppard Pratt Health System to connect youth with academic and substance use recovery support services. The program pairs academic coursework from MCPS with recovery support services provided at The Landing, Family Services’ recovery clubhouse. RAP helps students continue working toward graduation in a safe and supportive environment during the day while learning the necessary skills needed to maintain sobriety in the afternoons and evenings. It is free of charge to Montgomery County youth and accepts referrals from MCPS, juvenile drug court, and other non-profit agencies.

One AmeriCorps members from Project CHANGE will assist the RAP participants in academic tutoring and mentoring and offer support to the program staff as needed.

_________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

NEXT STEPS-INFORMATION SESSIONS

All applicants must be high school graduates and American citizens or permanent residents. Send a copy of your resume and a letter of interest and be prepared for an interview over June/July and attend a ZOOM information session on one of these dates: June 11, June 24, July 7th, July 20th. Links to the ZOOM are below.

DETAILS TO ATTEND AN INFORMATION SESSION ON ZOOM

Wednesday July 7th 2.00pm-3.30pm https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88317577100

Tuesday July 20th 10.30am-12pm
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85645207166

APPLY on Indeed here
Email us at americorpsmontgomery@gmial.com

All members will be serving with MCPS schools and partner organizations that must abide by the Montgomery County Health and Safety Guidelines.

Apply 2021-22

June 28, 2021 Paul Costello1 Uncategorized

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Edit

SERVICE BRINGS THE COMMUNITY TOGETHER!

Project CHANGE Montgomery is the original Montgomery County MD program of AmeriCorps, America’s “Domestic Peace Corps” for more than 20 years. AmeriCorps members serve the county’s most under-served K-12+ students inspiring them to believe in themselves enough to achieve. Project CHANGE uses its own phone app called MYSCORE, the innovative SEL tool that allows students to self-assess their growth in the 5C’s and reach out to the members to help them grow more confident, curious, collaborative, courageous and career/future focused learners.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

BENEFITS
In return, AmeriCorps members receive:

300 hours of Training, peer-to-peer coaching, and professional development and mentoring
Living stipend of $18,000 per year
$6,345 educational scholarship
Health Insurance
Preference in hiring in many organizations and agencies
Child Care if qualified
Student loan forgiveness for the duration of the service
Lifelong friends who experience the challenges together
Invaluable experience of the local education/non-profit sector

Positions are full time (1700 hours over 12 months (August 2021 to August 2022) and some positions are Half Time (900 hours over a year.)S

MCPS

Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) with 165,000+ Students enrolled, is one of the nations largest school districts and it grows every year. But since March 2020, all schools have shutdown, leaving kids cut off from their peers, depriving them of normal healthy social outlets. The virtual platforms of learning might be able to teach math or science but they cannot make up for losses in Social/Emotional learning, the very skills students need most to deal with the crisis. This is where you come in. “Back to Normal” is a misnomer given what so many students have missed out on.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Every child needs one on one attention, especially struggling students, who battle to believe in themselves. Project CHANGE is dedicated to the 5C’s curriculum that says every student needs to grow in Confidence, Curiosity, Collaboration, Courage and Career/future focused learning. Guided by internationally known teachers, the best narrative and coaching faculty in the region, the Project CHANGE 2021-22 team will serve together to tackle the COVID19 challenge to learning. By serving directly in schools and in after-school programs with leading non-profit organizations, AmeriCorps members commit to a year serving students so that they not just catch up, but “catch on fire” with taking the lead in their own learning.

For 20 years, AmeriCorps Project CHANGE Montgomery has combined a traditional AmeriCorps placement with the most innovative training and supervision drawn from the complementary disciplines of the narrative method and peer to peer executive coaching. 2021-21 will offer the same amazing faculty that includes Disaster Relief specialist Mary Fowler (Trauma informed teaching) performer and author Noa Baum, (on how to tell a story) Therapist Jonathan Zeitlin (Mindfulness and Zen) executive master coach Lynn Feingold ( the art of peer to peer coaching) Lockheed Martin retired manager John Dold (Building a Team) author and Professor, Dr. Jean Freedman ( How Improv can improve performance) Women’s Business Coach, Maria Mcelhenny (Financial Literacy) and many others. This outstanding team has been brought together under the leadership of world authority on narrative method and Project CHANGE director, Paul Costello.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

AmeriCorps Members are assigned to one of our outstanding nonprofit and educational organization partners:

YMCA Youth & Family Services (YMCA-YFS) – YMCA-YFS is a community-based, comprehensive social services branch of the YMCA Metropolitan Washington. YFS provides school and community-based prevention and early intervention services to at-risk and under-served children and families from across Montgomery County, MD. YFS programs address basic social-service needs, teach fundamental life skills and assist participants in making healthy choices. The YMCA coordinates after-school programs for children, K-12.

AmeriCorps members serve as program assistants and coordinators at Benchmarks, serving middle school students.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________