NeighborScapes

I just got off the phone with my sixtieth teenager at NeighborScapes.

As Program Coordinator at NeighborScapes, I am Executive Director Esther Massie’s right hand when hiring, training, placing, and maintaining the placement of our Civic Leadership Corps. I’m adapting what I learned at one of the best liberal arts institutions of higher learning in the country, to make it applicable for the lives of low-income or at-risk young people. Knowing the value of your time, being able to read a text to determine what’s in it rather than what it says, and learning to play to your strengths while eliminating your weaknesses, as well as a culture of higher learning and social responsibility, are necessary to every socioeconomic level, and it’s criminal that the books that talk about it are relegated to “academia” or “management” and first jobs are generally about learning how to get in line, fill out a time card, enter data, and priorities homogeny over excellence. NeighborScapes is not that kind of job, and I am delighted to cultivate leaders, rather than pander to ones self-selected by circumstance.

The problem is that, if all of the NeighborScapes Civic Leadership Corps from last year come back, and the sixty that have expressed interest this year maintain interest, we’re going to have to place ninety teenagers. Add a board president, an executive director, a program coordinator, a finance chair, an administrative assistant, four site supervisors, and two bus drivers, and we’re talking about a staff of a hundred. This is humbling, that we can grow so much, when this is only our third summer in operation- but tragic, because chances are very great that we won’t be able to hire all sixty of these new potential-CLCs, while also bringing back all thirty of last year’s. We’re waiting for the State to release its money for youth and summer jobs, and chances are very great that the leadership above me have something up their sleeves, but so far I haven’t heard anything.

I really do not want to set up a wait list. Most of the people who want to be CLCs have been wait listed out of most aspects of their lives. NeighborScapes is supposed to be the dream maker, that develops skills and captures opportunities to energize stagnant lives or refuel tanks running on fumes.

I and everyone at NeighborScapes are waiting for the government to come refill our station. But, in the meantime, you can sponsor a CLC for $500 (or sponsor for a month for $150, or for a week for $40…).

Thanks so much.

Chris Furuya is the program coordinator for NeighborScapes, a volunteering, community organizing, and civic leadership nonprofit located in the South suburbs of Chicago. Her twitter handle is earthangelNS.