Small in number, local Moravian Church values modern beliefs

In the age of Christian megachurches, with the number of followers nearing tens of thousands, and with the continued growth of televised worship services that mobilize and expand ministries, a small congregation in Downey, Cali. is spreading Christ’s love in a different way: through personal relationships between members and pastor, community outreach, and fellowship.

On a Sunday evening, a handful of the Moravian Church members can be found gathered in a small, redecorated north chapel that feels more like a living room than a place of worship. This is the Back-Alley Gathering, an inter-generational worship experience quite unlike the usual Sunday service. This is where Rev. Christie Melby-Gibbons and her husband David, members of the Moravian church and guests gather and spend a couple of hours a week to contemplate and have a dialogue about life’s tough questions. In past meetings, the group has drawn prayers, listened to music as a contemplative piece, and viewed movies as activities.

The Back-Alley Gathering is one of the many ways the Moravian Church of Downey is opening its arms to the community, for all people of faiths and circumstance, fighting to stay relevant and active in sharing God’s love.

The beginnings of the church

The Moravian Church is the oldest Protestant denomination, established in 1457 in Moravia (now present-day Czech Republic), predating the Lutheran Church by more than 60 years. It grew from the revolt led by John Hus, a Czech priest, who disagreed with the Catholic Church’s practices. Driven underground in the 1600’s, a revival in the 1700’s in Germany by Count Nicholas Ludwig von Zinzendorf took the Moravian church to other countries as centers of outreach.

In 1735, the Moravians arrived in Pennsylvania. From there, settlements in the eastern United States followed. By the end of the nineteenth century, Moravians had established settlements in Canada as well.

The Moravian church came to California after WWII, where only a mission had been established in 1890 in the Morongo Indian Reservation. In 1954, the church was built in Downey.

Melby-Gibbons describes the Moravian Church as a “middle-ground” faith, one that emphasizes relationships and love over doctrines and creeds (the church only has one official published doctrine). The church accepts that various Christian denominations achieve relationship with God differently, which only enriches the understanding and celebration of God’s love.

The church is greatly liberal in its embrace of worship and people. The church welcomes women in all leadership roles in the ministry and welcomes the gay and lesbian community as members and trustees.

Phil Voigt, 69, president of the Board of Trustees, was just a young boy when the Moravian church was built in Downey in June 1954. His parents hailed from West Salem, Illinois and belonged in the only Moravian congregation in the small farming town.

“I helped put the nails in this place,” he said, “and my parents had a lot to do with building the church, too.”

It was a fairly large congregation then. Today, the Downey Moravian church has about 100 members, according to Voigt, although attendance to Sunday worship, excluding religious holidays, tends to be slim.

“The Moravian church as a whole has been growing very slowly mainly because Moravians will not build a church that already has a Methodist or a Presbyterian, or some other Protestant church,” he said.

This means that Moravian churches in the U.S. are hard to come by and some Moravians would have to travel far to attend worship.

Shirley Louis, 52, from Simi Valley, travels once a week, sometimes more frequently, to Downey for Sunday worship and other church events.

Born and raised in Nicaragua, Louis grew up going to a Moravian church, where congregations of 200 to 300 members are typical.

“In Nicaragua, church is very important. Kids had to go to Sunday school–it wasn’t a choice. And you went to church every Sunday,” she says.

When she came to California in 1984, she searched for a Moravian church nearby. “I was living in Inglewood at the time, so it was easier then to come to church,” Louis says. Now, it takes her an hour to get to church.

Despite the travel, she goes to worship every Sunday morning, usually with her daughter and mother. And they’re not alone. A few other members from the same village in Nicaragua all drive to attend worship.

No distance is too far to be with their church family.

“I know the names of the people at church. You don’t get that at a big church.”

Though the Moravian Church has been around since the 1400’s, there are only slightly over 700,000 Moravians worldwide. Only 10 percent of Moravians reside in the United States and Canada. Half of the church population resides South Africa, the Caribbean, and Tanzania.

But Melby-Gibbons is realistic with what could happen to the institutional Moravian Church in North America. She knows that active membership has greatly diminished over the years in many congregations.

“Moravian congregations are closing at a rapid rate. It seems that the Moravian Church as an institution—like the institutional church throughout North America and beyond—is dying,” she admitted.

The Moravian church does not proselytize, which means membership over the years has been slow to grow without a regular addition of newly converts.

But membership in Downey hasn’t always been this low. Back in the 1950’s, membership was strong. Over the years, the city population grew, but with it, less people were identifying themselves as Moravians, making it harder to meet the church’s financial needs for maintenance and to pay provincial dues. Today, the majority of the congregation is over the age of 60, with only 20 to 40 younger members.

Emily Korn, 33, is the church’s Youth Leader and admitted that younger people in general are leaving churches.

“Those in their teens, I think, are looking maybe for something more visual[ly] stimulating. So, a traditional, mainline, protestant worship service is not what they are looking for, even though I think we offer a true family of faith at our church,” she said. “I know the names of the people at church. You don’t get that at a big church.”

But along with the sense of a tight-knit community, lies some pitfalls.

“The detriment of small congregations is that sometimes they can become like a social club and become inwardly focused. Most of those congregations will close,” Melby-Gibbons said. “We need to be really careful that we are being relevant and not just forgetting about people outside of our walls.”

Melby-Gibbons shared a provincial leader’s theory on the future of the Moravian Church in North America: “There’s this theory that out of the 35 congregations in the western district, in 10 years, 5 of those congregations will close. And it will keep going in that pattern.”

But this doesn’t deter the church from reaching out.

Although funds are limited, the church manages to donate money and materials to help support several local organizations and programs like Rio Hondo Temporary Home, which provides transitional housing and support services for homeless families. They also have various ministries to collect and provide clothing for the homeless in Skidrow in downtown Los Angeles, and assisting a neighboring congregation in collecting food for a local food bank.

New leadership, new energy

In all of these outreach efforts, Melby-Gibbons is there to guide and encourage her congregation. Since her installment in the church in September 2009, she has introduced new ideas and has brought new energy.

In addition to all the existing outreach efforts, she has also proposed a GAPS Community (Gardener, Artist, Psalmist, and Shopkeeper), a Christ-ian community that would allow people to follow or emulate the life of Jesus Christ and would be housed in the parsonage.

The church also holds “Open Table” every Thursday night where anyone who wants to attend can come and break bread with the Melby-Gibbons and fellow congregants. Melby-Gibbons has also started planning a small program called Moravians Anonymous, a “crash-course” into who the Moravians are and what their theology is. Efforts like these and the Back-Alley Gathering are aimed to remove or at least ease some of the distaste or disillusionment of people for organized religion, and hopefully interest them enough to become members.

In all of the struggles of a small congregation, Melby-Gibbons is finding true joy in her loving congregation.

“You can’t go into ordained ministry without a love for people,” she said.

She added, “I see my task as a pastoral leader in the Moravian realm as: to help the institution die gracefully, but also to look for signs of resurrection.”

Although membership may ultimately thin out and the institutional Moravian Church may fold, Melby-Gibbons believes in the church’s motto: “In essentials, unity; in nonessentials, liberty; in all things, love.”

“I ask myself: What are those things about the church, which has been about people, which cannot die [and] glow as embers which promise to spark into new life? Those embers are the Moravians’ focus on: love in all things, relationship over doctrine, simplicity in life and theology, and an outward focus, like going out in mission and service to a world in need.”

Heroin addiction sweeping through Orange County

Jackee was 16 when she smoked it for the first time. It was the summer of her sophomore year and her boyfriend asked her if she wanted to get loaded with some other kids. She had already been smoking methamphetamine on-and-off for three years, so trying heroin didn’t seem like a big deal to her.

“I thought about it for like five seconds,” the 18-year-old Yorba Linda resident says. “And then I thought, ‘Eff it. Why not?’”

As she sat in her boyfriend’s car, Jackee watched one of the teens press the “sugar” to the foil. He lit a match beneath the foil and held it as Jackee sucked the smoke through a hollowed out pen.

She took five hits, drawing the smoke in deep each time, taking care not to waste any. When she was done, she lay back on the grass next to her boyfriend and stared at the sky. She felt invincible.

Those skies darkened quickly. Jackee began smoking heroin daily, using greater quantities as her tolerance increased. Within weeks she had developed a $200-a-day habit that she would go to any lengths to feed.

Jackee is not alone. Her story is becoming all too familiar in the tidy tracts and upscale enclaves of Orange County, where a wave of teen heroin use has left authorities and parents grappling for answers.

At Touchstones, an adolescent residential treatment facility in Orange, program director Patti Ochoa says three out of 16 clients are primary heroin users, a figure she calls “unusually high.”

At Twin Town Treatment Center, an adolescent outpatient treatment center in Los Alamitos, the figure is higher: two out of five of their 13 to 17-year-old clients now cite heroin addiction upon admission.

Primary counselor Chris Logan says heroin, “seems to be the thing to do right now.” These are not street kids, he stresses, but kids from middle-income families.

At Alternative Options, an intensive outpatient treatment facility in Placentia, administrators say they rarely had heroin addicts at their facility a year ago. Today, six out of ten clients are being admitted with heroin addiction. The majority are females between 15 and 18 years old.

Sean Hogan, assistant professor of social work at Cal State Fullerton, says figures like those are considerably high for any population, not just teens. According to government statistics, approximately 5 percent of adolescents are admitted to treatment with heroin dependence, with most admitted with a marijuana-use disorder.

“Even if you back out those reporting marijuana as their primary drug of choice at admission, you still only get about 10 percent of adolescents reporting heroin as their primary drug of choice,” Hogan says.

Experts say that low cost, availability and the high that smoking heroin produces are fueling this new wave of young users.

According to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) officials, the heroin being trafficked from Mexico to Orange County is primarily black tar heroin and, to a lesser extent, Mexican brown. The low cost and increased availability of high purity heroin that can be snorted or smoked rather than injected with a needle makes it attractive to teens.

At Alternative Options, most of their teen clients begin using drugs “right out of grandma’s medicine cabinet,” program coordinator Linda Bates says. They progress to heroin when their Vicodin or Percocet habit becomes too expensive. She notes that prescription drugs often run $20 a pill or more, whereas a bag of heroin is fairly cheap.

“Many of these kids save up their lunch money and money mom gives them to buy heroin,” Bates says. “Ten dollars at a time – that’s enough to buy a small amount. You can get more for your money with the heroin.”

She says what teens don’t realize is that with heroin, addiction can be almost instant – usually right after their first use.

When teen addict Jackee smoked heroin for the first time, she wanted to use again right away.

“I thought, ‘This can’t be what everyone’s addicted to. It wasn’t even that great – I got sick!’ But I stopped getting sick after a while and I liked the numb feeling it gave me,” she said.

It wasn’t long before Jackee was using heroin daily – about eight or nine balloons a day, she said, adding that a balloon costs about $25 in Yorba Linda. She started dating a dope dealer who brought her free heroin. She also had a part time job so she was able to buy balloons on her own.

Jackie began doing anything to get her dope.

“I was ditching school to get heroin. I would have heroin dealers bring me my dope at the campus because I would be kicking (having withdrawals) at school, lying in the bathroom stalls puking and shaking,” she said.

She stole money from her family and her employer. She volunteered for the snack shack at little league baseball games, stuffing twenties into her pockets when nobody was looking. She stole money and iPods from backpacks in the girls’ locker room at school.

“This one guy I knew had over $100,000 from his parents’ deaths,” Jackee recalled. “He was a heroin addict so I immediately became his friend and flirted with him and slept with him because he fed me heroin.”

When Jackee’s parents took her to a hospital detoxification unit six months after her first use, she weighed 98 pounds, her hair was falling out in clumps and she couldn’t last a day without heroin. Stories like hers are not unusual, according to Tammie Skonseng, a counselor at Alternative Options, who explained that heroin addicts will beg, borrow and steal to get their drugs.

“Even if they have to sell their body, they will do it. We don’t find that with someone who is drinking or someone who is doing meth, but (heroin addicts) have to have it because they will be so sick without it.”

The Orange County city of Placentia has been hit exceptionally hard by heroin use. There, police department officials say heroin arrests have shot up 150 percent in the past 12 months, primarily among 16 to 23-year-olds.

Police Sgt. Kelly Kenehan, who supervises the Special Enforcement Detail for gangs, vice and narcotics, has been involved in nearly two dozen heroin-related arrests involving teens and young adults in the past six months. In response to the growing problem, his unit has stepped up street enforcement, especially in the hard-hit north end of the city.

In September, law enforcement seized 100 pounds of Mexican brown heroin in adjacent Anaheim, believed to be one of the largest heroin seizures in California. But that has failed to stem the flow of the narcotic into Placentia.

“Some of the search warrants that we’ve done and arrests we’ve made show that people are driving up to LA anywhere from two to five days (a week) to pick up and distribute it within our city,” Kenehan said, noting that heroin is readily available outside the high schools and the streets that surround them.

In November, a 17-year-old Placentia boy nearly died from a heroin overdose. Since then, Kenehan’s department has fielded calls from anxious parents asking about symptoms and paraphernalia associated with heroin use.

“Parents are freaking out,” Alternative Options’ Bates agrees, adding that most find it hard to believe the drug their child is using is heroin.

“But addiction is addiction. It’s bad with any drug, but we just don’t think of heroin as something that’s available here in Orange County in the high schools,” she says.

She cautions parents to pay attention to what their teen is doing.

“I think awareness is a big thing right now,” Bates says. “I think the community needs to get together and be aware. And watch. Because there’s a big thing going on.”

–

This article originally appeared on The Daily Titan.

Healthcare bill raises fear of denied coverage among legal immigrants

As Congress moves closer to passing legislation that will expand health insurance coverage to 30 million Americans, many immigrant rights advocates worry that proposed reforms will leave large numbers of legal immigrants without insurance.

At issue is whether Congress will retain a 1996 welfare reform law requiring legal, non-citizen immigrants to wait five years before they become eligible for federal benefits and extend it to a waiting period for subsidies as well. If retained, (as proposed in the Senate bill) it could affect more than one million legal immigrants, according to an October 2009 report by the Migration Policy Institute (MPI).

Also worrisome are strict screening processes proposed in the House bill used to prevent undocumented immigrants from obtaining benefits. Immigrant rights advocates question the effectiveness of these processes, which they say will force legal immigrants to “jump through hoops” to prove their eligibility and could delay critical medical services to those who need them most.

Francisco I. and his family emigrated from Chile seven years ago. As legal residents who are not yet citizens, they pay the same taxes as citizens and are subject to the same laws. Last year Francisco’s father, an engineer, lost his job and with it the family healthcare benefits. He has since found work but his employer does not offer insurance.

When Francisco recently became ill with a high fever, the family could not afford a doctor. After several days, his father found a doctor who agreed to treat Francisco for less than a normal office visit.

“We still ended up paying about $150 just to get somebody to see what was wrong with me and another $150 for medicine,” he says.

Now he worries about what would happen if something more serious were to happen.

“It’s not just getting sick - it’s accidents that worry me the most. Like if I fall and break an arm or get something like a concussion or get in a car crash.”

Current U.S. Census Bureau figures show that 24 million immigrants now live in this country. About 12 million are legal residents, like Francisco. Although most legal immigrants are employed, the MPI report found that 38 percent work at small firms of 25 employees or less. Only one out of three of these workers is insured compared with seven out of 10 U.S.-born workers in similar-sized firms.

While Congress will likely mandate employers to provide insurance for their workers, small firms will probably be exempted from these mandates.

Experts say this will force millions of immigrant workers, many who live below the federal poverty line, to purchase health insurance themselves or turn to already jammed emergency rooms and clinics for medical care.

“Let them buy their own healthcare,” Evelyn Miller, a spokesperson for the California Coalition for Immigration Reform argues. “Why should they go on public benefits?”

The CCIR, established in 1992, is a group who seeks to have current immigration laws enforced, borders secured and illegal aliens deported, Miller explains. She believes that the five-year waiting period should be retained and that only citizens should be eligible for federal healthcare benefits.

“When people come to this country legally to join a family member or they are sponsored by somebody who is a citizen, the sponsor signs an affidavit claiming that the legal immigrant will not be a drain on our public benefits,” Miller says. “So they’re not supposed to get public benefits.”

She says that legal immigrants get a lot of benefits that U.S. citizens do not.

“They go in and try to get food stamps or housing subsidies and all they have to do is show that they have no funds and no income and they get it right away. It’s really a travesty,” she says.

And what about those immigrants who can’t afford to purchase health insurance?

Some will turn to free clinics like the Lestonnac Free Clinic in Orange County, Calif., which sees more than 3,500 patients with about 14,000 visits a year, according to Executive Director Ed Gerber.

Founded in 1979 by a Catholic nun, Lestonnac is funded primarily by private foundations and community donations, with about five percent of the funding coming from the state. Medical services are donated by thirty physicians and fifteen dentists, whom Gerber calls “the backbone of the clinic.”

The clinic’s primary mission is to help the uninsured, whether they are in this country legally or not, Gerber says, so they never question a patient’s documentation.

“We’re not a government agency; we don’t care what their issue is,” he says.

He stresses the importance of providing medical treatment and testing to all immigrants.

“We don’t know who is in line in front of us in the grocery store. We don’t know if this person has tuberculosis or if this person has the swine flu, which is so prominent today,” he says. “We really need to try to take care of these people, especially the new population of immigrants coming in to California, so that we’re not spreading disease to everybody else.”

Fear is a daily part of life for illegal immigrants who fear deportation and for legal immigrants who fear legal entanglements with their citizenship process, so they seek medical care less often than citizens.

A 1997 study by The Kaiser Commission found that citizen children, on average, had over three times as many visits to the emergency room as non citizen children of non citizen parents.

Recently, Gerber has seen a proliferation of minority-run clinics that exploit the fear of newly-arrived immigrants by charging enormous prices for lab work, x-rays, ultra-sounds and other often unnecessary services.

“I find it deplorable that there are doctors out there that start clinics and they rip off their own people,” he says. “These people are afraid to come to community clinics like us because they’re illegal and they’re uncomfortable and they’re afraid we’re going to turn them in. To me, this is an enormous problem that’s happening here in Orange County. They’re just raping their own people and it needs to stop.”

Chilean immigrant Francisco knows people who have avoided going to the emergency room out of fear. They think that a border patrol agent is going to show up at the emergency room. And after they’re done getting their healthcare they’ll get kicked out,” he says.

His own fear of jeopardizing his pending citizenship is so strong that he refused to be identified for this article.

Recent government figures show that more than 20,000 people immigrated legally to Orange County last year, bringing the total foreign-born population to more than 900,000. To meet the growing demand for healthcare, Lestonnac has opened two new clinics – one in Santa Ana and another in Los Alamitos. Plans are underway to open two more in January 2010.

Despite the fact that President Obama’s goal of “healthcare for all Americans” may soon become a reality, Gerber is skeptical that the programs will impact the people he treats at his clinics.

“My hope is that it will make healthcare better. That’s all of our dreams – that whatever Congress does, it actually works,” he says. “As far as impacting us, I don’t particularly see how any of this funding is going to come to our facility. It’s not designated to come to free clinics-it’s going to hospitals and medical groups and FUHC clinics.”

So Gerber’s work providing healthcare to the uninsured will continue.

“Even if this passes there’s still going to be a large gap of people that are still gonna need help.”

Minority Businesses Shut Out of Stimulus Loans

Loans handed out to struggling small businesses as part of President Barack Obama’s stimulus package have largely shut out minority businesses — especially those owned by Blacks and Latinos — according to data provided by the federal government’s Small Business Administration (SBA) to New America Media (NAM).

On June 15, the SBA, using money from the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, launched the ARC program, America’s Recovery Capital, giving banks and credit unions 100 percent guarantees so they’re taking no risk when they make loans of up to $35,000 to previously successful, currently struggling small businesses to help them ride out the recession.

Under the program, the borrower pays no interest and makes no payments for 12 months, then has five years to repay the loan. SBA charges no fees and pays interest to the lender at prime - the rate of interest at which banks lend to favored customers - plus 2 percent.

The Obama Administration does not report the racial breakdown of who’s benefiting from these loans at Recovery.gov, but data obtained by NAM from the SBA found that of the 4,497 ARC loans where the race of the borrower was reported, 4,104 (over 91 percent) went to white-owned firms, 140, (3 percent) went to Hispanic-owned businesses, and 151 (3 percent) went to Asian- or Pacific Islander-owned businesses. Only 65, (1.5 percent) went to black-owned firms.

Overall, white-owned businesses received over $130 million in loans through the program, while Hispanic-owned businesses got $4 million and black-owned businesses less than $2 million.

In five states - Alabama, Arkansas, New Hampshire, South Dakota, and Wyoming — every single firm that received an ARC loan was white-owned. In eight other states, including Louisiana and Nevada, all but one loan went to a white-owned firm.

Civil rights groups and representatives of the minority business communities reacted with anger when told of NAM’s findings.

“It’s just horrendous,” said Anthony Robinson, director of the Washington, D.C.-based Minority Business Legal Defense and Education Fund (MBELDEF). “During this economic recession, there is no recognition or sensitivity to the need to support and benefit people of color.”

“The data raises troubling questions” and should trigger an investigation,” says Oren Sellstrom of San Francisco’s Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights. “This should be a red flag for the SBA and the banks. It gives us the indication that something may be amiss and further explanation is warranted.”

Census figures put black business ownership at 5 percent and Hispanic business ownership at about 7 percent — more than double the numbers getting these SBA-backed loans.

At the SBA in Washington, spokesman Jonathan Swain argued racial disparities in the ARC loan program don’t paint the full picture of the agency’s lending practices. Many of the SBA’s other loan products, he says, have large minority business participation. For example, he says, minority-owned businesses receive 29 percent of loans given through the SBA’s regular lending program and 37 percent of Microloans doled out by the agency.

“It’s hard to look at the ARC program by itself,” he told NAM. “It’s just one tool in the tool box, just one tool in the array to help small business in these tough economic times.”

One reason for the extremely low level of minority participation in the ARC loan program, he maintains, is that the Recovery Act specifically prohibits the agency from allowing an ARC loan to be used to refinance a regular SBA loan, which minority firms are more likely to have.

That explanation isn’t enough for minority business and civil rights groups, however.

Sellstrom of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights isn’t convinced by that argument. “You would think that minority owned firms could use $35,000 for a lot of uses other than paying down SBA loans.”

Sellstom said SBA’s response only underscores the need for further investigation. “It’s often the case that the first explanation leads to further questions,” he said.

Javier Palomarez, the president and chief executive officer of the United States Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, says the ARC loan program was poorly designed and “destined to fail.”

When Congress was drafting the stimulus package, Palomarez said, his agency and other minority business groups argued the severity of America’s recession should have led to the government handing out loans to struggling small businesses directly - rather than simply backing up loans from the very banks that caused the country’s economic recession.

But the SBA and the banks lobbied against direct government financing of small business, he said, and so Congress devised a $35,000 loan program that requires a small business to wade through nearly the same paperwork needed to obtain one of SBA’s regular $2 million loans.

Because of the paperwork and the small sums involved, “most banks don’t want to participate in the loan program, and many of those that are participating are restricting applications only to long-term clients.”

And those long-term clients often exclude small, minority businesses, which banks see as “risky.”

“There’s been a dramatic rise in the risk profile of small businesses,” Palomarez said “and that is even more pronounced among minority entrepreneurs.

“African American and Hispanic entrepreneurs often self-financed their start-ups or expansions, meaning, that they tapped into their own net worth … taking out home equity loans or second mortgages to invest in their communities and create jobs.”

“These businesses did not get a bailout and, while the Administration has been generous with tax credits for struggling businesses, the banks that caused this problem are nowhere to be seen,” he said.

James Ballentine, senior vice president of the American Bankers Association, told New America Media the banks have nothing to do with the racial disparities apparent in the stimulus’ small business loans.

“When somebody comes to us, we don’t look at their race,” he said. “The can be red, white, brown, or green. The only thing we look at is their credit worthiness.”

The main problem, Balletine, said, is “there’s been a real lack of marketing and as a result, very few lenders have participated.” He noted that in the six months since the ARC Loan program was first announced, the SBA has been able to underwrite fewer than 5,000 loans.

But Sellstrom of the Lawyers Committee says the bankers’ analysis doesn’t address the question of the racial inequities. The fact that there’s been little marketing doesn’t mean that nobody is being told about the opportunities. It just means that it’s going on in less formal ways, and those informal channels are the ones that minority businesses are not privy to.”

“The breakdown is that people of color are not present at the banks,” added Anthony Robinson of MBELDEF.” And the government that’s pushing these benefits through are not sensitive to the fact that we are not involved in this distribution network.

“So to solve this problem we need to incorporate people of color into the distribution chain of banks, business, and government. Otherwise, the flaws of the system will only magnify the inequality that’s at the center of our recession.”

–
This article originally appeared on New America Media. Aaron Glantz is NAM’s Stimulus Editor.

* Note on the sources: ARC loan statistics from the U.S. Small Business Administration. Demographic information from the U.S. Census Bureau. Population percentages 2008, Business Ownership percentages are from the Census’ 2002 Economic Census: Survey of Business Owners.

Wildlife Sanctuary battles silently amid city growth and development

With international talks about climate change dominating news cycles, focus has been on government action to mitigate the environmental problems worldwide. Issues of urban growth, habitat protection and preservation are often tasked to government entities, but other environmental battles are fought, often unknown, in smaller communities.

In Walnut, Calif., a city of 32,000 residents and a burgeoning community college population, a relatively hidden treasure has been silently battling to survive against budget cuts, relocation proposals and urban growth.

The Wildlife Sanctuary at Mt. San Antonio College (Mt. SAC) is a lush preserve that has been a part of the college and the city for over 40 years in an unassuming, yet busy street corner of Grand and Temple. Established in 1964, the Sanctuary is a ten-acre protected preserve for plants, shrubs, and animals of Walnut Valley, owned and funded by Mt. SAC and maintained by the college’s Biological Sciences faculty.

In July 2009, Walnut completed a $1.488 million road expansion project (PDF) on Grand Avenue, the main artery to and from Walnut and Mt. SAC, taking about an acre of the preserve where large oak trees and vegetation once stood, according to Craig Peterson, Wildlife Sanctuary Director. 

Relatively untouched and unchanged by developments in Walnut, it has become one of the few places in the San Gabriel Valley left undisturbed. But urban growth, among other factors, is a looming presence that habitat preservations like the Sanctuary faces.

Land with ‘nothing’ on it

Habitat preservations offer invaluable resources to the local community. The Wildlife Sanctuary supports six different ecosystems with wetlands rich in vegetation and wildlife, providing learning opportunities for students. Such opportunities are becoming harder to come by as housing, business plazas and transportation take up free land and lessons on the environment are relegated to textbook illustrations.

Craig Petersen, 62, has been the director since 1981. He has overseen the maintenance, cultivation and operations of the Sanctuary for over 20 years with passion and appreciation.

“Some people said this corner between Temple and Grand is now the most valuable piece of property in the whole city of Walnut because it has ‘nothing’ on it,” he said. “From my perspective, it’s full of native animals and wildlife and teaching opportunities that is extraordinary.”

For years, the Sanctuary has provided thousands of students from the college with onsite lessons on ecosystems and native plants of the region. But Petersen wanted to reach more students in nearby cities, not just the college.

“Many people see a bunch of weeds there,” he said. “They’re not familiar with it until there’s an article about it or until they’ve got a class, and there [are] many faculty that have been here many years that haven’t set foot in it.”

So in 2006, the Wildlife Sanctuary partnered up with Orange County Department of Education’s “Inside the Outdoors” (ITO) program. ITO provides science programs to students in Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties through field trips to various nature centers. The field program at Mt. SAC offers programs for K-4 students with lessons on ecosystem exploration and local Native American lifestyle per California curriculum standards.

“It [partnership with Mt. SAC] has expanded our program to younger students, which has been traditionally more for fourth and fifth graders,” said Kelly Ellis, the project assistant with ITO. “It’s a great way for students to get out in nature. Especially students from low-income families, who may not have had a chance to see so many trees before.”

Mainly funded by grants, ITO has brought more than 8,000 students to the Sanctuary.

It has also brought the Sanctuary much-needed funds. A small student fee from ITO goes directly to the Sanctuary to pay for field naturalists, Ellis said.

In the recent years, the Sanctuary has received a $2,000 annual budget from the college for tools and maintenance. One year, the budget was barely enough to buy two bags of gravel, according to Petersen.

But funding and urban development are not the only battles the Sanctuary and other nature centers and parks around the country face. The survival of these local treasures depends heavily on community members to continue the work needed to safeguard natural habitats.

To do that, the community would need to see the value of the Sanctuary and other natural parks, especially as communities continue to expand and progress. That is what the Sanctuary’s partnership with ITO hopes to do.

“Someday I won’t be here and we don’t know who might be the next person to take charge or take the responsibility,” Petersen said. “Since I’ve been here 30 years, it has been a life-long love of mine to try and keep it going.”

A growing community

Walnut, a residential community ranked as one of the top cities to live in by Money Magazine, has a significant commuter population of college students. This year, Mt. SAC reported a 7 percent increase in enrollment.

Because of this and the city’s growth, Grand Avenue, the main road to the college, has been a cause for concern. Increased traffic over the years has frustrated Walnut residents and the City Council.

“The Grand Avenue intersection has been the most complained about intersection by Walnut residents,” said Mary Rooney, the community services director for Walnut. “It has been on the city’s Capital Improvement list for years.”

The original proposal to alleviate traffic was to use the existing road south of the Sanctuary, but Mt. SAC and the Sanctuary opposed it. Access to the existing road would put the preserve under heavier noise and air pollution, according to Petersen.

The approved project expanded the intersection with more right and left turn lanes to alleviate traffic. The expansion took a 40-foot wedge-shaped area from the Sanctuary.

To offset this loss, the Mt. SAC Board of Trustees agreed to give fifteen acres of land southwest of the preserve and $750,000 to re-vegetate and cultivate the land, as well as to remove the existing road.

But Petersen is realistic about what could come to fruition.

“The enlargement of the Sanctuary has been promised, but not much has moved forward because of the budgetary crisis,” he said.

The money for the Sanctuary is under a local bond, Bond Measure RR, which Mt. SAC hopes to sell soon, according to John Nixon, president of the college’s Board of Trustees.

“We have been promised $750,000 which is huge. But we don’t know if we’ll ever see it,” Petersen said. “If they hold up to their promises, the Wildlife Sanctuary will become mitigated land which will make it more difficult, just at a snap of a finger, to take over and do something with it.”

Nixon, on the other hand, is confident about the future of the Sanctuary.

“The Board of Trustees is committed to it [the Sanctuary], in fact we’re expanding it. There is no jeopardy for the Sanctuary.”

But even if its removal is not in the immediate future, ongoing developments in nearby cities could negatively impact the Sanctuary.

Nearby, the City of Industry plans to build an NFL stadium, which could require future improvements on Grand Avenue. Increased traffic, noise, light and air pollution would interrupt the ecosystems, which are migratory and breeding grounds for many animals.

Though no developments are being discussed yet, Petersen knows that it’s only a matter of time until they may have to face another hurdle.

“This has always been a battle,” he said.

When asked what future developments might mean to the Sanctuary, Petersen quoted environmentalist and author Dr. Richard Vogl, “A preservationist has to win many battles. A developer only has to win once.”

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For more information on Bond Measure RR, click here.

Despite State Subsidies, Class Sizes Begin to Rise Again in California Schools

Most of California’s largest school districts are increasing class sizes in kindergarten through third grade, eroding the most expensive education reform in the state’s history.

California Watch surveyed the 30 largest K-12 school districts in the state and found that many schools are pushing class sizes to 24 in some or all of the early grades. Other districts have raised class sizes to 30 students – reverting to levels not seen in more than a decade.

The changes at more than two-thirds of the districts surveyed have parents and teachers concerned that the academic performance of millions of children will suffer. California already ranks 48th in the nation in terms of student to teacher ratios.

And new measures are in place that will allow districts statewide to raise class sizes even higher and still receive more than $1 billion in state aid — money that was originally intended to reward schools that kept class sizes low.

The class-size reduction program was adopted 13 years ago with much fanfare. Its goal was to bring the state’s overcrowded K-3 classrooms down to a maximum of 20 students for every teacher in the lower grades. As an incentive to participate, Sacramento gave school districts a generous annual subsidy for every child – now $1,071 per child.

Carol Kocivar, California PTA’s president-elect, said that adding just four students more than the base level of 20 represents a significant increase.

“When you start inching up above 20, kids don’t get the individual attention they need,” she said.

The state has invested about $22 billion in direct subsidies into reducing class size, including $1.8 billion this school year. This is on top of billions more that individual school districts have had to pay to cover the full costs.

The program was rooted in research from other states that showed students in smaller classrooms were more successful academically.

Even though the state never implemented measurements to track the academic impact of class-size reduction, the program has been enormously popular among parents and teachers. Yet because of the state’s budget crisis, school officials are finding it harder than ever to sustain.

That’s the case in both the Mount Diablo Unified School District, in Contra Costa County, and the San Jose Unified School District. In Orange County’s Capistrano Unified School District, second and third grade classes have grown to an average of 30.5 students. In Los Angeles, which enrolls 10 percent of California’s students, K-3 class sizes are creeping up to 24 in many schools.

“In better times it is something that should be protected, but in the times we are in, it is not something we can afford to continue,” said Don Iglesias, San Jose’s superintendent, noting that raising class sizes to 30 will save his district $4 million this year alone.

At Oliveira Elementary School, in a quiet residential neighborhood of Fremont, kindergarten teacher Cheryl Accurso is adjusting to a 30-student classroom for the first time in her 11-year career.

“My worry is that with 30 kids in the class, I won’t be able to reach out and touch, and get to every child in my classroom,” she said. “When they come in the morning, I make sure I tap them on the shoulder or pat them on the head, and say their names, so that there is at least one time when I know I can get to all the children.”

California’s Superintendent of Public Instruction, Jack O’Connell, who authored the class-size-reduction legislation when he was a state senator, said that it is no accident that elementary school students in recent years have achieved significant academic gains.

“That is now in jeopardy because we have so many school districts walking away from class-size reduction,” he said.

For most of the program’s existence, schools lost the entire subsidy if the average class size hit 21. That has proved to be a powerful incentive for schools to participate. All but about a dozen of the state’s 883 eligible districts have done so.

The state Legislature has designated lower class sizes as a top priority for education spending. The program was one of a handful that escaped the budget axe this year.

At the same time, however, lawmakers acted earlier this year to make it easier for schools to abandon the program. The move allows school districts to raise K-3 classes to as high as 31 students on average — at least for the next three years. Schools that raise the class size above 25 can still receive 70 percent of the subsidies they have received in the past. In past years, K-3 classes of 22 or more students would have been denied state funding through the program.

In theory, school districts could spend more than $1.2 billion of the $1.8 billion set aside for the program on classes with 25 or more students.

Rick Simpson, deputy chief of staff to Assembly Speaker Karen Bass, and her chief adviser on education policy, said lawmakers are hoping the popularity of the program will force school districts to keep class sizes small, despite reducing the penalties for exceeding the 20-student cap. He said the goal was to give school districts more flexibility in how they spend class-size reduction funds, something they have sought for years.

But former Gov. Pete Wilson, who initiated class-size reduction when the state enjoyed a budget surplus in 1996, said the recent changes “totally defeat the purpose of the program. If you get 70 percent of the funds for doing nothing, where is that money going? It is not accomplishing the purpose for which the program was devised.”

One purpose was to bring California’s class sizes down — to get them in line with those of other states. That did happen in the elementary grades. But by 2007, California had larger student-teacher ratios than every state except Utah and Arizona across all 12 grades.

Larger K-3 class sizes now threaten to push California even further behind.

“Having the largest class size in America is a crime and a shame,” said Delaine Eastin, the former superintendent of public instruction who oversaw the implementation of the class-size-reduction initiative until 2002.

It is not only poor districts that are affected. In fact, in some cases, districts serving large numbers of low-income and minority students have benefited from the additional $1.25 billion in Title 1 stimulus funds California receives from the federal American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

And nearly 500 of the state’s lowest-performing schools are still receiving funds from the Quality Education Investment Act, passed by the Legislature in 2007. These funds have allowed school districts like Los Angeles to maintain some of their K-3 class sizes at previous levels. The Fremont Unified School District has so far been able to keep class sizes to 20 in the first, second and third grades. But in kindergarten, enrollments have risen to 30.

This year, at Oliveira Elementary, Accurso has her students sitting in groups of six, at five tables, instead of groups of four, at five tables, as in previous years. Across the yard, one of the bungalows brought to the school when the class-size reduction program began in 1996, now stands empty.

But Accurso isn’t nostalgic about the smaller class sizes.

“My focus is on the 30 kids I have in front of me and what I can do for each of them,” she said. “I can’t be thinking about what might have been. I can’t go there.”

She says she is managing with the extra kids – in part because she gets help from another teacher for about two hours, as well as parent volunteers. “We’re just worried that we won’t be able to get them where they need to be at the end of the year,” she said.

In Los Angeles, each of the district’s 524 elementary schools could choose between retaining all their teachers and keeping class sizes low – or laying off teachers and keeping support staff such as school nurses, math coaches and “intervention coordinators.” At Plummer Elementary in the San Fernando Valley, principal Angel Barrett, made the painful choice to let go seven of the school’s first and second year teachers, out of a teaching staff of 45. As in many schools across Los Angeles, her classrooms are more crowded this year.

“You guys are doing a great job at listening,” Norma Plascencia, a teacher with 22 years of classroom experience, told her 24 second-graders on a recent morning, before launching into a lesson about family trees.

“It doesn’t make it impossible to teach, it just makes it harder,” she said. Plascencia said she and other teachers are doing much more advance planning to take into account the extra students. “We are not mass-producing items; we’re not making shoes or pizza. We are dealing with human beings — so four extra bodies are not just four extra bodies — it is everything that comes with them, or doesn’t come with them.”

Will it affect how her students will do this year?

“It better not,” she said. “You have to assume they can reach for the stars. Are some going to fall by the wayside? We’ll find out this year. Is there a possibility? Yes, I think there is.’’

Her comment points to the controversy that has so far been waged mostly in academic circles – whether class-size reduction makes a difference in boosting student performance. Dominic Brewer, a USC professor, said there is no compelling research showing that class-size reduction results in improved academic performance in California. What research does exist has typically been done in other states and in classrooms with even smaller enrollments than in California.

“A class of 20 may be terrible for an ineffective teacher,” he said. “And a great teacher can do great things with 30.”

Some education leaders who have been lukewarm about the program are now making the case that the funds could be better used.

“I don’t think 20-to-1 is sacred,” said L.A. schools Superintendent Ramon Cortines. More important, he said, “is the kind of quality time you spend with your students, and how you divide your time in the classroom.” To tackle high drop-out rates, he believes the real need is for smaller classes in middle and high schools, where class sizes in his district have soared to 40 and higher in some schools.

San Jose’s Iglesias said that even if the state’s economy rebounds, he’s not sure he’d put money back into the class-size-reduction program. “I’d put it into longer school days or Saturday classes rather than this,” he said.

But California superintendent O’Connell doesn’t share any of these concerns. He said his experience as a teacher in Ventura County convinced him of the merits of smaller classes.

The same goes for Doug Wheeler, a veteran kindergarten teacher in San Pablo, just north of Richmond, who said that the larger the class, the more difficult it is for teachers to “deliver the goods.” This year he volunteered to take more students into his bilingual class rather than having some of them be cut from the program. He now has 27 students.

“Teaching is not just standing in front of the class and delivering a lesson,” he said. “It’s about working with kids who are in danger of falling far behind. To get really good results, it has to be one on two, or even one on one.”

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This story was edited by Editorial Director Mark Katches and copy edited by William Cooley.

This article is part of a new collaboration between New America Media and California Watch, a new nonprofit journalism project at the Center for Investigative Reporting. California Watch has multimedia material to accompany this article on its website.

College students and grads face tough challenges with health care

Amber Singam, 30, and her husband, Shankar, 34, are ready to start a family. They have waited for years, so when Singam graduated from Cal State Fullerton (CSUF) with her master’s degree in May, everything seemed ready for a new addition to their family. All she needed was insurance coverage.

Back in August, Singam applied for private health insurance. She filed the paperwork, gave her medical history and any medical procedures she had undergone, but two months later she still hadn’t received an answer. Singam called the insurance company and discovered that she had been denied coverage.

A letter from the insurance company arrived the next day, stating she was denied based on her “high risk for HPV,” or human papillomavirus. For years, Singam had abnormal PAP smear tests, a routine gynecological exam of cells scraped from the cervix to detect cancerous or pre-cancerous conditions. She underwent a procedure four years ago to remove the abnormal cervical cells.

Since the procedure, Singam has received normal results from her PAP tests and has maintained a healthy lifestyle, so when she was denied insurance, it came as a surprise.

Singam is one of the 21 percent of Americans who apply for insurance and are denied health care coverage based on what the insurance industry considers as “pre-existing conditions,” an issue that has come under fire in the recent health care reform introduced by President Obama.

As talks of improving health care focus on seniors and children, much of the debate has neglected the burgeoning population of college-aged students and recent graduates who may not be able to afford private insurance or seek jobs that offer health benefits in this recession.

The number of Americans insured through employers is 164 million, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF). However, with the economic recession and the new batches of graduates joining the work force every semester, looking for employers that offer health benefits are harder to find.

Though Singam was hired as a part-time instructor at a community college in September, her health benefits will not begin until next fall. She faces eleven months without health insurance coverage, but said she is willing to pay for private insurance, especially with their plans to have a baby.

“I can afford to pay for private insurance, but I can’t afford to give birth without insurance,” Singam said. “I am also not able to afford pre-natal care prior.”

Resources and services narrow when students graduate and lose the student status many insurance companies require. But currently enrolled students traverse an equally overwhelming path. They often rely on student clinics or government and public health programs.

College students who have medical conditions that require treatment, like Patrick Cruz, a 23-year-old living in Alameda, may not have the money for private health care.

Diagnosed with psoriasis - a non-contagious autoimmune disease that appears on the skin as raised patches or lesions - Cruz has been fighting for insurance to get treatment.

He was a working student, employed at a local Starbucks, and attending Alameda Community College when he was diagnosed last October. At that time, Cruz was insured by his employer and was able to get some treatment. But he lost coverage when he wasn’t able to meet the quarterly 240-work hour requirement to continue receiving health benefits.

“I was missing a lot of hours because there would be days…when I didn’t feel well,” Cruz said. “I had to quit because [the lesions] were all over my face, too.”

In December, he applied for Medi-Cal, but would not be seen by a specialist until February. By that time, his condition worsened and his plans of applying to the Respiratory Therapy program in a nearby college were put on hold.

Unemployed and short on money, Cruz and his family decided to go to the Philippines where his medicine and treatment would be cheaper. He returned to Alameda three months later with his skin partially cleared.

But flying back and forth to the Philippines isn’t much of an option.

“I can’t keep getting a quick fix. I need something that’ll last longer,” he said. “My condition gets so dependent on medications.”
Though he has received treatment on and off in the past year, his condition hasn’t improved. Regardless, he remains positive and hopeful that Medi-Cal will help him get the treatment he needs when he finally sees a dermatologist at the end of this month.

Until he gets private insurance, he relies on Medi-Cal and other low-cost options.

Knowing what’s out there

Many alumni associations offer discounted health insurance for association members and some grads may qualify for public programs for low-income individuals and families.

Most colleges and universities also include health fees in registration and tuition fees for enrolled students. This gives students access to the on-campus health clinics which usually offer basic medical tests and procedures for free or for a small fee.

Roughly 55,000 student appointments are scheduled per year at CSUF, said Mary Becerra, the director of health education and promotion at the Student Health and Counseling Center on campus. The health clinic is a full-functioning medical clinic, able to perform many basic lab tests and examinations, provide affordable medications through its own pharmacy, offer reproductive health services, and family planning services.

CSUF has an enrollment of 37,000 students and the school’s clinic is the most highly utilized student clinic in the entire CSU system, according to Becerra. Most students come during the high-stress times in their semesters - midterms and final examinations. With the flu season, the student clinic has also seen many upper respiratory issues.

About 70 percent of the students the clinic surveyed said they have some type of insurance, while the remaining 30 percent are the ones that are seen regularly - students who have limited or no access to any type of health care, Becerra said.

Though the student clinic offers a wide range of services, it is still limited. It is not equipped to handle medical emergencies and other serious conditions.

It is the emergencies - a broken arm or a chronic condition - that put students in financial troubles. This is where insurance becomes indispensable - for the “what-ifs.”

Becerra also noted that the University of California requires all students to have insurance coverage - either from a private provider or through the university. But based on tightening budgets of the CSU system and the recent tuition fee increase, it may be tougher to require insurance coverage for all students.

“Mandatory insurance may be out of the question,” she said.

Health care reform in the works

On February 4, President Obama spoke at the joint session of Congress and emphasized the need for a comprehensive health care reform. This speech marked the beginning of the heated debate about the condition of the nation’s health care system. Touted to be the biggest health care reform in decades, the reform aims to extend coverage to more Americans and control the sky-rocketing costs of health care.

About 46 million non-elderly Americans are uninsured, the KFF reports. This could be because of many reasons including unemployment, not meeting employer’s qualifications for insurance coverage or denied health insurance. Some college-aged students fall under these categories who, either willingly or not, forgo insurance coverage.

Recently, the House of Representatives passed an expansive health care bill that would guarantee medical coverage to 96 percent of Americans. The bill would place a tax surcharge on wealthier Americans as well as new taxes on individual and family plans whose values exceed the set amount, according to CNN. The plan would cost under $1 trillion in ten years.

Last week, the Senate Finance Committee introduced a health care reform bill that will cover 30 million Americans and would cost $849 billion over the next ten years. It is aimed to cut costs to individuals, companies and the government and increase efficiency.

Both bills include a public option plan, but with varying provisions and conditions. The House bill requires individuals to buy insurance, with steep penalties for not complying, which could reach up to 2.5 percent of the individual’s income. The Senate bill is a bit more forgiving with fines that could reach up to $750 for not having coverage.

Though both houses have different bills in the works, both agree on broad changes including cutting down costs and preventing insurance companies from denying coverage based on past medical histories.

The Senate bill moves to the floor after Thanksgiving recess for a full debate by lawmakers, giving them an opportunity to introduce amendments to the bill. A long process awaits and a final version of the two bills would have to be approved before the president can sign it into law.

Working with what they have

Currently, CSUF offers insurance coverage for purchase through Anthem Blue Cross. The student insurance offers low-cost group insurance coverage to uninsured students and their dependents on either an annual or semester basis.

Nathan Fletcher, 32 and his daughter have been insured through CSUF’s student insurance for two semesters now. Previously employed by a furniture store in Lake Forest, Fletcher was let go in February because of the recession and was concurrently attending college to fill pre-requisites for the credential program.

When he lost his job, he immediately signed up for health insurance through the university. It cost him $2,000 for health coverage. The fees include $1,100 to cover his daughter and another $1,000 for himself under the Domestic Student insurance plan.

Though he receives financial aid and works part-time as an Instructional Aide, Fletcher admitted that paying the fees at the beginning of every semester is stressful.

“I have no choice. If I have to be prepared [for next semester's payment], I will be,” he said. “It’s expensive to purchase, but the alternative is unfeasible.”

Despite the price, it is still cheaper than private insurance premiums and the school’s insurance gives him sufficient coverage for the price he’s paying, Fletcher said.

Fletcher is one of the lucky ones able to navigate the options available to him and could afford coverage. Also, since the insurance on campus is a group insurance, whoever enrolls will get covered regardless of past medical history.

But depending on the students’ age, status and dependents, premiums range from $500 to over $2,000. All the fees are payable on the day the student signs up for insurance.

Students who don’t have the money risk having no coverage and sometimes utilize the student clinic. Others see the fees and say no altogether, despite the ample coverage and low deductibles of student insurance. Some students just don’t know where to begin.

Most students who have no access to insurance would have to figure it out for themselves, said Joe Vargas, whose Populations in Multicultural Health class at CSUF studies the disparities in access to health care for different groups.

Many undergraduate students are covered through their parents and guardians’ health insurance but some, who are no longer eligible because of insurance requirements, are left with a difficult decision.

“Students today would have to learn how to maneuver the system,” Vargas said.

He noted that students with families, such as expecting mothers, face an even harder challenge.

“It must be challenging to balance pre-natal care, school, jobs and many other things,” he said.

The battle of costs and available resources forces many college students to gamble with their health. Many of them would have to rely on faith. Faith that their immune systems don’t fail and faith that nothing happens to them until they get a job with health benefits, or until the promise of a comprehensive health care reform becomes a reality.

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Francesca Gacho holds a B.A. in English from Cal State Fullerton. She is an intern at Minority Dreams Magazine, where she hopes to spread her journalistic wings, explore and hone her writing ability, and gain insight into the myriad of issues in today’s soundbite-focused world. Her writing interests include human interest pieces that delve into culture, arts, current events, and community service.

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This article was republished at New America Media on Nov. 26.

Every quarter counts in the drive to help homeless veterans.

Grant Deering and his Human Services group, Troops United, want your quarters.

On a cool November day, six or seven multicolored coin canisters are neatly placed in a tight row across a table along the Titan Walk at Cal State Fullerton. Students pass by during the midday rush and avoid eye contact. Caralie Kennedy, a member of Troops United, politely asks passersby to donate what they can. A few students stop by the table, fiddle around their pockets or wallets, and drop a quarter or two. But many say “No” or “I don’t carry change.” To which Kennedy replies with a smile, “That’s okay. We’ll be here tomorrow and next week!”

No donation is too small for Troops United and their fund raising event, “Quartering Our Troops”—a nod to the Quartering Acts in North American colonies that required colonial assemblies to provide food and shelter to troops deployed within each colonies’ borders.

As a class project for a Human Services course, Deering and Kennedy, along with four other Human Services students, are raising funds to benefit the largely unnoticed homeless veteran population.

This awareness, however, did not come too swiftly to Deering and his group mates. Assigned to set up a service to aid the “Troops & Veteran” community, Deering and his group had a little trouble getting started. Luckily, he picked up a local newspaper and read a front page story about David Michael Whittaker, who was once a homeless veteran and his 80-foot American flag that flew high and proud in Newport Beach. Though bound to a wheelchair, Whittaker travels to different states to bring awareness of the homeless veterans’ struggles. Deering e-mailed the story to his group and they all quickly rallied behind the cause.

After searching for organizations that support homeless veterans, Troops United came across New Directions Inc., a non-profit and community-based organization that provides comprehensive services for veterans in need including vocational training, housing assistance and substance abuse rehabilitation, as well as transitional workshops to help veterans rejoin the community. New Directions also has 156 beds in its Regional Opportunity Center in Los Angeles, where veterans get housing assistance as they get back on their feet.

With current reports putting homeless veterans at 23 percent of the national homeless population, organizations like New Directions will likely see more veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Although the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs aids an estimated 100,000 homeless veterans, roughly 160,000 veterans still do not receive ample assistance, if at all. Many are male adults, though females account for 4 percent, and come from poor communities. Shelters and transitional home organizations across the country have attempted to bridge this gap, but constant community support and outreach are needed to make such organizations effective and successful.

So far, “Quartering Our Troops” is getting a positive response from students on the CSUF campus and online.

Members of the group use social networking sites and modest advertising to raise awareness and so far, it’s working. The key to their positive following? Connectedness and shared experiences.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they [the students] know someone in the military,” Deering said.

Numerous students have come up to their donation table with stories of who they know in the armed services. And this is why, with only three days of fundraising, the group has already raised approximately $500. If every student at Cal State Fullerton donated a quarter to help homeless veterans—and the campus currently has 35,000 students attending—Troops United would be able to raise over $8,000 in donations.

They hope to help fund transitional workshops, purchase computers and new software to help with job searches and training. Their efforts continue on campus this week, but the work does not stop there.

“We are going to direct our efforts toward military bases and see what kind of support we will get there,” Deering said.

Though their Human Services class ends in December and their fundraising ends early next month, Deering has hopes that this will not be the end of Troops United’s mission.

“I hope the next group of students coming in the class will pick this up and continue the fundraising,” he said.

It is a humble effort to involve the community, help give veterans access to services, and give back to our nation’s heroes—one quarter at a time.

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To contact Grant Deering of Troops United, e-mail him at futuredocgrant@hotmail.com
For more information on New Directions, Inc. and how you can help, visit www.newdirectionsinc.org

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Francesca Gacho holds a B.A. in English from Cal State Fullerton. She is an intern at Minority Dreams Magazine, where she hopes to spread her journalistic wings, explore and hone her writing ability, and gain insight into the myriad of issues in today’s soundbite-focused world. Her writing interests include human interest pieces that delve into culture, arts, current events, and community service.

Happy 1st Birthday Minority Dreams

As part of Minority Dreams’ first birthday celebration, we’ve rounded up some of our favorite articles written within the last year. Read, comment and enjoy!

Media focus on piracy seen as hypocritical
Soon after Somali pirates boarded an American ship with top security clearance and seized the captain, a disturbing pattern of incitement and a lack of objectivity kidnapped the American media.

By Abrahim Appel

http://minoritydreams.com/2009/04/12/media-focus-on-piracy-seen-as-hypocritical/

US immigration policy more complex than white and blue

Obama’s administration is working towards legalizing the status of currently-unauthorized immigrants in the United States. These immigrants are not white-collar workers; they are a majority blue-collar workers. This means the jobs they presently work are low-skill and low-paying.

By Maha Kamal:

http://minoritydreams.com/2009/04/18/us-immigration-policy-more-complex-than-white-and-blue/

Anamika Recovery Center Offers Hope to Community

The last thing Subodh Karmarkar remembers was feeling like he was falling off the edge of the earth. He woke up two days later in a hospital bed with an IV needle buried in his arm and his parents’ worried faces hovering above. His first thought was to bolt from the room.

By Jennifer Karmarkar:

http://minoritydreams.com/2009/01/30/anamika-recovery-center-offers-hope-to-community/

All Roads and Rails Lead to KL

Seven different hands, of different shades and different sizes gripped the grimy silver pole of the morning commuter, and Khalisah’s hand was lost in the middle. Bodies pressed against each other with every jostle of the train, and Nour struggled to pull her own hand out of the awkward position it was in – squashed between a pole and another woman’s stomach. (…) We looked at the clocks on our cell phones: only half an hour to go.

By Nour Merza:

http://minoritydreams.com/2009/07/08/all-roads-and-rails-lead-to-kl/

Election ‘08: The Undocumented Vote

Among concerned citizens whose voices will be heard Tuesday in one of the most anticipated Presidential Elections, there are an estimated 11.1 million unauthorized immigrants in the U.S. watching from the sidelines. Some are just as anxious.

By Urmi Rahman:

http://minoritydreams.com/2008/11/03/election-08-the-undocumented-vote/

BTV: Lack of Sharia Compliant Financial Aid Leaves Many Muslim Students Frustrated
Ask any grad student how they are paying for tuition, and most of them will tell you they have some type of student loan. While this is not a problem for most students, it’s one of the biggest struggles some Muslim students face in their lifetime.

By Maheen Siddiqi:

http://minoritydreams.com/2009/05/17/btv-lack-of-sharia-compliant-financial-aid-leaves-many-muslim-students-frustrated/

Being Asian in the gulf Middle East
When I was 8 years old I watched my mom get pushed into a kitchen at an Arab wedding and ordered to serve drinks to the guests. The mother of the bride didn’t realize that my mom was a guest. She was, in fact, personally invited by the bride (a former student of my mom’s), who wanted her favorite teacher to be there on her special day. The reason my mom’s sequined scarf and make-up went ignored is because my mom is Malaysian.

By Khalisah Stevens:

http://minoritydreams.com/2009/07/26/being-asian-in-the-gulf-middle-east/

Feeding the homeless, one lunch at a time.

Despite the current recession, the United States continues to be one of the most economically prosperous nations in the world. However, the U.S. has one of the highest poverty rates among industrialized countries according to HungerReport.org. For a country that has so much food that its citizens are plagued with an epidemic of obesity, we have an alarming number of Americans that die from hunger each day, many of them are children. All it takes is a drive down to L.A.’s skid row— the area that contains one of the largest stable populations of homeless persons in the United States—to see that hunger is very much a reality in our cities. Locally, in Orange County, one of the most affluent districts in the world, over 456,000 people are at-risk of going hungry sometime every month.

Although there are many coordinated efforts in place by local governments to help end hunger, it falls short of the needs of many people. It takes the help of everyday people to help these government and private shelters make ends meet. These shelters rely on food and monetary donations to provide food to the homeless population. It is with the help of ordinary people that some of the less fortunate have a chance of survival. These people are a ray of hope amongst the darkness of hunger and poverty.

One such person is Zahra Billoo, a recent law school graduate who has spearheaded her own initiative to tackle hunger. Her project is called Operation: Brown Paper Bag, which aims to organize and distribute brown paper bag meals to as many homeless people as they can. I had the pleasure of interviewing Zahra about her project, and she was kind enough to take out some time from saving the world to share with me the details of how her inspiring operation works. Below is a transcript of our conversation.

Q: How did this “operation” get started? What was your motivation? Where did the idea come from?
A: There were about 4 of us, all of us were friends from Cal State Long Beach who went to a homeless feeding event in Pasadena during thanksgiving, last November. There are always events for the homeless on holidays but never in between holidays. There’s clearly a need and there aren’t enough channels so we decided that we would come up with our own event and there’s enough time and money amongst volunteers to get it done. All of the big events have feeding, but not on a random Saturday’s or weekdays. So we pulled it together.

Q: Was this your first time doing this?
A: Our first time was in December of 2008, the third one was this June, and they are done quarterly. We get together at one persons house and then distribute them [the meals] at shelters. We’ve been to between 5 and 16 different shelters. We’ve made over 2,500 lunches distributed thus far.

Q: Where did this event take place? Why did you choose this location?
A: We did Google searches to see what shelters were nearby, and then we went to the recommended searches.

Q: How many people volunteered?
A: Alhumdolillah we’ve had over 25 – 30 each time we’ve done this.

Q: What types of meals did you serve?
A: Usually it is PB&Jelly sandwiches, a boxed juice drink, chips, cookies and fruit snacks.

Q: How much does this event end up costing?
A: Each lunch ranges from a one dollar to $1.50. A basic lunch is a dollar at most, if we add in produce it adds on about an extra 30 cents an item because fresh produce is expensive. Our total cost per event is approximately between $1100.00 and $1300.00 dollars.

Q: You were also in law school while you were coordinating these events, which is very time consuming, how did you come up with the time to put this all together?
A: Just working with great people, its been surprising how helpful people have been. Sending out a few emails and working through Facebook is how we raise the money, and then we just have good coordination, and then we do all our shopping at Costco, so its fairly doable. If there’s a will there’s a way.

Q: That is very inspiring. Is there anything else that you’d like to add?
A: I started doing this in San Francisco in September on my own. People in san Diego and in the Inland Empire have inquired about how to start their own. It’s not easy but it’s very doable. In San Francisco we gave out about 300 lunches a month. Even a few lunches helps the hungry. Even one lunch is one less hungry person.

A lot of people spend a lot of time thinking through details and complications and that slows us down. I would recommend someone just move forward, there is nothing to lose.
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If you would like to help Operation: Brown Paper Bag, or would like more information about them, you can contact them at their email address at brownbagbunch@gmail.com. Or you can follow them on Twitter at http://twitter.com/BrownBagBunch.

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