Episode 14: Haley Iriondo served at District 1199C Training and Upgrading Fund as a VISTA from 2019-2020. She is currently attending graduate school and plans on applying to medical school during the 2022 application cycle. Learn more about District 1199c Fund.

Listen here.

Episode 13: Rayn Phillips served at Strawberry Mansion HS from 2019-2020. She has gone on to provide mobile therapy services for children and youth in West Philadelphia, is the Social Worker for One Bright Ray Adult Mansion Campus, and currently attends Thomas Jefferson University for an Certificate of Advanced Studies in Trauma and Community Counseling.

Listen here.

Episode 12: Lydia served at Cook-Wissahickon School as a VISTA from 2019-2020. Learn more about the school here.

Listen here.

Episode 11: Erin Davison served at Philadelphia Legal Assistance (PLA) as a VISTA from 2019-2020. Learn more about PLA here: https://www.philalegal.org/.

Listen here: https://anchor.fm/servicestories/episodes/Erin-Davison-ekqg7p

Episode 10: Jordan served at Fiesta Schoolyards as a VISTA from 2019-2020. Learn more about Fiesta Schoolyards here: https://fiestaschoolyards.org/.

Listen here: https://anchor.fm/servicestories/episodes/Jordan-ekgbso

Episode 9: Sydney Edelson served in the Office of Strategic Partnerships in The School District of Philadelphia as a VISTA from 2019-2020. Learn more about the Office here: https://www.philasd.org/strategicpartnerships/.

Listen here: https://anchor.fm/servicestories/episodes/Sydney-Edelson-ek5c2l

Episode 8: Katie Murphy served as a Community Partnerships Coordinator VISTA through PHENND at Bayard Taylor Elementary School from 2018-2019. She has served as a VISTA at Playworks since 2019 and is currently completing her third year as a VISTA. Learn more about Playworks here: https://www.playworks.org/.

Listen here: https://anchor.fm/servicestories/episodes/Katie-Murphy-ejqpuj

Episode 7: Lane Frazee talks about her experience as a VISTA at Philadelphia’s Saul High School. She served at Saul High School as a VISTA from 2019-2020 and continues to serve there for the 2020-2021 academic year.This was recorded in May 2020.

Listen here: https://anchor.fm/servicestories/episodes/Lane-Frazee-ejfbhv

Episode 6: Leah Schare served at JEVS Human Resources as a VISTA from 2019-2020. Learn more about JEVS: https://www.jevshumanservices.org/.

Listen here: https://anchor.fm/servicestories/episodes/Leah-Schare-ej4c8f

Episode 4: Evan Waddill speaks about her experience as a VISTA at West Philadelphia Alliance for Children (WePAC)

Listen here: https://anchor.fm/servicestories/episodes/Evan-Waddill-eievek

Episode 3: Adrienne served at two sites in Philadelphia during her year as a VISTA. She most recently served at Parkway Northwest High School.

Listen here: https://anchor.fm/servicestories/episodes/Adrienne-ei4qv6

Episode 2: Ben Sereda, who served in multiple roles within AmeriCorps, spent their most recent experience as a federal volunteer as a PHENND VISTA Leader. Hear them speak about their experience serving!

Listen here: https://anchor.fm/servicestories/episodes/Former-VISTA-Leader-Ben-Sereda-ehqr22

Where are you from? Do you have a fun fact about your hometown?

I’m from a land far far away called Los Angeles, California. I didn’t realize how far away it was until I came to Philadelphia. Nonetheless, I absolutely loved it growing up. It is as beautiful as people say it is (unpopular opinion: traffic is not that bad). There’s also nothing quite like living within a 15-mile radius of both the beach and mountains. However, the true gift of Los Angeles is this brilliant, fun fact: it’s illegal to lick a toad. How incredible is that. It’s only the Colorado River toad that is questionable because it produces toxins with psychoactive effects if inhaled. Stay in school, kids.

How did you hear about PHENND and why did you apply?

I heard about Philly/PHENND Fellows from a newsletter the Penn Career Service’s office sends out. I also found it while searching for public service Philly jobs after graduation. I applied because I was looking to stay in Philadelphia for an extra year and the fellowship was perfectly in line with my past experiences. I spent my sophomore college summer working for the Philadelphia government and did a Penn public service internship my junior year. I was very familiar with Philadelphia as a city and wanted to serve its community and give back in any capacity I could.

Where are you working? What do you do?

I am serving at the Center for Hunger Free Communities housed in Drexel University’s Dornsife School of Public Health. I am the Project Assistant for the Building Wealth and Health Network, a trauma-informed financial self-empowerment program for families with young children. We teach our members in a community of their own peers how they can build their assets, progress their futures, and of course, improve their health and wellbeing. Our main goal is to help families break the cycle of poverty using the Sanctuary Model in financial education. The Network is also built into the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program in Philadelphia.

My main priority as Project Assistant is to maintain and grow an effective Advisory Council and its subcommittees. I organize monthly meetings for each of the 4 subcommittees and one meeting per quarter for the entire Council. I prepare the agenda, outreach to members, facilitate the meeting and take minutes. I manage the Network phone and transfer messages to appropriate staff. I maintain the Network’s social media presence, take pictures, compile quotes and messages from members, and encourage staff to write blogs. I also do a cool stories project where I conduct interviews with members and write a story on their life and how the Network has impacted it. It is a lot of work, so I’m always doing something at work and work really hard every day. This is a great organization who deserves it.

What is your office and daily schedule like?

My office is really lively. We work hard, but like to have fun together too. Everyone is super friendly too. My daily schedule really depends on the day! If I have a subcommittee meeting coming up (which is usually always), I will prepare for it by writing the agenda, printing out the materials and reaching out to the members on it. Otherwise, I could be talking with members, editing blogs, writing protocols for the Advisory Council, collaborating with staff on the future goals of the Advisory Council, or simple database upkeep. It’s never really a dull day.

What is your favorite memory so far during your VISTA term?

The relationships I’ve built with the members have been the most rewarding during my VISTA term. All of the members are such passionate, beautiful people. Specifically, the first story did was on a beloved member named Robert. He is one of the most positive people I’ve ever met and we have developed a close relationship throughout my year of service. He has broadened my perspective on life, which I am thankful for. He has also gone through much strife and we try to support one another through hard times. That’s basically how I feel about all the members.

Talk about a challenge and a success you have had at your position:

A success I’ve had is that I hosted a successful Advisory Council meeting in November with 25 people. The Advisory Council started with 9 people, so I felt accomplished to have recruited more people in my time at the Network. It was awesome that members still were interested in being engaged to support our program and I think my community outreach work and organization helped with that.

A challenge I’ve had is also wonderful for our program. We have been expanding the Network program to Northwest Philadelphia at the CareerLink Center, so that has slowed down some projects of mine such as the stories project and the blog writing process for staff. The team has not had much time outside of the transition. I hope to make both more of a priority during my last months at the Network.

What do you hope to get out of the year?

I just want to learn and grow as an individual. I’m not sure what my next steps are. Before I committed to PHENND Fellows, I almost moved back home to pursue a career in the music industry. I am considering many paths at the moment, so my only goal is to learn from my peers and explore my interests.

If you could turn any activity into an Olympic sport, what would you have a good chance at winning medal for?

Cooking/baking homemade food. Fun fact: I wanted to be a chef when I was younger.

Also, Truth or Dare. That game has nothing on me, I will do anything no matter how ridiculous.

Omar Woodard speaks with PHENND Fellows in January

Woodard is a North Philly native who grew up as a low-income kid living in an area with one of the highest poverty rates in the city. His mom would give him food stamps to buy sustenance, but he realized when he got older that food stamps aren’t actually real money. That is something that poverty does to families; it makes them hyper aware of what they/others have and what they/others don’t have. Both of Woodard’s parents were incarcerated during his elementary school times and he was raised by his aunt in Norristown, Montgomery County. He explained that his experiences of being born out of poverty and born out of being a child of someone who is incarcerated can dramatically inform what you believe and what you think about the things around you. What a powerful statement to digest.

Woodard gave two reasons for why he is here and doing the work he does. The first was his mother’s commitment and belief that education could move her family forward. The second was philanthropy, as it allowed him to get access to capital and opportunities he would not have had access to otherwise. Philanthropy is also the catalyst that helped him attend a fantastic university to develop his skill set in policy: Woodard went to GW to major in international affairs. He was student body president and was readily involved in college politics. He stayed at GW for to receive a master’s degree in public administration and was also a Presidential Administrative Fellow. His education happened because of philanthropy and you could sense by the way he told his story that it means a lot to him–something he truly values.

He took away a key message at his time in college that influenced how he carries himself: “How can I understand the common humanity of others? How can I engage in that common humanity to make a difference in the world?” It was apparent almost immediately upon meeting Woodard that he is quickly able to figure out how people are connected, where the overlap is, to see the commonality between who he is talking to.

After college, Woodard needed to make money. So, he worked several different jobs: on Capitol Hall, lobbying representing African governments to try to understand capital flow, and back in Philadelphia, managing Chester County for Barack Obama’s presidential run. Woodard also did business intelligence sales for healthcare and higher education institutions and even ran for State Senate! His variety of experiences helped shaped what he is truly passionate about achieving in life. He was unemployed during his career for a certain amount of time and he wasted no time by grabbing coffee for 3 months straight with everyone he knew to build relationships and find his passion. The incredible thing about his persistence is that his community realized that he has a passion for investing and then looked out for him. This was done beautifully by one of the founding directors of GreenLight Philadelphia, Matt Joyce, who offered him a job because Woodard won the State Senate race. Woodard dropped the campaign because it was a no-brainer. He can make things happen now and he didn’t have to wait anymore. The opportunity was waiting for him.

The GreenLight Fund helps transform the lives of children, youth and families in high-poverty urban areas by creating local infrastructure and galvanizing local support to help programs reach and sustain impact in the new city. Essentially, they invest in non-profits to help them grow and flourish. That is extremely important for the public service field because more money needs to be contributed to the growth of issues that citizens care about and fight for on a daily basis. There are too many fantastic projects out in the open that are underfunded and understaffed because of the lack of resources and capital/grants to help with funding. GreenLight helps make this dream a reality. So far at GreenLight, Woodard has moved 2.1 million dollars and raised 2.7 million dollars, all to accelerate economic mobility in the neighborhoods he grew up in. What a wonderful way to come full circle and truly give back to your community every day.

Woodard is a prime example of what a true public servant represents and strives for: engaging common humanity to understand how to better the world around him. Thank you for your insightful wisdom and bubbly personality, you’ve inspired us all!

At the most recent installment of the PHENND Fellow’s Dinner with a Civic Leader, we had the pleasure of sharing a meal with Monica Allison. During dinner, Allison, a West Philadelphia native, former president of Cedar Park Neighbors and co-founder of Cobbs Creek Neighbors, offered her perspective on changes in West Philadelphia and the importance of maintaining a grass-roots mindset towards civic leadership. Allison stood as an example of the heart, energy and passion that a successful civic leader and organizer must embody and left us all with a gentle reminder about who service is truly for.

PHENND Fellow Mattie Cohen connects with Monica Allison following dinner.

Allison’s career as a civic leader did not emerge out of formal training in nonprofit management or politics but rather was shaped by her love for a park. Allison had always prioritized civic engagement and common good. For this reason, she went to school to receive her bachelors in Christian Counseling. However, it wasn’t until she became committed to Cedar Park, a public space in her neighborhood, that her civic engagement took a turn from attentive, caring citizen to full-time profession.

At first, Cedar Park was not safe for the kids. It was broadly agreed upon in the neighborhood that the park needed some serious reinvestment. Allison herself had always believed that the park could become a community asset if only it could be made for the community–particularly the youth–rather than maintaining its current status as a negative space.

A series of community meetings were organized and held by concerned citizens and the local neighborhood organization to gain support to revitalize the park. Allison attended these meetings out of interest; however, after a shooting incident between two neighbors on Father’s Day, Allison knew she needed to take greater action to make decisive change happen in the park. It was time to make the park a place for kids to play and a community hub. Allison was prepared to dedicate herself to the cause because, to her, this park was so much more than just a park.

Her care and investment in Cedar Park turned Allison’s career as a civic leader into full throttle as she went from being a concerned citizen to being on the board of Cedar Park Neighbors to the vice president and then all the way up to president. In these positions, Allison worked to successfully mobilize the community around issues such as education, development, infrastructure improvement and entrepreneurship.

After her time at Cedar Park, Allison moved to the Cobbs Creek neighborhood where she realized the glaring lack of a neighborhood committee. This was particularly evident after having been so invested and involved in the one at Cedar Park where Allison had come to believe that without a strong civic association there cannot exist a strong community. Therefore, unsurprisingly, after moving to Cobbs Creek she proceeded to establish her own neighborhood committee based off of her vision to help create a productive, vibrant, inclusive and sustainable community in West Philadelphia. This month, Cobbs Creek Neighbors will be celebrating their second anniversary.

During dinner, Allison also spoke to the importance of knowing your population and their specific wants and needs in order to shape programming and the organization’s focus. While her work with Cedar Park started as a way to make a safe space for area youth, now, her demographic at Cobbs Creek is largely seniors and returning citizens. These seniors, particularly, face unique challenges different from park safety.

For example, many seniors face difficulties maintaining their homes while also attempting to juggle other expenses. Particularly in West Philly, where the houses are large and drafty, heating costs in the winter can pose great financial burden. In this way, knowing her population and the specific challenges they face help inform and shape the services that Cobbs Creek Neighbors offers. Across the board, from her experience at Cedar Park and Cobbs Creek, Allison relies on and trusts the grassroots approach of looking at a community, identifying what they need and then making solutions based off of this to best serve them rather than assuming to know what is best and what the community wants.

Allison also shared her perspective on the development and rapid changes that have been occurring in these two West Philadelphia neighborhoods since the time she’s been involved. She sees the changes, new developments and businesses, around the Cedar Park area as neither good nor bad. Now living in Cobbs Creek, she misses the park, diversity and vibrancy of businesses along Baltimore Avenue that she had played a hand in bringing about during her time at Cedar Park Neighbors: “I love the fact that I can now go back to my old neighborhood [Cedar Park] and enjoy food, business and diversity.”

However, she emphasized how she had to move out of Cedar Park because of these very changes–increasing property prices and the disappearance of mom and pop stores. While she hesitates to use the word gentrification, Allison says she can see the transition also slowly coming to Cobbs Creek and speaks towards the frustration of the RCO process and needing actual tangible solutions for development without displacement.

Besides her current work at Cobbs Creek Neighbors, Allison also serves as the President of Pennsylvania Families for Public Cyber Schools, a board member of Ardella’s House and a board member of Friends of Blanche A. Nixon Cobbs Creek Library. Allison is also involved with Community Solutions CDC to help provide food to the neighborhood using a pop-up model and partnerships with Fresh Grocer and Panera. With the diversity of programming and dedication to all facets of improving life for her neighbors, Allison is truly an example of dedication to public service and commitment to community.

As PHENND Fellows and AmeriCorps VISTAS, in a year entirely dedicated to public service, our dinner with Monica Allison was an important reminder to always keep in mind and truly serve those you are positioned to help. Thank you so much Monica for taking the time to have dinner with us and congratulations for the birth of your new grandson (and still making the time to speak with us)!

Name: Misha Rodriguez

University: Franklin and Marshall

Major(s): Anthropology Major and Asian Area Studies Minor

Where are you from? Do you have a fun fact about your hometown?

I was born in Merida, Venezuela. My family then moved to Lancaster, PA. I went through public school in Lancaster and then also ended up staying in Lancaster for college once I toured F&M and fell in love with it. My fun fact about my hometown is that, at one point, it had the longest street fair on the East Coast. I don’t know if that is still accurate, but we still have a large street fair every year. It’s such a large part of our town’s culture in fact that the school district schedules a day off each year during fair week. It typically lines up with Kiddies Day on Thursday. All rides are half priced.

How did you hear about PHENND and why did you apply?

I heard about PHENND (it was called Philly Fellows then) from the office of Post Graduate Fellowships and Opportunities at F&M. Primarily, I applied because I didn’t know specifically what the next step I wanted to take was after graduating. I also applied because it resembled another program that I was already involved in during college, F&M Works–a program that places F&M students, as paid interns, to work with area nonprofits.

Where are you working? What do you do?

I am serving at Asociación Puertorriqueños en Marcha. APM is a large nonprofit right off of Temple’s campus. They are a bilingual/bicultural organization, offering a variety of services to achieve their mission of helping families achieve their greatest potential. I am working on APM’s Community Economic Development (CED) Department’s Food Buying Club (FBC). In other words, I’m working on APM’s CED’s FBC. Or as most people recognize it, FBC. (Word of advice: Nonprofits use a lot of acronyms. You will get good at acronyms.)

The Food Buying Club is an awesome model (created by my supervisor, Bridget, who is actually an AmeriCorp VISTA Alum!) for increasing food access while creating community, promoting economic development and preserving the community’s right to quality, affordability and choice when making their food decisions. Very basically, the Food Buying Club follows a Buying Club model. This simply means that the community pools their money in order to access wholesale prices by buying directly from vendors in bulk, generally up to 50% cheaper than retail prices and generating huge savings for the community.  (A small plug: check us out on instagram at @apmfbc!)

What is your office and daily schedule like?

My office is super cool. Apparently, it was actually a part of the nation’s first platinum LEED-Neighborhood Development Project.  The walls are bright orange with tons of sunlight and we have a green roof! Ironically, I have been sitting in the dark for the past two weeks as we work on fixing a lighting problem in my office but other than that it’s a great work space. I also like it because a lot of people are always coming and going in the lobby outside of my office, and I often have little kids popping their heads into my office, wanting to play with the colorful plastic food I have sitting up on a shelf. My supervisor also left a pretty rad cat calendar in here so that keeps things interesting, even in the dark.

My daily schedule used to vary a lot more depending on whether I was collecting orders, running to one of the other APM offices or running a Food Buying Club day. However, now that things have slowed down quite a bit recently, I mostly come into my office at 9 and spend a lot of time at my desk and computer doing research, making phone calls and answering emails. I’ll often pop up to the second floor to check in with my supervisor and sometimes go for walks on Temple’s campus when I get tired of sitting at my desk.

What is your favorite memory so far during your VISTA term?

My favorite memory so far has been meeting the Community Connectors and bonding with them and also collecting orders and sharing information at my first new Food Buying Club partner site that I established a relationship with. I have also enjoyed tagging along with my supervisor to a variety of community development, economic development, and food access themed panels, talks, meetings and webinars.
Talk about a challenge and a success you have had at your position already within the first couple months:

A challenge in the first couple months was definitely finding my own footing and stride while running the Food Buying Club. I am the second VISTA at my site and the previous VISTA left big shoes to fill. It was very challenging to come in as a new person and pick up the same speed that the club was used to. Now that things have switched around a bit, it’s also been a bit of a challenge to shift paces from managing operations and volunteers to now concentrating on community engagement and resource development. I will definitely be a jack of all trades by the end of the year.

One of my successes was when volunteers started rolling in and I started having repeat volunteers. For a while it felt like my volunteer recruitment hadn’t gained any traction, but by the most recent Food Buying Club, we almost had too many volunteers which was a good problem to have.

What do you hope to get out of the year?

I hope to gain a variety of professional skills, experience in food access programs and an idea about what next steps I want to take professionally! I also hope to build great relationships with my coworkers, supervisor and fellow PHENND Fellows.

Which of the seven dwarfs is most like you?

I don’t know the seven dwarves that well but according to a quiz I just took online, I would be Doc. It doesn’t sound entirely accurate but maybe because we both need glasses?

In light of the upcoming PHENND Fellows application opening in late January, the current Fellows were asked to offer some words of advice to prospective applicants. Since most Fellows are typically recently graduated, we figured that the best way to make PHENND Fellows relatable and help prospective applicants decide whether it’s the right program for them or not is to compare it to a recently shared experience– college. Here are 8 of our best comparisons:

1) The first month of being a PHENND Fellow felt like freshman year again but on steroids. Think club and activities sign-up fair. Ready to take our year of service to new heights and fired up by the flames of our AmeriCorps oath of service, we signed up for almost everything community/volunteer related we could–on top of our full time service positions. Here are some of our top experiences thus far: picking up trash for 4 hours at the Food Trust’s Night Market, serving beer for Blocktober Fest to support SOSNA (our neighborhood organization), playing broken Public School Instruments for the Broken Orchestra, and walking 7 miles with the Mayor during Philly Free Streets. We joke that, only 6 months in and we have already gained the right to type on our resumes the illustrious title of “Professional Volunteers”.

2) Your year as a PHENND Fellow is also like college in that they lure you to events with food. However, it is typically better than pizza. For example, once a month PHENND Fellows have dinner with a civic leader. Our line-up thus far has been Deborah Diamond from Campus Philly (Chinese take out), Mike O’Bryan from Village Arts (burritos), Arati Kasturirangan from Bread and Roses (Middle Eastern catered) and Hillary Kane from PHENND herself (tacos). As you can tell, due to our luminary guests, the dinners would be worth it even without the food, upholding the theory that these meals primarily exist in order to ensure that we don’t pass out in front of Philadelphia’s best and brightest civic leaders.

3) Like college, being a PHENND Fellow is also a lot of work and, while having a rigorous college background will give you a good foundation for the keeping up with the demands, being a Fellow will bend you in ways that college never did. Did you learn in college how to “manage up”? Were you ever taught how to break bad news to over 900 people? Do you know how to budget, fix a refrigerator and call the electrician all at the same time? Not only do you have to adjust to functioning within a professional culture, you are also learning how to “adult” and it’s not always glamorous. Luckily, all of us current Fellows have found support through our own supervisors, staff at PHENND and/or fellow PHENNDies.

4) You will make amazing friends and connections with people who are all going through the same thing as you and interested in similar ideas. In fact, you will make such good friends that you can still have college friendsgiving but call it PHENNDSgiving instead.

5) You will have many opportunities to learn all kinds of professional development skills, along with opportunities to network. Even though many of these opportunities were offered in college, when you start actually needing those skills, the workshops seem more applicable and relevant.

6) Here’s a comparison that is exactly like college: You will have opportunities to take MPA level classes at La Salle Nonprofit Center along with VISTA college courses like Resource Development and Volunteer Management. You can use many of these course credits towards future degrees if you so wish.

7) Just like when you went into college with a plan to become a pediatrician and instead realized your true love is writing ethnographies about the history of co-ops in Columbian coffee making, being a PHENND Fellow might change that entire career course that you’ve so carefully hatched out in your head. On the flipside, it might also help you narrow down from a very general “ I want to do something to make the world a better place” to something a little more specific.

8) Your network will expand exponentially. Just as college granted you a network of alums and other affiliations, being an AmeriCorp VISTA and PHENND Fellow will not only expose you to others within that network but also introduce you to many nonprofit leaders and community members all doing wild, amazing things to better their communities.

If you have any additional questions about PHENND or any of the fellow’s experiences, feel free to reach out to Eden Kainer, the VISTA project manager at ekainer87@phennd.org

PHENND was proud to host a recent leadership dinner with Aarati Kasturirangan of the Bread and Roses Community Fund. Aarati has been the director of programs with Bread and Roses since 2015. Since she came on board, she has overseen a massive expansion of the fund thanks in part to an initiative called The Giving Project. Aarati calls the Bread and Roses Community Fund a venture in “non-traditional philanthropy.”

Bread and Roses has existed since 1971 when it was established by a group of Kensington residents as The People’s Fund. As young white people in Philadelphia, the founders of The People’s Fund wanted a way to support the struggles of their POC neighbors. The fund was conceived as a way for community members to come together and support their communities through organization and change. As a membership fund, anyone who contributed voted on which causes the money would go to. Beholden only to its members, The People’s Fund was able to fund more radical causes than other philanthropists that need to please corporate donors and other powerful stakeholders.

Legend has it that The People’s Fund had to change its name after a member submitted a 501(c)3 application where the stated purpose of the organization was to “other throw the US government.” The organization was only able to later gain 501(c)3 nonprofit status under a different name, The Bread and Roses Community Fund in 1977. This name is a reference to a textile strike slogan- “the worker must have bread, but she must have roses too.”  The Community Fund has acquired full time employees and an EO board, but it retains its radical roots. All donations still come from individuals, representing Philadelphia’s diverse community. Bread and Roses has put down deep roots in the city, often funding groups for decades, because they know how long real change can take. Today, it funds a variety of groups, all fighting oppression on multiple axes. The fund has historically been focused on causes that sit at the intersection of racial and economic justice. 2017 grantees work for causes from women’s empowerment, to community gardening, to Fight for 15.

Several years ago, Bread and Roses undertook a massive evaluation of their efforts, hoping to determine whether their work was still valuable in the community. They concluded that it was, but that they needed to increase the size and duration of their grants somehow. After much research, the fund decided to emulate the efforts of an initiative called The Giving Project, which started in Seattle. The Giving Project centers around a diverse group of about 20 people. Each person begins by committing to a personal donation that is a financial stretch for them, anything from $65 to $15,000. Over the course of several months, each giving project member focuses on fundraising in their personal networks, encouraging their friends and families to give at a stretch as well.

The Giving Project has been an effective way for Bread and Roses to maintain its philanthropic values while increasing its ability to give. By having people fundraise in their own networks, it works to break down the taboo around talking about money and donations. By having low income people work right alongside the wealthy, it hopes to break down the class divisions in Philanthropy. It pulls wealth back into the communities that helped to build it, serving as “micro-reparations.” The program has been a resounding success, exceeding its donation targets and bringing in around $270,000. In light of this success, Bread and Roses will now be recruiting for 3 giving projects each year.

With a background in community organizing, Aarati Kasturirangan has been able to bring her unique experiences to community giving. She began her career fighting sexual violence, working as a rape crisis counselor while she earned her PhD in community psychology at the University of Chicago. Her research addressed mental health from a systems perspective, considering the role of oppression in domestic violence. She also organized with the Campus Violence Prevention Center. Her work led her, after a stint as a stay at home mother, to the American Friends’ Services Center, and subsequently to Bread and Roses.

Kasturirangan’s experience with Bread and Roses has given her an interesting perspective on activism and change. She says that working with such different people, a group that includes everyone from struggling single mothers to trust fund kids, can be challenging. Tensions have run high, particularly when discussing issues like race, but ultimately she sees the diversity of the giving project group as an invaluable strength. She sees The Giving Project as a way of disrupting the narrative around class in America. She proposes a “no blame, no shame, no credit” way of looking at class, that acknowledges that class is often given at birth but focuses on moving forward toward equality. She acknowledges that “wealth privilege means getting to choose how your wealth is redistributed” but hopes to be able to use wealth as a community good.

Since its inception, the Bread and Roses Community Fund has been a valuable part of the Philadelphia community. Funneling its wealth toward systems change rather than direct service, the Community Fund hopes to create sustainable, long term change. Its nontraditional philanthropy eschews corporate donations or endowments in favor of individual donations of wildly varying sizes. This way, community members, regardless of their resources, play a part in deciding what causes will be funded, a little part of how their community will be built. The Bread and Roses Community fund provides a more democratic vision of fundraising that could work toward breaking down barriers of class and race in philanthropy.