Service

Imagine a Times Square where Red Maples and American Chestnuts grow nearly a hundred feet tall, providing shade, sustenance, and habitat for the critters below. Gray Wolves, Bobcats, and Mountain Lions survey the old-growth, deciduous forest floor for prey, like Eastern Cottontails and White-tailed Deer. The occasional Snapping Turtle wanders from the river to lay her eggs in the warm, rich earth; she’s careful not to become dinner for a lucky human. Though much of the biodiversity that once made up pre-1609 Mannahatta, the adjacent mainland (in the Bronx), Wamponomon (Queens and Brooklyn), and on the south side of the harbor (Staten Island) has been lost to colonial ecocide and aggressive urbanization, a group of warm-blooded vertebrates continues to remind us of the City’s wildness.

New York City is home to over 400 species of birds living in or stopping over its 193,700 acres of urban, wetland, forest, and grassland habitat. Every spring and fall, millions of birds repeat their ancient cycle of migration through New York City, journeying along the “Atlantic Flyway” in search of food and breeding opportunities. As the birds follow a promising, blue haze on the horizon, they’re no longer met with a forested island of Maples and Chestnuts; rather, choice green oases amidst a maze of reflective glass. According to New York City Audubon’s research, up to a quarter of a million of these migrating birds are killed in the City each year in collisions with building glass. Nevertheless, the birds return again to remind us, despite rapid habitat degradation and fragmentation, that this wild city was once – and still is – their home.

As the FAO Schwarz Fellow at NYC Audubon, I am most interested in the intersectional challenges we face as an island megapolis in a time of global, anthropogenic change. Environmental pressures – like urban development – disproportionately affect urban wildlife as well as communities of color, illuminating a clear relationship between issues like habitat loss and gentrification. In a time of global climate crisis, it must be understood that the outcomes for New York City, its human and non-human dwellers, and its bioregion are undoubtedly entangled. To best address this looming pan-ecological disaster, we must work to address the living truth of our home and our neighbors. We must reconfigure and reimagine the nature of the City, and develop intimate knowledges of this place and its critters. Though much of this place is covered in a concrete veneer and many of its critters scarce or destroyed, the birds lead us to little pockets of something different. The birds take us to the rooftops, the beaches, the cemeteries, and the parks. They announce their continued survival in soaring melodies over sirens and car horns. When we listen, we can no longer see our City as a triumph over nature or a testament to masterful technology. No longer protected by arrogant presumptions of human superiority, we become curious about the land we inhabit and our fellow City dwellers (human animals and non-human animals alike).

Riding the train home from Coney Island, I watch the vast, blue Atlantic fade behind new construction along the tracks. Rock Pigeons balance on the edges of the half-finished buildings’ harsh, modern design — I wonder who will live there, and I wonder who lived there before.

Sources:

McCully, Betsy. City at the Water’s Edge a Natural History of New York. Rivergate Books, an Imprint of Rutgers University Press, 2007.

“NYC Audubon,” https://www.nycaudubon.org/.

“The Welikia Project.” The Welikia (“Way-LEE-Kee-Uh”) Project, https://welikia.org/.

Hunt, Christian. “The Second Great American Extinction Event (1600s to 1900s).” Wild Without End, Defenders of Wildlife, 18 Nov. 2018, https://medium.com/wild-without-end/the-second-great-american-extinction-event-1600s-to-1900s-d6e07985116e.

Chaudhuri, Una. The Stage Lives of Animals: Zooësis and Performance. Routledge, an Imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, 2017.

When I thought about what I wanted to study in college or choose as my career I always knew that I wanted to work in youth education, so I chose to study human development and community engagement. My experiences with community education spaces growing up taught me that there is always something more to discover in life. Community spaces, especially free or low-cost spaces encourage families, friends, and strangers to come together in collaboration to have a new experience, meet new people and ultimately feel safe. Starting work with my Fellowship at The Clay Studio this July showed me a new type of community education experience in the arts.

My special project work at The Clay Studio involves the creation of an after-school ceramics art program. The coordination of this program includes curriculum development, communication with schools, networking/marketing, enrollment, and registration. The age group is currently third through fifth grade and students come after school dismissal to the studio to hand-build, wheel throw, and make claymation films. This program is the first of its kind in this organization, giving us the ability to work with the same students for a long-term residency in our studio. The arts and ceramics, in particular, teach important skills to students such as patience, persistence, imagination, and play. Being able to create a space in our organization for this type of community to exist means that students get to practice their craft, engage with other children in their age group, and be welcomed with open arms.

In addition, the role includes community partnerships, and this has allowed me to contact local arts and culture organizations to collaborate with our after-school program and incorporate other forms of education in the program. One of the pillars of community education is simply offering a space that is available for people to spend time in without the expectation of spending money or working. Being able to spend time in this environment and create a program for children has been so rewarding because I have experienced the benefits of programs similar in my childhood.

As we as a city, country, and world are engaging with challenges related to social equity, safety, and isolation, I feel that the creation of community engagement and education programs will act as a protective factor for all. Social impact work has a goal of systemic change, and I believe that the prioritization of community spaces that encourage exploration is essential to that journey.

In moving to Boston for the FAO Schwarz Fellowship, I did not necessarily expect to find comfort with myself and my identities. My main intention was to find a community through The Food Project’s work and help it increase its own food sovereignty. However, my first summer in the Fellowship has been a warm welcome into a community unlike any I have experienced before. The summer program at The Food Project, a six-week work preparation program for high school students involving farmwork and workshops on identity and social justice, also focuses on establishing positive, supportive relationships across the large group of students and their college-aged leaders.

Refreshingly, building my own relationships with my summer co-workers and the youth felt natural and comfortable compared to doing so in the competitive and often misunderstanding worlds I have inhabited before. The diversity across the group — not only in terms of culture, race, and experiences, but also in terms of interests and personalities — gave me the opportunity to find different ways of connecting with each person. The general sense of care for others in the group, despite such differences, allowed me to feel comfortable in my own skin. I could still be my natural, more reserved self at times, and I could make jokes and friendships with the youth in my group, all even as I led them. I could connect with the other leaders through an identity I had been so unsure of previously, as I often chatted with one of the other group leaders about shared experiences from our Mexican American culture.

In being able to express myself through my identities and my personality, I was able to discover and embrace my own personal leadership style. Moreover, being able to implement that leadership style, rather than a traditional notion of leadership socially constructed around the traits of cisgender, extroverted, white men, I gained immense confidence in myself.

Having a community of support and care which embraced my individuality allowed me to become a stronger support for it in return, while also helping heal personal challenges of my own. Through this first summer as the FAO Schwarz Fellow at The Food Project, I have already learned more about how reciprocal relationships of empowerment can benefit everyone involved, and I hope to continue embracing and sharing that lesson as I continue my time with the Fellowship.

In the last year, I’ve gotten to mentor and tutor three students in the Bronx weekly: A, a second-grader who always wanted to save time at the end to show me her art projects; S, a second-grader who I didn’t get to meet with many times but was always curious about my ballet background; and E, a fifth-grader and avid baseball player who was “excited but a little nervous” for middle school. 

My relationship with E was particularly special, as we got very comfortable with each other and both were really sad that he wouldn’t be in Reading Partners when he moved to middle school. At the beginning of our Wednesday session, we would always debrief our weekends, and at the end of our weekly Friday session we would share what we were looking forward to that weekend. I made sure to remember what he shared with me and ask about his baseball tryouts and games. 

As E and I grew closer, his confidence grew–he always had his camera on, he wasn’t afraid to make mistakes and ask questions, and he would even volunteer to alternate pages with me when it was time for the Tutor Read Aloud book. The year ended with a special moment when E read a poem with confidence and expression for our recorded end-of-year celebration that was shared with all of our stakeholders.

As we delve into another year of tutoring, I’m looking forward to building relationships with more students in the Bronx, and maybe even reconnecting with some of my past students! There’s nothing more inspiring than witnessing growth in a young student and getting to play a positive and encouraging role in their academic journey!

If you’re curious about tutoring with Reading Partners (we are in 13 regions across the United States!), visit our website. You can make a difference in the life of a child with just one hour a week!

The Pell Grant can currently give up to $6,495 of aid, which does not have to be paid back, to low income college students. For some, this is a major part of their financial aid package, if not their only source of grant aid. Any change in the grant would need to go through federal legislative bodies to be included in the higher education budget. If included in the funding plans for federal higher education programs, doubling the Pell would bring the maximum grant awarded to $13,000. Additionally, the Pell Alliance is asking for the program to be extended to DREAMers and restore lifetime eligibility to 18 semesters of aid, rather than the 12 currently allowed. These changes would effectively extend the reach of the program, providing students who would normally have to take on many loans the chance to graduate with little to no debt.  

As I watch the students I serve apply to and progress through college, it becomes more and more clear to me that one of the biggest barriers to college access is figuring out how to pay the bill, rather than acceptance itself. Doubling the Pell Grant would allow so many students I serve access to the funds they need and allow them to focus on school rather than finances. Additionally, $6,500 more could be the difference between graduating with or without debt. Being student-centered is one of the most important values at Breakthrough Greater Boston, and a change like this could vastly improve the lives of our students. This work has added so much passion behind a monotonous task like filling out the FAFSA, and given me opportunities to learn about and understand my work more deeply. 

 A lot of my learning as a Fellow has been practical, developing key skills that I will carry with me for the rest of my life. However, staying up to date on federal and state trends has taught me that college access work extends beyond what I do at the office. The educators, counselors, and supporters of the Double Pell movement are going beyond direct service, to address root causes of student barriers. Following the activism of the Pell Alliance has shown me the role that the federal government can play in educating the youth of our nation, and I will continue to support the progress of the Double Pell change as it moves through the legislative process.