For Good

"They call this the pinewood derby on steroids," says Ken Francis: miniature Formula One racing cars designed by local high-school and middle-school students to speed down quarter-mile tracks. The regional leg of this annual contest was held here earlier this month, and now several local school teams are headed to the world championship later this year: South Park High School and Pine Richland High School.
 
Sponsored by the engineering society SAE International, where Francis is the program developer of this F1 in Schools Challenge and other educational competitions, the contest gives kids the chance to design, make, test and race these specialty vehicles, not to mention creating a business plan, manufacturing the car and marketing it.
 
Each team receives a balsa wood blank -- less than 9 inches long -- four wheels and steel axles, sandpaper, screw eyes and washers (so the car can be guided down the track by a filament). The wood is pre-drilled to receive a single CO2 cartridge, but designing the car itself, complete with wings in front and back, puts kids through the full engineering process. They use 3D Computer-Assisted Design software, test their design's aerodynamics in a Virtual Reality Wind Tunnel using Computational Fluid Dynamics software, then use 3D Computer-Aided Manufacture software to find the best machining strategy to make the car with a Computer Numerical Controlled router. The cars are also tested using real wind and smoke tunnels.
 
The teams then compile 20-page portfolios of their research and testing and must turn this into five-minute presentations, complete an engineering innovation interview and create a pit display about their marketing plans. Each team is judged on their car's safety, aerodynamics, engineering, aesthetics, quality and manufacturing, plus the team's race times, pit display, portfolio and verbal presentation.
 
The world championship event is tied to a real Formula One race. In past years, it has been in held Abu Dhabi, Malaysia and Singapore; this year it's planned for Austin, Texas.
 
"We just think it's the perfect symbiotic relationship going down the road for SAE," says Francis of their association with F1 in Schools. He also oversees two other programs for SAE: The World in Motion, a K-8 engineering program, and their collegiate design program.
 
"What you find" in students who participate in the F1 races, he adds, "is that this ignites their passions … When you hear their verbal presentations, you hear kids say, 'I was going to be an accountant, but after I got done with this I wanted to be an engineer.' We just want them to keep pursuing their dreams and realize that science, technology, engineering and math are good ways to do it."
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Ken Francis, SAE International

Would you like fresh local produce delivered to your workplace? How about a mid-winter dose of fresh tomatoes or homemade peach jam right from your own shelves?
 
The annual Farm to Table Conference March 22-23 at the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, with this year's theme of “Do It Yourself,” features demonstrations, speakers, samples and more than 65 exhibitors offering hands-on cooking demos, gardening tips and nutrition, health and wellness information.
 
The event is all about "treading more lightly on the earth and being more self-sufficient," says Erin Hart, director of health benefit services for American HealthCare Group, which runs the event. Local farms, restaurants, breweries, wineries, and personal chefs are attending the food-tasting event, while speakers will take on such topics as "Herbal Soap Making," "Fermentation 101," "Fresh Eggs Daily from your Backyard Chicken Flock," "Mycelium Mayhem: Mushrooms for Hobby, Income and Companion Planting," "Applying Farm to Table to Your Health," and "Food as Medicine: The Power of Food to Heal."
 
"It seems like people are getting more and more interested in canning and preserving" and other ways of providing themselves with food that's fresh and local instead of picked in Peru six months ago, says Hart. And Pittsburgh is getting more programs such as community gardens, schools bringing farm-to-table principles into their cafes and workplaces that are implementing Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) drop sites. CSAs are farms to which you can buy a kind of subscription for a certain amount and variety of produce when it is harvested. Having drop sites in industrial parks and office complexes is "making it easier for community members to buy local and source local," Hart notes. For instance, the Penn Corner Farm Alliance goes to Westinghouse's Cranberry office lobby once a week to sell CSA subscriptions and make deliveries to employees.
 
"Seven years ago, when we started doing this, people had never heard of CSAs," she adds. Now Farm to Table "is a way to get to the masses of people, where public health might be impacted. Every year it grows pretty significantly," from 3,000 people last year to -- she expects -- 3,500 this year.
 
Teachers can get complementary registration and Act 48 credits, and those using the state's WIC benefit can get free admission as well. For tickets, visit Showclix.com and search “Farm to Table."
 
Do Good:
Want to know more and connect with CSAs? Come to the CSA Fair at the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh on March 16. Get more information here.
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Erin Hart, American HealthCare Group

The Education Partnership's three-year effort to give school supplies to schools where students lack even the basics is more necessary than ever.
 
"We're seeing kids coming to school with nothing," says the Partnership's Program Manager Andrea Zimmer, who oversees the free school-supply application process. "It's really setting them apart from their peers [socially] and putting them at a disadvantage compared to their peers."
 
From pens, pencils, glue sticks and notebooks and to reams of copy paper, the free-supply list is large, and it can be replenished once during the year. At schools' requests, the Partnership has also supplied such things as tee shirts, granola bars (with the help of General Mills and Giant Eagle) and incentive items for students, such as art supplies.
 
"At the end of this year's program, we'll have distributed 150,000 pencils," notes Zimmer. "I think that shows both the impact of this program and the need in the schools."
 
Applications for the 2013-14 school year are now available here. Schools in Allegheny and four surrounding counties -- Beaver, Butler, Washington, Westmoreland -- are eligible if at least 70 percent of their students receive a free or reduced-price lunch. That covers 100 schools in the five-county region, Zimmer says. Previous recipients are still eligible, but they must apply again. The deadline is midnight on March 22.
 
The Partnership will notify 20 selected schools in June and distribute the student supplies during an in-school distribution event in December.
 
"If a student's parent cannot afford to provide a lunch, it's unlikely that they will be able to provide all the school supplies that are necessary," Zimmer adds. Teachers on average spend $1,200 a year to supply their own classrooms and students, but that's an unsustainable situation. "We're trying to step in there and fill in that gap. And we're hearing very great results."  Children can concentrate on schoolwork without wondering how they can correct their notes or a test answer without an eraser, she says.
 
She urges schools that aren't familiar with the program to stop in to the Partnership office to learn more, or to call her at 412-922-6500. The group accepts donations, too, she adds.
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Andrea Zimmer, The Education Partnership

At 22 years old, just eight months out of Duquesne University, Maura Rodgers may be the youngest applicant to give a pitch to the Social Venture Partners-Pittsburgh (SVP) and win their annual Fast Pitch event, which coaches area nonprofits on telling their story effectively and rewards the best ones.
 
But the pitchers whom Rodgers helps in her own nonprofit are younger still, and even more impressive, she believes.
 
Rodgers is the executive director and only employee of The Miracle League of the South Hills, which runs baseball leagues that pair mainly kids (but also adults) with disabilities and their peers without disabilities. The kids without disabilities may run or hit for their baseball buddies, or they may just cheer them on. But both groups learn important lessons while having fun and making friends.
 
"What's innovative about the Miracle League is that we're giving kids with special needs the chance to become teachers and teach their peers about falling down and getting back up again… The Miracle League is changing our social fabric."
 
Her $20,000-prize winning message, she says, was not about why her group needs the money but about what the Miracle League is doing for the community and how the community can get involved.
 
After just a year and a half in existence, the South Hills League (there are two others in Pittsburgh) has 150 kids as young as age five on their Upper St. Clair field, and they are always looking for more players and buddies. "We're still growing and learning and SVP was certainly invaluable in that process."
 
The SVP gave all competing nonprofits seven weeks of coaching about everything from fundraising to sharing their story with a larger audience. "Very often it's hard to see what is appealing about your message," says Rodgers, "and what really connects with people in your community, because you're so close to your organization."
             
Indeed, says Elizabeth Visnic, director of SVP-Pittsburgh, the seven weeks of training is more important in the end than the prizes. The money and the time are investments by SVP's partners, working toward the group's goal of "growing philanthropists and strengthening nonprofits. Our focus on capacity building for the nonprofits was a step deeper" this year. The coaches, she says, helped the presenters become "incredibly inventive and articulate."
           
Nonetheless, the money certainly helps. Winners were chosen based on the innovation of their programs, their programs' impact or potential impact and their presentations' effectiveness. "This year it was anybody's to take," Visnic says of the first-place award. "Everybody was amazing."
 
SVP offered more prizes this year, including second place to Strong Women Strong Girls, the Coaches’ Prize to The Saxifrage School, and the SVP Kids Prize to Camp COPES. The SVP Kids are SVP partners' children who are learning about philanthropy as well; the prize, given for the first time year, came from money Kids' group graduates pooled by themselves. Finalists Beverly’s Birthdays and Catholic Charities Free Health Care Center also $500 prizes. Additional capacity prizes were awarded from the three judges and their organizations,including Pop City.
 
SVP gained three new partners through the event as well, who immediately gave $1,000 prizes of their own.
 
The Miracle League's award money, Rodgers says, will help them build a playground next to their field. It will contain adaptive features devised from working with special-needs professionals, parents and kids. "It's a place designed for development and growth and interaction with all children," she says. "Hopefully it will be unlike anything anyone in our area has seen before."
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Sources: Maura Rodgers; Elizabeth Visnic, Social Venture Partners-Pittsburgh 

Thanks to a Carnegie Mellon University team, local and international digital-media learning (DML) designers will have a newly valuable web home for seeking community input on their projects -- and for failing usefully. The revamped site will debut in mid-March.
 
"There are really amazing things happening in different spaces that don't seem to be connected together," says Anna Roberts, director of the team behind the redone Working Examples, a website dedicated to bringing together DML designers before their designs are done, or even conceived. "A work in progress is messy, but sharing them with others is how we move our work forward."
 
For scientists, "working examples" are ideas they think are good but that they want to put in front of their colleagues for critique. Drew Davidson, acting director of CMU's Entertainment Technology Center, and James Paul Gee, a literacy studies professor at Arizona State University, created the site to bring the working examples idea to creatives in the DML field. Roberts' team was hired a year ago "to build something that would really address how [users] would interact with one another," she says.
 
Site users will be able to explore others' work, build new collaborations and have a larger impact on how technology is being implemented in education. Roberts also hopes that designers, who are trying to meld play and the work of learning, will have a fun, playful experience of their own on the Working Examples site.
 
Once a user has logged in, the site will feature content based on how the individual user has tagged him or herself and the people they are following. Users can share comments within a blog-like feature, as well as upload new items, including projects at various stages. Seed, Sprout and Bloom sections are designed to help users refine how they are thinking about their projects, providing a series of probing questions: What challenges and goals do you have? How is the project evolving? What surprises have you encountered? How successful has a finished project been, and what ought to be changed?
 
Users can also form public or private groups, with their own workspaces and the ability to comment more easily on work changes and collaborate more readily. Users' profiles will elicit deeper information about their expertise and interests, and allow fellow users to rate the helpfulness of their collected comments.
 
The site also contains news and job postings as well as a Hall of Fail, modeled after the Hall of Failure at DML's annual Games, Learning and Society conference.
 
"We're big believers in the fact that our missteps and 'failures' are big places to learn from each other," says Roberts.
 
The site will even be useful for people not directly involved in DML design, she says. Educators and other users of DML should "make a profile and come on and comment on people's projects. We're interested in getting a lot of voices who have opportunities to think about how it might be used in a classroom."
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Anna Roberts, Working Examples

WQED has begun a concerted effort to collect hundreds of stories of African-American men and boys talking about what they do to make a difference in their communities.
 
Thanks to a $390,000 grant from The Heinz Endowments, the media company is partnering with Black Male Engagement (BMe), which has already piloted this story-collection project in Philadelphia, Detroit and Baltimore.
 
The idea behind the project, says Darryl Ford Williams, WQED's vice president of content, is to hear in particular from black men who are involved in community service, as well as those who are doing things "on a smaller scale. Is there one person in the community, one kid on the street you're helping keep up with their homework?" Do their activities as a father, coach, Sunday School teacher or neighbor change their community or the lives of one person in a notable way?
 
Such positive activities are "never reflected in the media," Williams says, which mostly features African-American men when they are involved in crime, sports or entertainment. BMe will embody "the idea of improving the self-image in the African-American community and the way in the larger community we know, accept and relate to each other."
 
BME will continue the effort begun by WQED and the Endowments last year with its “African American Men and Boys: Portrayal and Perception” initiative, which included a televised town-hall meeting and four documentaries portraying African-American entrepreneurship, musical forms and media images.
 
The BMe project will also result in documentaries and a town-hall discussion this spring. Participants can upload their stories through BMe's online portal. WQED will also send out street teams to collect stories and hold BMe Days at local barbershops, churches and community organizations. Each story, 1-4 minutes long, will be collected on video, capturing each person's experience serving their community and their hopes are for its future.
 
"Ultimately, the goal is to connect people here in Pittsburgh with people in other BMe cities," Williams says. "How can they connect what they are doing in the community with what people are doing in Detroit? We hope to leverage the power of numbers."
 
Do Good:
Looking for additional places to aid the local African-American community? Connect with PACE: The Program to Aid Citizen Enterprise.
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Darryl Ford Williams, WQED

A year after the Early Learning Environment website debuted from the Fred Rogers Center, it is poised to grow with new activities, directions and apps.
 
The Rogers Center and the "ELE" focus on children's media for kids through five years old, and digital media-based learning in particular. Too often in years past, notes Michael Robb, the Center's director of education and research, parents and other caregivers had thought of such media as mere babysitters.
 
"We try to encourage caregivers of young children to think about digital media learning more like they'd think of books … [and] think of digital media as a word-rich experience," Robb says. "That's time you spend having a conversation with your child and having fun with your child. The more language children in the early years hear and are exposed to, it has pretty substantial impact on their early literacy and school success."
 
The ELE offers caregivers multiple fun learning activities for kids: some best for home use, others for the classroom; some for adults to lead or teach, others for kids to undertake on their own. About 40,000 visitors from all 50 states and around the world have used the free site, while its 1,200 registered users are able to post and comment on the site and create their own curated sets of activities to send to fellow caregivers or fellow moms and dads.
 
Among the most popular activities are several Rogers Center-designed game apps -- Alien Assignment, Everyday Grooves and Home Superhero -- as well as finger-play videos by Reading is Fundamental and nursery rhyme videos by the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, called Rhyme Time. Since debuting, the site has added new literacy-boosting activities that also focus on health-science topics.
 
"We're always looking to increase the number of quality offerings," says Robb.
 
Set to be released officially next week is a new app. Go NiNi, in which kids can help NiNi eat the right foods in the right quantities to run, play and maintain her active and healthy life. Kids will steer Nini toward Go Foods (those recommended for everyday eating) but not as many Slow Foods (those to eat in moderation) and the fewest Whoa Foods (all that junk we love to consume).
 
Next, Robb reports, ELE hopes to put in place more activities based on STEAM topics (science, technology, engineering, arts, mathematics), and more Spanish-language content. In the near future, the ELE will be starting professional development activities in the region for teachers as well as family and other childcare providers around digital media technology.
 
Do Good:
Searching for more ways to help kids learn? Get involved with the Pittsburgh Association for the Education of Young Children.
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Michael Robb, the Fred Rogers Center

There's still room for teachers to sign up their classes for the March SciTechDays at the Carnegie Science Center -- or for educators to explore them with the chance to sign up for November's versions.
 
Aimed at middle- and high-school kids, the SciTechDays are focused on "getting kids excited about all these different careers in STEM," says Linda Ortenzo, director of STEM Programs (science, technology, engineering and math). "The whole idea behind it is to connect students with STEM professionals in a real fun and productive way."
 
Universities and companies from FedEx Ground to PPG, U.S. Steel, Chevron, Consol and others set up hands-on activities in biotechnology, nanotechnology, robotics, advanced materials and other areas that relate to possible careers in the Pittsburgh area. There are always 2,000 unfilled STEM-related jobs across this region, Ortenzo says, because kids aren't aware of what sort of schooling they need to prepare for STEM careers.
 
Kids who come to SciTechDays, she says, will be able to answer the questions: "'What's it take to work in robotics? What's it take to be a biotechnologist? How cool is it to be in tissue engineering and what does it take to do that?' It's a very exciting and energizing time for everybody, the kids and the teachers."
             
Each day offers a variety of sessions for the teachers to assign their kids, including a "new frontier" presentation for gifted and advanced students. The next middle-school days, March 5-6, and the next high-school days, March 7-8, feature sessions on "Creating the Digital Cosmos," "CSI Bugs, Bodies ...and Bananas?" "If a Salamander Can Grow New Limbs, Why Can’t People? Tissue Engineering Workshop" and others.
 
March 9 is a SciTechDay open to public, on the theme Math+Science=Success, with programs applicable to the full grade range of K-12.
 
Teachers wishing to register their classes should call 412-237-3400, extension 7.
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Linda Ortenzo, SciTechDays

On Feb. 23 at AE Works, the East End design and building firm, a group of Pittsburgh girls ages 10-14 spent a day off from school touring the business, questioning women architects and engineers about their work and trying some hands-on tasks relevant to these careers.
 
It was all part of Tour Your Future, just one aspect of the Carnegie Science Center program called Can*Teen Career Exploration.
 
The program, says Nina Marie Barbuto, who runs the Girls' Math+Science Partnership in the Center, "is a lot of DIY science and making science relevant to kids."
 
Created in 2010, Can*Teen is now undergoing an expansion of its reach and efforts, allowing young girls (and boys online) to explore careers related to STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) in a variety of ways. Can*Teen centers on a series of STEM-focused challenges, which teach girls how to isolate and extract DNA from a piece of spinach, make their own camera, create a water filtration device, discover the science behind how magic markers work, and make bones less breakable -- by making them more bendable..
 
Barbuto's team is in the midst of sending interactive Can*Teen CDs to 2,500 middle-school librarians from here to Guam who have discovered Can*Teen, thanks to assistance from Motorola and the American Library Association. Can*Teen also has summer camps at the Science Center called "Livin' It," on June 24-28 and July 15-19 for girls 13-14 and on July 8-12 for girls 8-10, with each day lasting 9 a.m.-3 p.m.
 
For kids who want to try the Can*Teen challenges at home, instructions are available on the program's Website. The program is also developing a social media app for girls can contact selected women mentors at other times.
 
The next Tour Your Future date is March 2, when participants will meet the Girls of Steel, a robot designing and building team at CMU composed of 24 girls from 12 different schools. Future dates, scheduled through April 27, include days at TruFit Solutions, Alcosan, ModCloth, FutureDerm, Duquesne University, Carnegie Mellon University, Westinghouse and GASP (Group Against Smog and Pollution).
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Nina Marie Barbuto, Can*Teen

When Duquesne University basketball player Chuck Cooper Jr., the first African American drafted into the NBA, emerged from his six-year professional career in 1956, he had a tough time finding good work, says Chuck Cooper Foundation Chairman of the Board Zak Thomas. Advice he received to attend graduate school was the key, Thomas says.

After Cooper earned his master’s degree in social work from the University of Minnesota in 1961, he began a life of public service:  first as parks and recreation director for the City of Pittsburgh, then with PNC as the urban affairs officer, leading affirmative action and community development programs.
 
That's why the Cooper Foundation just awarded its first graduate scholarships to five individuals to study locally and get ahead. Thomas says he is surprised "just how low the numbers have been and continue to be at the graduate level for diversity students" --  six percent in the 1960s and just 11 percent today.
 
The foundation at first was going to award a single scholarship based on the applicants' academic excellence and community work.
 
Unable to decide among the excellent candidates, the foundation increased its awards to five, including a $5,000 scholarship from PNC Bank to Rufus Burnett, Jr. to attend the McAnulty Graduate School of Liberal Arts at Duquesne University. Burnett intends to use his graduate degree to prepare minority youth for meaningful careers in in social science and the humanities. Previously, he did humanitarian work in areas affected by Hurricane Katrina and ran an afterschool program for minority students.
 
The other scholarship winners, all of whom will study at Duquesne, are:

• Juel Smith, $3,000 to study in the School of Education: Smith, already a working scientist, now hopes to help minority studies pursue the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) disciplines;
• Florence St. Jean, $1,000 to study in the School of Education: St. Jean has performed humanitarian work in Haiti and following Superstorm Sandy and wants to lead and teach counseling with emphasis on the disenfranchised;
• Michelle Outcalt, $1,000 to study in the School of Leadership and Professional Advancement: Outcalt is a determined single mother whose daughter will also be attending college in the fall;
• Candice Aston, $1,000 to pursue a Ph.D. in philosophy: Aston, the first member of her family to attend college, hopes to start a non-profit organization to assist single mothers pursuing their education.

The foundation's hope, says Thomas, is to expand the scholarships in future years to students across the nation.
 
"The one commitment that they've all made -- and that's why we chose them," he concludes, "is giving back to the community. The scholarships we're giving today will be returned many times in the future by the acts of these people."
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Zak Thomas, Chuck Cooper Foundation

"We believe that there's never a reason to be bored in Pittsburgh," says Pittsburgh Service Summit organizer Tom Baker. The fourth annual Summit, to be held Feb. 26 at Carlow University "is a way for those in attendance to get activated and find out there are things to do." It's a kind of activity fair for young professionals, college students and community leaders to learn about community organizations offering service opportunities.
 
This year's Summit, run by Baker's local non-profit organization, Get Involved! Inc., will feature speakers Ian Rosenberger, CBS Survivor contestant and founder of an international humanitarian relief organization; Saleem Ghubril, head of the Pittsburgh Promise college scholarship fund; Kevin Kearns, professor of public and nonprofit management in Pitt's Graduate School of Public and International Affairs and director of the Johnson Institute for Responsible Leadership; and WTAE-TV news anchor Sally Wiggin.
 
After joining past conferences, Baker says, attendees have reported that they've successfully connected with a new organization to which they could lend their talents as a volunteer. Organizations working the fair, he says, have even met and acquired new board members to help them out. "That's truly what we love to hear," he adds.
 
Baker recalls the moments that inspired him to become active as a volunteer. When he was about six years old, "I would literally follow my dad around to events" his father was attending as a Pittsburgh Public Schools teacher and children's author. When Baker's father died, when Baker was 12, his mother continued to encourage his activism, which took root when he attended Millersville University. But after college, Baker noticed that many fellow students lost interest in serving their communities.
 
"Our generation has to do more to step up and be active," he says. He's hoping the Summit continues to connect people with new organizations and new causes. "We're hoping to see 300 to 400 people there. It's a one-stop shop."
 
The summit will also honor many individuals with awards for their work locally, including:
 

• Get Involved! Male and Female Emerging Leaders (Frank Macinsky and Jessica Brubach);
• Dr. Tom Baker Community Leader Award (Vivian Lee Croft);
• Patty Verotsko Award for Child Advocacy (Bill Isler);
• Get Involved! Man and Woman of the Year (Bill Strickland and Mary Hines); and
• 2013 Western Pennsylvania Rising Stars, for professionals 21-30 active in charitable service: (Matthew Arch, Branden Ballard, Olivia Benson, Mark Bezilla, Brandon Blache-Cohen, Joseph Breems, Gina Carl, Chris Cavendish, Annie Clough, Jeremy Edge, Dennis Hazenstab, Carrie Hucker, Emily Kolek, LaTrenda Leonard, Lauren Mahoney-Yohman, Mary Parker, Robin Rectenwald, Jordan Shoup, Stephanie Sikora, Mahogany Thaxton, Frank Tigano, and Abby Sadowsky Bolton.

 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Tom Baker, Get Involved!

Bodiography Contemporary Ballet has devised dances about heart transplants and other medical issues, but it's probably never tackled such a tough one, says Terese Vorsheck, director of the Highmark Caring Place: kids' grief for lost parents.
 
"People don't understand the impact of death on children," says Vorscheck. "People need support to go through the process, and the Caring Place is here if they need that extra support," offering children, as well as adolescents and their families, peer grief-support services in two local offices. Bodiography artistic director and choreographer Maria Caruso, she adds, "was just very inspired by what she saw in our work with children."
 
Caruso and the dancers worked directly with children at the Caring Place to tell nine of their stories in a new dance called Whispers of Light: A Story of Hope. "The dancers have been so warm with the kids, helping them understand that whatever way they express their feelings is okay," Vorsheck says. "It seems to have been a process that allowed the kids in a very unique way to express their grief."
 
The dancers have incorporated into their dancing some of the physical movements that they observed in or discussed with the children, such as the pacing one child said he did to cope with his anxiety and grief.
 
The ballet begins with the children on stage together, then shows the increasing isolation of those going through grief. The performance ends with the dancers' take on one of the therapeutic activities from the Caring Place, depicting the journey that lets each child "end up in a place that is much more hopeful," Vorsheck says.
 
Hunter Steinitz, 18, is a Caring Place participant who helped formulate the show. “As we work together in this ballet, I can see myself in the dancers,” she says. “We’re all piecing this show together, like we here at the Caring Place are piecing our own lives back together. Just like a ballet can’t be done by one person, you can’t heal all by yourself either.”
 
Tickets for the show and the VIP reception may be purchased here.
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Terese Vorsheck, Highmark Caring Place

Sally Dorman has a message for community groups in Pittsburgh: "If they're ever going to apply for a KaBOOM! playground, this is the time. This is really an unprecedented investment by KaBOOM! and its funding partner."
 
The funding partner is the Heinz Endowments, which gave $800,000 to KaBOOM!, the national play-promoting organization, to help local groups build 10 playgrounds in the area in 2013-14. KaBOOM! has built more than 2200 playgrounds in its history. But, says Dorman, associate community outreach coordinator of KaBOOM!, "we usually only build one playground every two years in Pittsburgh. This opportunity is very rare, and we're very excited about it." In fact, she says, if more organizations apply and qualify for playgrounds, KaBOOM! will work with the Pittsburgh groups to find other funding partners, with a goal of 20 playgrounds total across this year and next.
 
"We're looking for groups that have a strong emphasis on community," she adds, since KaBOOM! works with each group to solicit community input for playground designs. It also help communities with tools and models for raising the $8,500 investment required. This encourages community groups to take ownership of their new playgrounds and to maintain them. The process is also designed to increase the number of active volunteers for future community work.
 
Applicants need to own or lease 2,500 square feet of -- ideally -- flat, grassy, clean space, which is a premium in our hilly neighborhoods. And chosen groups must invite their community to build the playground all in one day, using hand tools, in a process demonstrated here.
 
"The community will love that playground, because they put their own effort into it," Dorman says.
 
"It's an essential part of the project to keep the people invested in the community," adds KaBOOM! Communications Coordinator Alyssa Ross.
 
The Endowments are looking for applicants whose playgrounds are open to as many people as possible, Dorman says, with public-friendly design features such as benches, small stages, gardens or other elements. On April 13, Homewood Children's Village will build the first Heinz-funded playground.
 
KaBOOM! is accepting rolling applications now, but encourages groups to apply as soon as possible. As Ross points out, cities like Pittsburgh are fighting the national "play deficit." She cites statistics that show just 41 percent of kids have access to a community playground, while physical play leaves kids healthier, doing better in school and acting better as adults.
 
Concludes Ross: "We hope this inspires a lot of people to become involved in the play movement."
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Sources: Sally Dorman and Alyssa Ross, KaBOOM!

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation came to Pittsburgh on Feb. 8 to deliver half a million dollars to the Sprout Fund to create a new, experimental "Hive" network of educational resources for tweens and teens -- and to deliver the message that Pittsburgh is already a model for the nation.
 
"You guys are already networked," said Jennifer Humke, MacArthur program officer, "and that's exactly why MacArthur is investing in Pittsburgh. We see Pittsburgh as an ideal example for growing connected-learning systems ... We're going to be looking to you to help develop the tools and evidence to keep this movement going."
 
The Pittsburgh Hive Learning Network won't have specific programs or a focus dictated by MacArthur; nor will it have a physical space. Instead, it will bring together schools and after-school programs, museums and child-focused agencies, well-established organizations and young researchers to encourage fresh partnerships and new ways of serving kids 11 and older. The intention is to encourage innovative ideas and collaborations by linking local people who may never have worked together or even met before -- but certainly ought to -- and to provide funding to get projects started.
 
"We're really looking forward to seeing good projects for tweens and teens, specifically around digital media, making, and STEAM [science, technology, engineering, the arts and math] learning," said Ryan Coon, spokesperson for Sprout's Spark Program, after the announcement. Spark administers Pittsburgh's Kids+Creativity Network -- a kind of Hive for younger kids that was established three years ago.
 
"It's more of a support structure to bring the many disparate organizations that are doing or thinking of bringing about programs for teens and tweens into a cooperative network," said Coon of the Hive. "It's like Kids+Creativity writ large."
 
The Hive will roll out through this spring. On Feb. 22, the Hive will hold a funding workshop to describe projects that will qualify for funding -- projects similar in size and focus to those Spark now funds, at the intersection of digital media, the arts and education, Coon said. The first application deadline will be in April, with another round of funding slated for the summer. The Hive will officially launch in May.
 
The only other Hives in the nation are in New York City and Chicago. "What MacArthur saw in Pittsburgh was a region that was already behaving in multidisciplinary, cross-sector ways," Coon added. "We're really pleased to be recognized. It was a lot of people working hard for the last five years." In particular, Humke credited Sprout Executive Director Cathy Lewis Long and Deputy Director Matt Hannigan, as well as Grable Foundation Executive Director Gregg Behr.
 
Behr and the Benedum Foundation's Vice President James Denova introduced the Kids+Creativity Network to 400 people gathered at Carnegie Mellon University and paved the way for the Hive announcement. Denova noted that creating "a renaissance of wonder" for young people in our region "demands fresh thinking on our part to prepare them for futures we can't yet imagine."
 
Concluded Sprout's Cathy Lewis Long: "A robust learning ecosystem is developing in the Pittsburgh area … and we're propelling ourselves into a national conversation."
 
Writer: Marty Levine

"We're looking for young people who are already involved in a meaningful community project to honor them for their work," says Rebecca Farabaugh, Pittsburgh Regional Coordinator for the Jefferson Awards for Public Service, which is accepting nominations for its third annual Youth Service Challenge. "There are so many young people in our region especially, with so much energy, doing such good work, that we want to encourage them."
 
Jefferson's Youth Service Challenge is looking for young people ages 5-25 to nominate themselves (or to be nominated by others) and be honored for their service-project work. The entry deadline April 30. Local winners in nine categories (animal rights; community building and citizenship; education and literacy; elder care; environment and sustainability; health and wellness; hunger, homelessness and poverty; peace and justice; and service to youth) will compete in a national competition.
 
Farabaugh says the awards have encouraged further youth activism and success in the area. Alexis Werner, for instance, won first place in the Pittsburgh regional Youth Service Challenge in 2011. She was honored for creating Seeds of Hope, which planted "victory gardens" throughout the region to engage area youth and the local community about the difficulties of veterans transitioning back to civilian life, and to create baskets to deliver to local veterans and their families. She was inspired by the many deployments her mother and stepfather, both servicemembers, had undertaken, and the severe Post Traumatic Stress Disorder with which her stepfather was diagnosed.

With fellow Shaler Area High School students, Alexis delivered 75 baskets of produce to veterans, planted and cared for 10 victory gardens and raised $200. Since then, she has had a chance to work with Jefferson Awards founder Sam Beard and the Awards' GlobeChangers program to bring Seeds of Hope to 20 states, and has raised more than $15,000.
 
Another local winner, Bobby Catley, then a senior at Hopewell High School in Aliquippa, saw the need for people to understand the new food pyramid nutrition guidelines, so he raised money to organize and host an event for 1,500, complete with cooking demonstrations, healthy food samples and other informational components. "He is the only local person who has won at the national level to date," says Farabaugh.
 
Jefferson also provides winners with some tools to grow their projects and gain them attention, from press-release templates and social-media strategy tips to hints for finding new funding and other ways to increase their impact.
 
"I'm really excited to hear a lot of the stories that are coming out of Pittsburgh," says Farabaugh about the many entries she receives. "This is all a really great opportunity for us to share those stories and get Pittsburgh on the national stage."
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Rebecca Farabaugh, Pittsburgh Regional Coordinator for the Jefferson Awards for Public Service