For Good

The Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children's Media has started a blog "to expand the dialogue on the potential of digital media to support early learning and development," as the first entry notes.
 
"The blog is the next step in work that we've been doing for more than three years," says the Rogers Center's Executive Director Rita Catalano: trying to provide guidance to parents and media creators, educators and researchers, about what represents quality children's media and what is best for them.
 
The Rogers Center had already created a "Framework for Quality" to spur the dialog, but Catalano hopes the blog will "promote some new thinking" on the subject.
 
Among the regulars will be two Rogers Center Fellows Daniel Anderson, a professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, who researches the effects of adult background television on infants and toddlers, and Alice Wilder, chief content officer at Speakaboos, a children's website that encourages reading and literacy.

Beginning next week, Wilder and Carla E. Fisher, the founder, game designer and researcher at No Crusts Interactive, will present videos showing kids and adults using media products to an expert panel for comment. "It's meant to model how people think about quality when people use an app or other digital media product," Catalano says.  
 
Guest bloggers will vary from week to week. One of the early entries was by Lisa Guernsey, director of the Early Education Initiative at the New America Foundation, and Michael H. Levine, executive director of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, about their new report from the Campaign for Grade-Level Reading. Ellen Galinsky, president of Families and Work Institute and author of Mind in the Making, will write about the potential of media to help with child development.
 
Child is still hoping to get more public commentary, "but we've seen people sharing it on their social media, so I'm hopeful this means we will continue to build an audience for it."

Do Good:
Looking for an additional way to join the conversation about kids and learning? Join the conversation at the Children's Museum of Pittsburgh here.
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Rita Catalano, Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children's Media

Teachers need a place to learn through playing and exploring, just like their students -- and a place to exchange ideas outside their classrooms and even their districts.
 
That's the theory behind a new space dubbed "transformED" at the Allegheny Intermediate Unit's central office in Homestead. The AIU provides specialized education services to 42 districts and their 119,300 students, and its transformED is a new spot where "teachers will have the opportunity to come and play and utilize whatever form of technology will help them take ideas back to the classroom," says Jennifer Beagan, senior program director for teaching and learning.
 
TransformED, opening Feb. 6, is part of the AIU's Center for Creativity, which was designed "to create a go-to place for teachers, where they can really come and learn how you integrate creativity across disciplines," says Rosanne Javorsky, assistant executive director for teaching and learning.
 
For this kind of professional development, says Javorsky, "teachers wanted a physical space different from our traditional spaces in school. And they wanted some professional support that was really more hands-on discovery education" of the variety that works so well for their students. "We believe there is no space like this dedicated to teachers in the country" -- and certainly there is none like it in the region, she adds.
 
Inside its bright red walls, transformED is set up to allow multiple activities at the same time. Explains Javorsky: "The space is designed for interaction and for people to feel comfortable. It has a coffee-shop feel."
 
The opening coincides with national Digital Learning Day, and will offer demonstrations representing workshops and other sessions that teachers can enjoy at transformED. Educators will be able to gain experience with a 3D printer and the interactive-video software Scratch. Hummingbird Robots will help teachers assist their students in robot design and provide technical skills applicable to teaching multiple classroom subjects. A Gigapan camera, which takes 3,000 photos and stitches them together for panoramic views, will aid both science and art teachers.
 
Some of transformED's features will also be decidedly low tech, such as an area dedicated to design thinking -- a kind of strategic planning method that helps with idea generation.
 
Javorsky says the AIU has been concerned that, with the emphasis on test preparation in schools, "'drill and kill' is really taking the motivation out of learning." She hopes the new "TransformED is an opportunity for teachers to learn from each other."
 
TransformED was funded by a $218,000 grant from the Grable Foundation.
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Sources: Jennifer Beagan, Rosanne Javorsky, Sarah McCluan, Allegheny Intermediate Unit

"Teens on average use 17 personal care products a day," everything from soap to body sprays, says Michelle Naccarati-Chapkis, head of the local Women for a Healthy Environment (WHE). Each has a multitude of chemicals that go on and into the skin, including some that are harmful, such as mercury and formaldehyde.
 
On Feb. 10, WHE is launching a new program called Teens on the Eco Scene. Its aim is to make teens more aware of the environmental risks and reduce the amount of toxins in the materials they encounter everyday at school, home and work. The program, funded by the Grable Foundation, is also intended to motivate teens to take action to improve the health of their communities.
 
"There is an opportunity to increase knowledge that changes behaviors," says Naccarati-Chapkis, "and we are establishing healthy behaviors that will benefit them for life."
 
WHE has been working with youth for several years, both through the Food City Fellows summer work-study program that revitalizes vacant lots and plants gardens to teach about healthy, local food, and through their cosmetology curriculum for Pittsburgh Public Schools students.
 
Teens on the Eco Scene's opening event at Hard Rock Café at Station Square will offer interactive stations where participants can make their own natural lip gloss, cologne and deodorant, taste test organic versus processed foods and recycle their electronics while getting a sneak peek at the Scene's full program. Starting out as an after-school activity but eventually expanding into the school day, Scene will create eco-challenges and other contests that, for instance, may involve surveying the cleaning products and cafeteria lunches in students' schools to see how healthy and safe they are.
 
"This will be very interactive," she says. "There are a lot of opportunities. We'll be responding to [students'] ideas over the next few months."
 
Do Good:
Want an additional way to clean up the community? Volunteer with Allegheny CleanWays, which removes illegal dumping sites from our rivers.
 
Writer: Marty Levine (forgood@popcitymedia.com)
Source: Michelle Naccarati-Chapkis, Women for a Healthy Environment

La Roche College Associate Prof. Jeff Ritter has learned a lot in his travels, exploring international aid projects. He has discovered that working effectively to help during humanitarian crises, such as droughts or other natural disasters, takes more than a willingness to step up.
 
"'We get a thousand letters every time we need a volunteer,'" he says an International Committee of the Red Cross official once told him, "'and I look at them and we won't take any of them … We need someone who understands what they are doing, what they are stepping into. We'd rather have someone who has run a small business or has volunteered at a soup kitchen than someone who has a master's in development.'
 
Workers on such projects need to exercise cultural sensitivity, Ritter adds. International aid programs now emphasize "restoring and improving livelihoods, not just giving food, water and shelter. There's even emergency education now" when schools are shut down. "If kids miss a year of education they will never catch up."
 
To provide proper training on the latest needs and methods in the aid field, Ritter has launched and is co-directing a new summer course open to the public, "Global Development and Humanitarian Aid Training," set for June 30-July 13.
 
The need for humanitarian workers never seems to go away, which has made international disaster relief into a career. "Humanitarian aid is a huge field and it's growing every year, and there's a high attrition rate," Ritter notes. But, he adds, it is fascinating work, taking place everywhere from refugee camps to offices, involving many types of training: logistics, database, health, law, advocacy and more.
 
"There's not many opportunities to get training in the United States in this field," Ritter notes. Harvard's program, for instance, is open only to Harvard students and those of a few surrounding institutions. Ritter himself took such a course offered by RedR, an international disaster relief aid and training group in England that will send a representative here to teach part of La Roche's course.
 
Other teachers are local: Andy Pugh, country director of Oxfam International in Haiti and an adjunct professor at the University of Pittsburgh; Terry Jeggle, an international expert on disaster management and mitigation; and Jason O'Connor, who has been doing work in the Sudan as a security specialist. Lessons will involve classroom work and simulations about everything from the legal framework of emergency aid to water and hygiene needs and planning for volcanoes and earthquakes.
 
"It's not a guaranteed entry into the field, but it's a good start," Ritter says. He has already received an inquiry from Food for the Hungry in England, asking for recommendations among course graduates. "We're really looking for adventurous people."
 
Course applicants with an undergraduate degree are preferred, Ritter says, and March 15 is the deadline for registering at a discount price. The course can be taken for undergraduate or graduate college credit. Those interested should check the course website for a webinar that will include a live chat for questions.
 
Do Good:
Some basic work in disaster relief still takes volunteers: Connect with Amizade, which has upcoming service-learning courses in Nicaragua, Tanzania and Trinidad & Tobago, here.
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Jeff Ritter, La Roche College

ASSET STEM Education, the South Side nonprofit that has helped school districts across the state implement hands-on curricula for science, technology, engineering and math learning, is holding its first, free STEM conference downtown on Feb. 18. Its aim, says ASSET Executive Director Cynthia Pulkowski, "is really to help people identify where their school districts are on the STEM continuum and decide where they want to go to. They'll be able to discover resources and practices to improve the STEM education at their schools."
 
With 75 school districts and universities already signed up -- not to mention representatives from nonprofit agencies, businesses, state government and elsewhere -- there's not much room left to register for spots, she says.
 
ASSET is teaming with the Norwin School District to bring the conference to the Convention Center, featuring keynote speakers David Burns, director of STEM innovation networks for the Columbus, Ohio R & D company Battelle and Dewayne Rideout, vice president of human resources for All-Clad Metalcrafters in Canonsburg. Burns will offer a national perspective on STEM education, while Rideoout will speak about teaming with several school districts' students to work on new products for the company.
 
Among the 22 breakout sessions are:

• Charting Your Course to a Successful STEM School/Program, with four ASSET officials describing the best practices of a model STEM program using a national rubric;

• Several sessions focusing on STEAM, which incorporates the arts into STEM, with representatives from Propel Schools and the Pine-Richland School District;

• Next Generation Science Standards and STEM, led by representatives of the Math and Science Collaborative at Allegheny Intermediate Unit; and

• Supporting STEM Education through Common Core, focusing on new, more rigorous state standards now being required of students.

"Teachers need to identify where the possibilities lie for their students in careers," says Pulkowski. To help, ASSET is also creating a STEM career database for schools to investigate possibilities for internships, mentoring programs and classroom visitors.
 
Conference-goers, she says, "will walk away with pieces they can go ahead and apply in their schools. I hope they can say, 'OK, I have a place to start.' I just want them to have some actual resources and some good planning."
 
Do Good:
Looking for additional ways to help local education? Contribute to the work of The Education Partnership in supplying classrooms with needed materials.
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Cynthia Pulkowski, ASSET STEM Education

After accumulating 10 years of data about wages and benefits in local nonprofits, Peggy Outon would like to know "why in the social-justice sector we are seeing larger pay gaps than the one that prompted President Obama to sign the Lilly Ledbetter Act."
 
The Ledbetter Fair Pay Act was designed to close the wage gap between men and women working in businesses nationally. While in 2002, women working for Pittsburgh-area nonprofits made 67 cents for every dollar men made. In 2012 they make only 74 cents on the dollar -- an improvement of just seven cents in a decade. Outon, as executive director of the Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management at Robert Morris University, which conducts the survey, notes that "there is a true pay equity issue in southwestern Pennsylvania, and it extends not just to the senior management of these organizations but all through the organizations. Over time, the survey has served sort of like a canary in a coalmine."
 
The Bayer Center is now working with Eden Hall Foundation and Bayer USA Foundation to do deeper research on hundreds of IRS nonprofit forms, checking on the pay gap in all such local organizations, since participation in the survey is voluntary and doesn't cover all groups. Following this research, she reports, "the wage and benefits survey results have been validated."
 
Their big project is called 74 percent, because women make up nearly 74 percent of the nonprofit workforce. Thus, of 300,000 nonprofit employees, 225,000 are women. "Very few are being paid excessively, so we have concern for men's lives in this as well," Outon says. Organizations must ask themselves, "'Are people being treated fairly in your organization? How do you know you are paying the right salary?' All too often, salary-setting at nonprofits has appeared out of the air."
 
Other findings of the survey include: Sixty-four percent of nonprofit leaders are women and 36 percent are men. Among total employees, 73 percent are women and 27 percent are men. And the amount of health-care premiums paid by organizations has dropped from 59 percent in 2002 to 37 percent today.
 
The survey, Outon adds, will also let nonprofits benchmark their leaders' salaries against other groups, as the IRS has been requiring for the past several years.
 
"I am under no illusion that there is a pot of money out there waiting to rain down on the people who work in the nonprofit sector," she says. However, she concludes, "more equity" is needed among the organizations that most often push for equity in other areas of life.
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Peggy Outon, Bayer Center for Nonprofit Management

The Girl Scouts have been growing women of distinction for 101 years, and the troops of Western Pennsylvania will continue to present their Women of Distinction Awards for the 17th year on March 13.
 
"Often they turned out to have been Girl Scouts in the past," notes Allison Burns, coordinator for the event, which also honors two outstanding current Scouts and a local corporation that has been teaming with the scouts to do good locally.
 
Past adult honorees have included philanthropists and political figures Elsie Hillman and Teresa Heinz Kerry. This year's awards in eight categories include:

• In Arts: Sarah Tambucci of the Arts Education Collaborative
• In Business: Karen Larrimer of PNC Bank
• In the Community: Anne Lewis of Oxford Development
• In Education: Phyllis Comer, State Commissioner for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
• In Government: Judge Donna Jo McDaniel of the Allegheny Country Court of Common Pleas
• In Health Care: Tami Minnier of the UPMC Center for Quality Improvement and Innovation
• In Law: Margaret Joy of McCarthy McDonald Schulberg & Joy
• In Technology: Diane Watson of Bayer

The awards, says Burns, "show that we inspire girls to discover whatever they want to do and to find their voice."
 
The Girl Scout Humanitarian Award will go to Tiffany Trunk, a student at Peters Township High School, who is working toward her Gold Award, the equivalent of the Boy Scout's Eagle rank. She does restoration work at the Pennsylvania Trolley Museum, is being trained as a voluntary first responder, does fundraising for veterans' causes locally and also volunteers at a local library.
 
The Girl Scout of Distinction awardee this year is Jocelyn Perry of West Allegheny High School, who created a summer day camp for kids of working mothers by partnering with a local parks department and gathering donated supplies. She also created a middle-school girls' workshop, teaching that self-esteem is not centered on a girl's looks.
 
"She' such a hard-working and compassionate girl," says Burns. "She's really a role model to younger girls in teaching them self-confidence."

The Corporation of Distinction this year is PPG Industries, which created the PPG Science of Color program and patch for the Scouts. It teaches color theory, design, chromatography and pH’s effect on color, as well as corporate accountability for the environment and ways to make companies greener. It also encourages participants to explore careers in color. "We want to close that gap for women in the sciences," says Burns, "where traditionally these are fields where positions are not held by women."
 
Eden Hall Foundation is the presenting sponsor for this fundraising event, and the honorary chair is Agnus Berenato, head coach of the University of Pittsburgh women’s basketball team.
 
Do Good:
Searching for more ways to help local girls? Strong Women, Strong Girls trains girls for leadership positions.
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Allison Burns, Girls Scouts Western Pennsylvania

"We've been working to increase our online presence, particularly through social media and our blogs," says Angela Garcia, executive director of Global Links, a Lawrenceville nonprofit that collects surplus medical supplies from U.S. hospitals and provides them to other countries in need, particularly following natural disasters.
 
One of the techniques they have been examining for gaining notice on the Internet is SEO -- search engine optimization, which involves understanding how Google and other search engines work so that searchers can find your Website and thus your services.
 
"As a niche industry, we're trying to get more market share, to get more hospitals to work with us," Garcia says. "If people can't find us easily throughout the country, that will impact our growth, and we will lose our opportunities to build relationships," especially at crucial times when they are trying to target their supplies to a particular disaster on the ground.
 
"I kept asking: How do you do this? How do you find a class to teach you SEO? We didn't question that we needed to do it" -- just whether they could afford it.
 
Enter LunaMetrics, the South Side social media and Internet experts. They're offering a free training program to local nonprofits (and for students looking for this skill that is highly desired by online-focused employers).
 
According to Andrew Garberson, the company's SEO coordinator, CTAC Pittsburgh, Amizade, The Homeless Fund, Global Solutions Pittsburgh and The Education Partnership are joining Global Links for the first class -- but there are three spots for organizations still open. Training starts in mid-February.
 
SEO, says Garcia, "is not something that's really taught -- you learn it hands on." She is gratified that LunaMetrics is providing the training to nonprofits. "This is very community-minded of the company," she says, "and very hands-on."
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Sources: Angela Garcia, Global Links; Andrew Garberson, LunaMetrics

"Last summer, after the Aurora shooting" -- the Colorado theater massacre during the debut of The Dark Knight Rises -- "I was so angry I just had to write a piece about guns," says Kyle Bostian.
 
Bostian heads Pittsburgh PACT (Public Action Communitarian Theatre) and in just the past week has lined up a multitude of local monologists, singers, comedians, filmmakers, writers and activists to present what he terms a "community arts action" to coincide with the March on Washington for Gun Control on Jan. 26. The free local event, which includes a reading of part of Bostian's Aurora play, "Irony in the Second Degree," takes place at Bricolage.
 
Pittsburgh artists reading, performing or showing parts of their work include essayist Tammy Ryan, playwright Tameka Cage Conley, documentary filmmaker Chris Ivey, stand-up comedians John McIntire and Gab Bonesso (who also will appear as part of her musical duo Josh and Gab, with Josh Verbanets), and singer/songwriter Dave Bielewicz.
 
A similar "theater action" will be held in Washington, D.C. the same day (created by New York's NoPassport, from which Bostian drew his inspiration. The two events will share presentations, giving Pittsburgh a glimpse of artists in action from across the country (New York, Albuquerque, and Los Angeles) and the world (Wales and Australia).
 
As with all PACT events, an audience discussion will follow.
 
"It just all came together because a group of passionate people decided this was the moment," Bostian says. "A lot of us have a lot of strong feelings about gun violence and this gives us the opportunity to have catharsis. Also, I would hope that it will stir up conversation and get people out there doing things in their community."
           
To register, email here with your full name and the number of seats requested, or go online here.
 
Do Good:
Connect with other groups co-sponsoring the event and active on the issue: CeaseFirePA and One Pittsburgh, who will also have representatives at the event.
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Kyle Bostian, Pittsburgh PACT

Recycled pets -- well, dogs and cats awaiting adoption in the Animal Rescue League's shelter in Homewood -- are getting a boost from a program designed to increase recycling of items that apparently are low on people's recycling priorities: pet food cans.
 
We're great at recycling beverage cans, filling our blue bags with 65 percent of what we drink, according to Dave Mazza, regional director of the Pennsylvania Resources Council, which is working with Alcoa Foundation on this project. But we're not so good at recycling those messier pet food cans, he reports -- we only turn back a fifth of them for reuse.
 
To encourage better recycling, the Council's Cans for Pets campaign, through Alcoa, is donating five cents for every can turned in to the League's shelter, its wildlife center in Verona, the Council's South Side office and Banksville's The Dog Stop. The campaign has reached 6,500 cans toward its 20,000-can goal.
 
Mazza, a former municipal recycling manager, isn't entirely sure why pet cans pose more of a recycling problem for people. Unlike plastics, metal cans don't bear the recycling triangle and numbers that for a long time made people question whether particular jugs or jars were appropriate for recycling at all. It may be that we're simply reluctant to deal with the mess. An empty soda pop can is easy to rinse out. An empty can of Alpo? Not so much.
 
The Council has been working with Alcoa for years to boost aluminum-recycling rates, even instituting a recycling effort at Steelers tailgates. "Now we're starting to look at some of the items that are not recycled as often," Mazza says. "The thing about people, and animals as well, is that we're creatures of habit. The goal is to get people used to recycling their empty pet food cans."
 
Do Good:
Not sure where to recycle other items? Construction Junction has a guide and takes many hard-to-recycle items.
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Dave Mazza, Pennsylvania Resources Council

If you've ever sat in a half-empty school auditorium for your kid's band or choir concert, you know that kids playing classical music aren't getting the love their football-playing classmates are receiving.
 
"Kids who participate in sports get the adulation of their peers all the time," says Joanna Marie, managing director of classical-music radio's WQED-FM, "whereas kids who study instruments and vocal arts don't get that."
 
That's one of the reasons WQED-FM is reviving its Musical Kids contest to offer recognition and encouragement for young instrumentalists and vocalists. The station is now accepting performance recordings through Feb. 22 to pick a first round of finalists. The finalists will then be invited to make professional video recordings to be posted on the WQED website, where the public will vote for one winner from March 18 through April 10. A panel of judges among local classical music performers and teachers will pick five more winners, and all will perform live on the station's “Performance in Pittsburgh” on May 3 and receive a plaque and prizes at an event at their school.
 
Reduced school funding for the arts "is another reason we want to step in and help fill the void," Marie says. "It is something we really believe in." Presenting part of the award at each kid's school is a purposeful strategy "so they can show their peers how well they are doing," she adds. The station hopes, she says, to offer the winners "recognition and a great sense of accomplishment and fun."
 
The contest last ran in the 1990s, in a different form, and has received a grant from the Snee-Reinhardt Charitable Foundation to be revived.
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Joanna Marie, WQED-FM

It's hard to imagine an eight-month-old baby doing more than drooling and banging on an iPad, but The Early Learning Institute has discovered that kids this young can benefit from app-based therapies -- and so can their parents.
 
The Institute got a grant from the Verizon Foundation to buy 10 iPads to pilot a study of occupational, physical, speech and developmental therapies used with the 1,100 kids in their Early Intervention Program, which treats children experiencing developmental delays from birth to three in Allegheny and Washington counties. The idea is to help them achieve normal developmental milestones.
 
As a result, says Kara Rutowski, executive director of The Early Learning Institute, the kids have increased their vocabularies, learned to take turns, improved their balance, learned to make good decisions, increased their attention spans and expanded their abilities to express and understand language.
 
They've also to follow directions, match items, answer yes or no questions and identify family members, objects, colors and pictures. The eight-month-old is learning fine motor skills, to improve grasping and the use one finger at a time and other skills that will prepare this child to write, color, cut and perform other pre-school tasks.
 
The program uses mostly free apps so that each child's parents can use them at home to reinforce a kid's goals. Parents can also take their own smart phone or iPad in to the Institute between sessions to practice with the therapists. In addition, the Institute uses iPad learning for babies and toddlers in its socialization group, the Social Butterflies program.
 
"It's never too early to work on these skills," Rutowski says. "The beauty of it is, children are having fun. They don't realize they are working while they are using these things."
 
Do Good:
Searching for additional ways to help kids with special learning needs? Volunteer at the Children's Institute.
 
Writer: Marty Levine
Source: Kara Rutowski, The Early Learning Institute

Many nonprofits are offering service opportunities and celebrations for Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Jan. 21. Here's a brief guide to just some of the available activities:
 

• East Liberty's Union Project is holding a free community meal and meeting "about Dr. King's dream, how we pursue it, and how we are living it today." This year's location is Eastminster Presbyterian Church, 250 N. Highland Avenue, 4-7 p.m., sponsored by the Pittsburgh Partnership for Neighborhood Development.

 

• Pittsburgh Cares and PUMP are collaborating on Volunteer Speed Dating to match those 21 or older with local nonprofits that can really use volunteers' skills, time and know-how. The event will take place on Jan. 16, 6-8 p.m. at the Pittsburgh Public Market in the Strip District; free pre-registration is recommended, because it's $5 at the door.

 

• Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank and Habitat for Humanity are asking you to volunteer at the food bank in honor of King and of President Barack Obama's inauguration that day. Register here to participate.

 

• The Student Conservation Association and Venture Outdoors are partnering for a free Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the Park from 1-4 p.m. on MLK Day in Schenley Park, featuring refreshments, ice skating, snowshoeing, arts and crafts  and more.

 

• Carnegie Mellon University has a day of festivities and forums. It begins with a School of Drama tribute at 12:30 p.m. and includes programs by the Arts Greenhouse and the Children's School, a campus "Big Questions" interactive session on "What are you doing for others?" and a keynote address and reception featuring Binta Brown -- described as a "political advisor, humanitarian, award-winning corporate attorney and World Economic Forum global leader" -- at 5 p.m. in the Rangos Ballroom of the University Center.

 

• The University of Pittsburgh's week of celebration, called "Becoming a Just Community," begins with an interfaith service full of music, dance and spoken-word performances by students from Pitt and elsewhere on Jan. 18, 7-8 p.m. at the Heinz Memorial Chapel. Included in the week are service projects for Pitt students on MLK Day, a social-justice symposium about faith and spirituality on campus and a lecture by famed activist Angela Davis, now a University of California at Santa Cruz Distinguished Professor Emerita (both on Jan. 24).

 
Writer: Marty Levine

The "Take a Shot" kids' video contest is still about "how kids can change the world and how Pittsburgh can change the world," says Carl Kurlander, president of Steeltown Entertainment, which started the contest three years ago.
 
Inspired by, and originally focused on, Jonas Salk's pioneering polio vaccine work here, the contest now has several new themes for video entries -- including the environment, nonviolence and "The People Speak" -- and $10,000 in prizes.
 
"The People Speak" theme stems from the Steeltown-sponsored event last May in which actors Matt Damon, Frances McDormand and John Krasinski (in town to film the just-released "Promised Land") and local activists read here from the work of Howard Zinn, author of A People's History of the United States and subject of "The People Speak" documentary. Take a Shot is now partnering with Voices of a People's History, founded by Zinn and others, to bring to life the stories of lesser-known movements and people instrumental in the country's history. Voices is also providing Take a Shot with curriculum materials to help teachers encourage their students to participate. "That's really important to us," says Kurlander. "We've really been inspired by how teachers have used this in their classrooms."
 
On Jan. 19, this year's Take a Shot contest will launch with a free showing of "The People Speak," which features Morgan Freeman, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Pink, Eddie Vedder and others. "We'll use that kickoff to inspire kids to make videos on how you make change in your community," Kurlander says. On Feb. 24, before that evening's Oscar broadcast, Take a Shot will hold a filmmaking workshop at the Senator John Heinz History Center.
 
Last year's contest category, "Pittsburgh Innovation," and the original "Polio: Then and Now" category remain as prizes as well.
 
The contest entry deadline is May 1, after which the judges, who are still being chosen, will take two weeks to view the films and the public will have a 10-day online voting period to decide on two $1,000 prizes for middle-school and high-school films. On May 18, a film fest at the History Center will announce and screen the winners and highlights from other films.
 
Writer: Marty Levine 
Source: Carl Kurlander and Rachel Shepherd, Steeltown Entertainment

Betty Hill has been puzzled when local schools and foundations report that their anti-bullying programs are working, yet she still hears so often from LGBT students that they're being bullied.
 
"There's something wrong here," says Hill, director of Persad, which runs many programs for LGBT youth. "There's a disconnect that [schools] are not seeing. We want to get people involved and we want to get solutions. We can't just leave behind this whole group of LGBT kids who are not benefitting" from local anti-bullying efforts.
 
That's why Persad is teaming with local chapters of PFLAG (Parents, Families and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) and GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network) and other organizations to hold a Safe Schools Summit -- the first of a three-part effort to bring local resources to bear on this continuing problem. The summit will be held in the Lexus Club at PNC Park on Jan. 16.
 
Nationally, GLSEN has been studying the school climate for LGBT kids for two decades. Their latest survey from 2011, just released, found that 90 percent of LGBT students say they have been verbally harassed, 39 percent physically harassed and 18 percent assaulted in the previous year due to their sexual orientation. Sixty percent report that they feel unsafe in school.
 
Bringing local experts on LGBT issues together with educators will attempt to bridge the gap between general anti-bullying approaches and the needs of LGBT youth. Part of the effort will include conducting the first comprehensive research on the local school climate.
 
The summit will feature national speakers from the Trevor Project (an LGBT youth suicide-prevention hotline), GLSEN, and PFLAG, as well as local school bullying research findings presented by Laura Crothers and Jered Kolbert of Duquesne University.
 
Apparently, says Hill, "kids do not label the negative things done against gay kids as bullying. So they don't use their anti-bullying skills because they don't see the anti-gay things as bullying." Finding out why this goes on, and what to do about it, is the goal of the Summit, whose third part she expects to be later this year. It will include a series of a focus groups with area students, parents, educators, and LGBT community-service groups to discuss local research and ways to proceed from here.
 
Do Good:
Looking for another way to help LGBT youth? Volunteer at the local Gay and Lesbian Community Center.
 
Writer: Marty Levine 
Source: Betty Hill, Persad