Hello again and second day of work and more interesting things happened...
First we had our first training on what direct action was and for that we all bought some food and gathered around the meeting tables and ate some apples with peanut butter. The interesting part is that I had some peanut butter from Trader Joe's and that was organically made and since the whole office is trying to be healthier about their food they gave it a shot... So after a while one of my coworkers, Lorena, says "wow, this tastes so different, it gets all stuck to your teeth and to the top of your mouth" to what my boss proceeds to say, " girrrlll you just don't know, its because its got all that booty oil and crap that makes your but grow" ha ha ha, to what Lorena responds, " well I might just want to eat a little more of that then"! and we all cracked up. To me this was just an interesting time and as i said before I feel really at home in the organization, and I really feel that I have the potential to grow here and make an impact, which is important! The great thing about work is that we are a family with everyone and I am truly saying this after 2 days of working there, but it is the truth. Although we could call us a very dysfunctional family, so no brady bunch here :)
Also, today I was able to get my first project, which is impressive. I will be working closely with the community organizers for open space, which tries to obtain areas for public use such as parks, community gardens, etc. I will also continue to work with the community gardens and to be honest my bio class that I had has helped a lot and also my garden that was planted with Laurita at the Belmont. after all that gibberish now here is my project. I am tasked with doing door to door community organizing and making people aware of a site that is supposed to be LVEJO's and that the oil company that owned it prior to us was in the process cleaning it. They had to take out an underground broiler and while they did take it out they also spilled oil in this lot which is supposed to be used for a community garden. So for now I will be going around a 3 block radius knocking on doors and making people aware of this problem and also asking questions as of how it affects their health and trying to get them organized to take action and get it cleaned. The other problem is that the City of Chicago is supposed to take this company to court but instead of cleaning it up and passing the bill to the oil company, they have decided that their solution is to put a plastic tarp over it and wait till it settles in the courts, which obviously could take a couple years and with the disgusting smells, the possibility that it could be flammable, and for sure an eye sore, this is unacceptable! Last but not least between all the appeals and all it could take a couple of years for it to get fixed. So this is now my challenge and I have to act quickly because they want me to be as informed as possible by June 6 so i can attend a community meeting in the area and be introduced to the people living there and get my feet wet in this amazing world. Yikes! But as NAS says" never on schedule, but always on time" I should totally be able to pull this one off.
So this is my work for the next couple of weeks, although I also went in the later part of the afternoon to the chamber of commerce with 2 coworkers and started asking some questions about how we can get the businesses in the sector involved in some of our projects. The organization (LVEJO) recently helped the Chicago Transit Authority receive a grant for over a million dollars that was pushed to them by the hard work of Mike in the office, our CTA and public transportation guy, and now that they have the money the do not want to put in the bus route that the money was given to them for. So we are trying to rally up the neighbors and we will be having a "celebration parade" informing the neighborhood that the CTA got the money by building a 12 foot long bus and taking it down the route the actual bus is supposed to have and getting the media involved to create awareness about this issue. Good Stuff!
One of the things I am mostly excited about is that after We had this meeting with the chamber of commerce is that I noticed that my business mind, because my crazy mind is always flying on ways to make money or think how to approach a business to get something from them, will be very helpful in this setting and the skills that I bring to the table can make a difference and be able to see another angle of things that might have of not been seen before.
After all of this Mike, Eduardo, Pete, and I went to go eat tacos and chatted for a while, and then I came back home on my usual 40 minute commute. On the way back I was thinking about how much I have coming to me, how much I am going to learn this summer and how excited I am about it.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Baby sitting and laying carpet !!! thats my kind of job!!
Hi all and I hope all of you are doing well no matter what you are doing!
I am currently in Chicago working for a non-profit organization and it is an incredible time. I arrived in Midway airport around 3 pm and took the L train to the loop. I am living in the heart of downtown where it seems that everything is happening. its a great loft although very empty it only has a bed and 2 desks so I am trying to make it home soon and get something on the wall. As for a view i have the huge Chicago sign for the Chicago theater across the street and their is always some dance classes from the Joffrey Ballet and yesterday I saw them practicing the moves to Thriller, it was great.
Today I started my internship and was due in the office by ten o'clock and i took some precautions and was sure to arrive on time. The CTA or transit system was kind of empty so it was not that bad but i do have a 40 minute commute and I have to wait to get on a bus for the last 10 minutes. I work in the Mexican part of town and at an organization that is called Little Villaje Environmnetal Justice Organization or LVEJO. It deals with environmental issues throughout the city and I will be a part of the community gardening program and also be helping with the youth side of things, which is great. I met my boss Kim and she is a great organization and gave me a quick speech on what the organization was and i was refered to as "the intern" for the first couple of minutes, or hey "guy".
But here is were it starts getting good! so the first thing I was asked to do is lay carpet down in a section of the office because that is where her baby roams around and I proceeded to do so willingly because as she said "it was the interny thing to do" hahaha! I got a good kick out of that one so I said sure and put down a non slip clothe down first then layed the carpet and cut down the cloth to the size of the carpet, having much fun and jsut laughing at myself! Next the internet was down in the office so Kim, my boss, is the IT person and had to fix it. Since her daughter was there who do you think got to babysit while mommy was working on fixing the problem, ME!! so I played with gaby, the cutest little baby for about an hour and held her around and walked with her around the office. it was just tons of fun and I really enjoyed it but I would have of never though that my first day at work would have of involved any of these activities:)
After that, Kim, gave Peter, the other intern, and I our orientation and proceeded to tell us how good LVEJO is, and how much fun it will be working there! She is very intense and very direct which is great and also very passionate about everything she does. the great thing is that this small organization does so much and is taking on all these huge problems that the city of Chicago will not fix or will not even look at because of political pressure. We are not an organization that just sits around and tries to wait to fix things or that is trying to be buddy buddies with people to get things done, we are a organization that takes things to the streets and makes ourselves noticed, to the point that I was warned that "their is the possibility of getting arrested but that if we know that this will happen we will first fund raise money to make sure we have enough to bail you out!!!!" Amazing!
It has gotten to the point that one of our organizers has done some creative stuff to get people's attention. For valentine's day he dressed up as cupid and went in front of bank of America and Convinced people to close their accounts and not do business with them because B of A does business with the coal industry here in Chi town. He did this by handing out candy and hearts with a message on them informing customers about this link between the companies. The coal companies are a big problem here, an interesting fact is that the smallest of the coal energy producing plants is the one that causes the majority of the pollution to Chicago and is in the minority neighborhood, but it doesn't even provide electricity to any part of Illinois!!!
I am still in the office learning from everyone and what they do but I am betting these will be an interesting 10 weeks, and to be honest I think I fell in love with the organization from day 1!!!
Later in the afternoon after my first two jobs where done, ha ha, I went to work with Eduardo, the community garden organizer, and a great guy. We went and fixed up a space by the elementary school and planted some chillies, peppers, cabbage, lettuce, radishes, etc. and weeded for a while. Later in the afternoon we went to the backyard of a church and took down a playground structure that was beat down to be able to put in a garden in the next couple of weeks, very exciting!
After my day of long hard work, I was back on the CTA and just thinking about how many more surprises this experience will bring me!!!
Ohh and by the way their are so many free concerts, plays, museums, etc. that i will be busy, but also I will for sure start going to discover the world of amazing food that should exist here and keep you guys up to date, and if you have any suggestions of where I should go just hit me up.
Love you all!!!
I am currently in Chicago working for a non-profit organization and it is an incredible time. I arrived in Midway airport around 3 pm and took the L train to the loop. I am living in the heart of downtown where it seems that everything is happening. its a great loft although very empty it only has a bed and 2 desks so I am trying to make it home soon and get something on the wall. As for a view i have the huge Chicago sign for the Chicago theater across the street and their is always some dance classes from the Joffrey Ballet and yesterday I saw them practicing the moves to Thriller, it was great.
Today I started my internship and was due in the office by ten o'clock and i took some precautions and was sure to arrive on time. The CTA or transit system was kind of empty so it was not that bad but i do have a 40 minute commute and I have to wait to get on a bus for the last 10 minutes. I work in the Mexican part of town and at an organization that is called Little Villaje Environmnetal Justice Organization or LVEJO. It deals with environmental issues throughout the city and I will be a part of the community gardening program and also be helping with the youth side of things, which is great. I met my boss Kim and she is a great organization and gave me a quick speech on what the organization was and i was refered to as "the intern" for the first couple of minutes, or hey "guy".
But here is were it starts getting good! so the first thing I was asked to do is lay carpet down in a section of the office because that is where her baby roams around and I proceeded to do so willingly because as she said "it was the interny thing to do" hahaha! I got a good kick out of that one so I said sure and put down a non slip clothe down first then layed the carpet and cut down the cloth to the size of the carpet, having much fun and jsut laughing at myself! Next the internet was down in the office so Kim, my boss, is the IT person and had to fix it. Since her daughter was there who do you think got to babysit while mommy was working on fixing the problem, ME!! so I played with gaby, the cutest little baby for about an hour and held her around and walked with her around the office. it was just tons of fun and I really enjoyed it but I would have of never though that my first day at work would have of involved any of these activities:)
After that, Kim, gave Peter, the other intern, and I our orientation and proceeded to tell us how good LVEJO is, and how much fun it will be working there! She is very intense and very direct which is great and also very passionate about everything she does. the great thing is that this small organization does so much and is taking on all these huge problems that the city of Chicago will not fix or will not even look at because of political pressure. We are not an organization that just sits around and tries to wait to fix things or that is trying to be buddy buddies with people to get things done, we are a organization that takes things to the streets and makes ourselves noticed, to the point that I was warned that "their is the possibility of getting arrested but that if we know that this will happen we will first fund raise money to make sure we have enough to bail you out!!!!" Amazing!
It has gotten to the point that one of our organizers has done some creative stuff to get people's attention. For valentine's day he dressed up as cupid and went in front of bank of America and Convinced people to close their accounts and not do business with them because B of A does business with the coal industry here in Chi town. He did this by handing out candy and hearts with a message on them informing customers about this link between the companies. The coal companies are a big problem here, an interesting fact is that the smallest of the coal energy producing plants is the one that causes the majority of the pollution to Chicago and is in the minority neighborhood, but it doesn't even provide electricity to any part of Illinois!!!
I am still in the office learning from everyone and what they do but I am betting these will be an interesting 10 weeks, and to be honest I think I fell in love with the organization from day 1!!!
Later in the afternoon after my first two jobs where done, ha ha, I went to work with Eduardo, the community garden organizer, and a great guy. We went and fixed up a space by the elementary school and planted some chillies, peppers, cabbage, lettuce, radishes, etc. and weeded for a while. Later in the afternoon we went to the backyard of a church and took down a playground structure that was beat down to be able to put in a garden in the next couple of weeks, very exciting!
After my day of long hard work, I was back on the CTA and just thinking about how many more surprises this experience will bring me!!!
Ohh and by the way their are so many free concerts, plays, museums, etc. that i will be busy, but also I will for sure start going to discover the world of amazing food that should exist here and keep you guys up to date, and if you have any suggestions of where I should go just hit me up.
Love you all!!!
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