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Newsroom
January 28, 2008
Urban Planning Workshop Update
As you may know, one of CommUniverCity's cornerstone projects has been a series of community-based urban planning workshops. In mid-December we had our 4th community workshop, this time focusing on planning the Rail-to-Trail in FWBT and developing a concept plan for revitalizing East Santa Clara Street.
The quality of the workshop was impressive. Thanks to the hard work of 35 SJSU Urban Planning Masters students, let by Daniel Krause and Allen Green of Public Vision Research/SJSU, about 15 resident participants were able to vocalize their vision and engage as co-planners of their own community. In addition to this workshop, 6 grad student planners also hosted a planning workshop for around 50 San Jose High Academy students on their own initiative!
If you're interested in hearing more about our planning workshops (or participating in them!), feel free to drop by the Neighborhood Action Coalition (NAC) meetings at the McKinley Neighborhood Center on the 4th Tuesdays of the Month. The next NAC meeting will be February 26th at 6:30. Planners will be there for the next couple of months to finish up the series of workshops.
January 28, 2008
CommUniverCity Update
A new executive director has taken the helm at CommUniverCity San José. Professor Dayana Salazar of the Department of Urban and Regional Planning replaced Professor Terry Christensen, who will return to teaching but continue to participate in CommUniverCity through his students' civic engagement projects. Christensen summed up his final term with the program as follows: During fall 2007, students logged 5,795.5 hours of service with CommUniverCity, and the program received over $40,000 in grants and donations from PG&E, Nvidia, the San José Rotary Club, the California Faculty Association and private donors.
CommUniverCity brings together the City of San José, San José State and the communities of Five Wounds/Brookwood Terrace through service and learning. The flagship project is part of the city and university's effort to continue to collaborate on common goals, as was done with the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Library. The five-year-old, eight-story, ultra-modern facility is the nation's only public library co-developed and co-managed by a municipal government and institution of higher education.
January 27, 2008
Working Together:
Dayana Salazar, the chair of San Jose State University's urban planning department, stepped into the role of executive director of CommUniverCity San Jose last week.
CommUniverCity is a partnership of SJSU, the city of San Jose and the neighborhoods of Five Wounds/Brookwood Terrace - and a flagship project for the post-MLK library collaboration by the city and the university.
Outgoing Executive Director Terry Christensen reports that SJSU students completed 5,795 hours of service on neighborhood projects during the fall semester. The group also has received more than $40,000 in individual donations and major grants from PG&E, Nvidia and the Rotary Club of San Jose.
January 18, 2008
Rotary Grant
We're kickin' off the weekend with some more good CommUniverCity news! This past November we received a $7,000 grant from the Rotary Club of San Jose to purchase a media package for CommUniverCity. This grant allows us to buy equipment to better publicize ourself and communicate with our volunteers, stakeholders and community members. We purchased our items with the grant money this week and now have a laptop, color printer, camera, camcorder, projector and PA system, among other goodies. Rotary also contributed a portion of the money to go toward supplies for our Day of Service on April 25th, 2008. Thank you to the Rotary Club of San Jose
January 11, 2008
NVIDIA Grant
Happy New Year from CommUniverCity San Jose!
We're going to kick off the new year with some exciting news!
This past fall we applied for a grant from NVIDIA to get our high school project off-the-ground. Much to our delight, we received a $5,000 grant and will now be able to take the entire sophomore class of San Jose High Academy for a day-long field trip to San Jose State as well as provide the high school students with supplies to conduct their own service projects in the community. These funds will really help us work on the neighborhood's priority of establishing a "college-going-culture" and increasing civic engagement among youth. Thank you to NVIDIA!
December 17, 2007
Dear Supporter of CommUniverCity San José,
Thank you for your continued support of CommUniverCity San José!
As the season of giving and joy approaches, we'd like to highlight some impressive giving, through service, and its joyous outcomes in the Five Wounds/Brookwood Terrace neighborhoods.
- We helped to facilitate BART and Rails-to-Trails workshops.
- We brought in 800 volunteers for our 2007 Day of Service and are on way to make 2008 Day of Service even bigger!.
- Continued our College Going Culture project in our schools.
- Established new projects at McKinley School, such as: Fall Family Health Night and the SAFE Halloween and Día de Los Muertos events.
- We brought over 120 volunteers to the neighborhood for our October 27 th Day of Service and Neighborhood Survey to paint and repair homes and to survey the neighborhood for the third consecutive year.
- We have continued supporting our neighborhoods and Neighborhood Associations by doing a great deal of outreach.
…and that's just 2007!
We've been busy preparing for much, much more for 2008, but of course we need your help—as a volunteer or as a donor—to accomplish more great things in the Five Wounds/ Brookwood Terrace neighborhoods.
We hope you can make a contribution this season, which is why we have attached a donor form. And if you'd like to dedicate your contribution to another volunteer or a friend, we'll let that person know and we'll acknowledge your gift and the dedication on our website.
Again, any contribution will help make sure that we can continue doing good things and show that our community supports this kind of work. After all, it's all about community! We're happy to be part of it and we're proud to work with people like you who show its truly generous spirit.
All the best for the holiday season.
Terry Christensen, Executive Director, CommUniverCity San Jose
Megan Tracz, CommUniverCity VISTA
Ricardo Agredano, CommUniverCity VISTA
On October 27th, 47 volunteers from SJSU gathered to support housing projects for CommUniverCity's (CUC) Fall Day of Service. CUC partnered with Rebuilding Together and Neighborhood Housing Services Silicon Valley (NHSSV) to service 2 homes in the FWBT neighborhood. Leif Christiansen (Center for Community Learning & Leadership), and Jaime Angulo (NHSSV) were house captains of the projects and were impressed by the dedication of the volunteers and the collaborative effort. Students from several organizations: Alpha Psi Omega, Sigma Nu, AmeriCorps Bridging Borders and Public Allies, did a great job painting trim and doing minor repairs. Aside from housing work, 8 volunteers from a SJSU Civil Engineering Club gathered to collect litter at Olinder Park.
In addition to the housing projects, Melinda Jackson and Shishir Mathur deployed their 3rd annual neighborhood survey. Participants included: 63 students from Political Science and Urban & Regional Planning, 7 student volunteers from San Jose High Academy, and 4 SJSU student volunteers. Together they collected a total of 470 survey responses. The participants enjoyed their service experience and also seemed interested in the service-learning element CUC tied into both projects.
Good Afternoon!
On October 22nd, CommUniverCity(CUC) collaborated with SJSU Masters of Public Health Students (MPH), under the leadership of Dr. Kathleen Roe, to host a "Family Fall Health Night" for McKinley Elementary School. About 150 residents from the community joined together at the McKinley cafeteria for a free healthy spaghetti dinner and health fair. The MPH students collected materials for booths promoting healthy actions such as: 5-A-Day, exercise, dental health, flu prevention and even lice care! Excitement was in the air from both the MPH students and residents alike! We received overwhelmingly positive feedback from the MPH students, school cafeteria staff, residents, children and Principal Garcia of McKinley Elementary School.
Part of the health fair activity was to write something the children and/or adults learned from the booths. Check out a couple of the comments (keep in mind, these statements are logged exactly as written : )
- "I learn that I need to wash my theet for 2 minets"
- "I leaned to wash hand"
- "I leaned that not to smoke"
- "I have to take care of my body"
- "Aprendi, como comer mejor y preparar, y ver las calorias de cada comida hapida. Gracias"- a parent
- "I lernd that exseside is helpthy"
Have great week!
CUC Staff
Good Afternoon!
I hope you all had a restful and relaxing Labor Day Weekend-
This week we are introducing Ricardo Salvador Agredano who started
with CommUniverCity about two weeks ago. He's already done great work
updating our website, so be sure to check it out at
www.communivercitysanjose.org.
Now, here's a bit of info about Ricardo:
College: Humboldt State University '07
Degree: B.A. in Psychology
Home Town: Visalia, California
This is Ricardo's first year as an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer. Before
his VISTA term he volunteered for many clubs and organizations while
at Humboldt State, including: the Women's Resource Center, which put
on several events dealing with oppression and empowerment; Books
Building Bridges, which was a Hurricanes Katrina/Rita disaster and
politics relief; Acción Zapatista de Humboldt, which involved
community organizing and solidarity with the Sexta Declaración de la
Selva Lacandona; and a Men's Group, which dealt with issues of
responsible masculinity and anti-violence. His experiences lead him to
CommUniverCity. He plans to do CommUniverCity for as long as possible,
eventually move on to pursue further studies in Community Psychology,
and do good things with his life. Since he is able to use most of his
senses, to some degree, he likes using them in his spare time: seeing
incredible things and places, smelling the air, tasting foods, feeling
surroundings, listening to vibrations from chit-chat to music, and is
still on the journey to the sixth (which has been a beautiful melody
of the other five).
September 4, 2007
CommUniverCity Celebrates Two Years of Impressive Work
At a recent CommUnivercity San José celebration, Executive Director and SJSU Professor Terry Christensen reported some impressive results. In just two years, CommUniverCity has helped 1,459 students and 2,871 residents to devote 21,281 volunteer hours to important issues in the Five Wounds/Brookwood Terrace neighborhoods east of campus. CommUniverCity builds social capital by encouraging the community, SJSU, the city of San José and partnering non-profit organizations to collaborate on projects addressing community health, education and neighborhood environment.
Good afternoon!
We are happy to announce that CommUniverCity San Jose has TWO new
AmeriCorps VISTAs working this year: Megan Tracz & Ricardo Agradano.
This week you?ll get a little background about Megan, and next
week- Ricardo.
Megan recently graduated from Cornell University in Ithaca, NY with a
bachelor's degree in Policy Analysis and Management, focusing in
social welfare and health policy. In the past, Megan has explored
her interest in public policy at both the state and federal levels.
She worked in public affairs for a state senator in NY and also at the
Department of Health and Human Services in Washington, D.C. as a
policy analyst examining state welfare policy. At Cornell, Megan
worked with a health economist to pilot a Medicare drug insurance
outreach program. Megan's interests in community programming led
her to AmeriCorps VISTA and CommUniverCity San José. Megan is
enjoying CommUniverCity's collaborative approach in working with
FWBT. She would like to gather a variety of work experiences before
attending graduate school, and is leaning towards eventually pursuing
a Masters in Public Health. In her free time, Megan enjoys
traveling, hiking, sustainable living, healthy cooking, and playing
ultimate frisbee.
Thanks and have a great week!
February 1, 2007
Pacific Gas and Electric supports CommUniverCity
CommUniverCity San José received a generous donation from Pacific Gas and Electric, or PG& E, for those of you who recognize the acronym. The donation of $50,000 will be used to support current CommUniverCity projects, and assist us in developing more projects as the year progresses. CommUniverCity would like to extend a big thank-you to PG& E, and all supporters of our organization.
January 22, 2007
CommUniverCity receives a holiday gift
The holiday season was filled with delicious food, extended family and the feeling of togetherness as we spent time with our loved ones.
December 1, 2006
Three elementary schools, one hundred SJSU volunteers.
On December 1,
San José
State
University volunteers from Professor Maureen Scharberg’s chemistry class, were once again transformed from students to teachers and taught the basic concepts of chemistry to students at the
Anne
Darling
Elementary School after-school program.
October 3, 2006
SJSU student volunteers prove that science is exciting
Seventy students from Olinder were sitting in the school cafeteria with safety glasses on as the SJSU volunteers explained the directions for the science activities.
September 22, 2006
Standing-room only crowd at CommUniverCity Candidate Forum
On September 22, CommUniverCity and various neighborhood associations held a candidate forum at San José High Academy with the help of the League of Women Voters.
September 13, 2006
SJSU student volunteers kick-off a new partnership at Olinder Elementary.
14 SJSU students will be facilitating structured recess activities and providing in-class support for students and teachers at one of the three FWBT elementary schools.
May 20, 2006
Five Wounds/Brookwood Terrace residents working hard to identify top priorities for the next five years
With support from the Strong Neighborhoods Initiative and CommUniverCity, residents of Five Wounds/Brookwood Terrace have identified a list of goals and voted on the top ten prioities for the next five years.
May 4, 2006
Center for Service Learning awards CommUniverCity with the Provost's Award for Excellence in Service Learning
Provost Carmen Sigler and Debra David of the Center for Service Learning at San José State University have recognized CommUniverCity as Outstanding Collaborative Project.
April 22, 2006
Volunteers join thousands around the world for the 18th annual National and Global Youth Service Day
CommUniverCity held its first collaborative event with Five Wounds/Brookwoods Terrace for a Day of Service. Over 500 volunteers and residents came out for this celebration to welcome CommUniverCity and its partner to the neighborhood.
December 15, 2005
Urban Planning students host their first workshop to help Five Wounds/Brookwood Terrace set goals
Through presentations and feedback, the students from the Urban Planning department at San José State University held the first of a total of three workshops to help residents of the Strong Neighborhood define its goals for the next five years.
October 22, 2005
Five Wounds/Brookwood Terrace celebrates the grand opening of the new Selma Olinder Park
Residents of the surrounding area gathered together at Selma Olinder Park for festivities and a ceremony hosted by Vice–Mayor Cindy Chavez and Five Wounds/Brookwood Terrace Neighborhood Advisory Committee president Joan Rivas–Cosby.
October 8-9, 2005
CommUniverCity partner the Health Trust brings health services to the Berryessa Flea Market
The Health Trust held its semi-annual Open Air Health Fair at the Berryessa Flea Market, bringing free health screening, referrals, information, and education to anyone regardless of insurance status. |
