Communities in Action
Kitchen Benefits Farmers, Entrepreneurs & Schools
Wisconsin Innovation Kitchen helps farmers, small businesses, and schools turn fresh produce into meals and shelf stable food. Using the legal, state-inspected, commercial sized community kitchen, entrepreneurs can develop and process their products. Farmers can sell nutritious produce that might otherwise go to waste....
Milwaukee Initiative Reduces Teen Births by 59%
With Milwaukee teen birth rates more than twice the national average, the United Way of Greater Milwaukee and its partners publicly committed to a comprehensive, multi-component intervention campaign with an ambitious goal: in 2008, they pledged to reduce births among 15 to 17 year olds by 46% by 2015. To launch this effort, United Way gathered partners from across the greater...
PedNet Coalition’s Experience with Walking School Buses
Kids walking to school is a very old idea, and one whose time has come again—in a new way. With a responsible adult walk leader, “walking school buses tear down parental fears such as stranger danger and traffic incidents that prevent many kids from walking to school,” said PedNet Coalition Assistant Director Lawrence Simonson. Simonson called such programs “...
Sustaining Paid Sick Leave Efforts in NYC
In June 2013, New York City Council passed a law giving paid sick leave days to nearly a million of New York City’s workers after a significant grassroots advocacy effort led by Community Service Society (CSS) of New York. While this was a huge win that will positively affect many workers’ lives, CSS knows that its work is not done. Six months later, in an interview with...
Working Toward Paid Sick Leave in New York City
A 2009 campaign to pass a local law requiring paid sick days was launched in New York City after the Community Service Society (CSS), anti-poverty advocates since 1843, released research showing that few of the city’s low income workers had paid sick leave. Many of these individuals ended up working while sick, sending ill children to school, or seeking...
Atlanta Places of Worship Grow Gardens in their Yards
Nazeera Dawood, former health promotion manager of Georgia’s Fulton County Department of Health and Wellness in Atlanta, is passionate about her work. When the county’s interfaith coalition invited her to speak about health, she eagerly showered them with “BMIs and other numbers.” “I don’t know what you’re talking about…” members told...