Happy to see the Student Leaders’ Von Nieda Task Force being written up again, this time by Jennifer Joy Madden, the author of The Durable Human Manifesto. Here’s what she had to say about Camden’s favorite middle school community organizers:
Jud told me he was curious to see if middle-school students could learn civic engagement, so he offered it as an after-school activity. Community organizing, he says, “goes at the root of the problem” and is all about “finding your own voice and speaking for yourself.”
I had to smile at his group’s name: the Student Leaders’ Von Nieda Park Task Force, or SLVNPTF. With an acronym like that, they had to be serious.
The first meeting of interested sixth-, seventh-, and eight-graders was less than three years ago. They chose a target: their dark, rundown, crime-ridden neighborhood playground. They then set out to “make the calls, write the letters and meet the people” who had the power to fix it up.
The students have been stunningly successful. The park now boasts new lighting and fences, fresh-painted benches and murals, a refurbished playground and a monthly cleanup crew of neighborhood volunteers.
In a crowning achievement, the kids recently convinced local officials to come up with more than two million dollars to fix a long-standing drainage issue that routinely floods the park and the basement of nearby homes.
By all means, read the whole thing.
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Thanks so much for linking to my story. I’ve been involved in civic engagement for years, but have never seen the how-to’s of community organizing written out so clearly. Good to know these amazing kids are being recognized and encouraged with high school scholarships, etc.