Our work in the community
The ECAC is a founding member of the Georgia Avenue Community Development Task Force, a community group that formed in December 2009 in response to the redevelopment of Georgia Avenue from New Hampshire Avenue to S Street. Our goal is to ensure the community is informed and has a strong voice in this process. Our efforts are leading to a Community-Based Development Plan that will ensure our opinions are factored into the current city plans, the Howard University Campus Plan, and new development. We also seek to strengthen the small business community so that Georgia Avenue can meet more of the needs of the residents. Over 300 stakeholders have been actively involved in the GACDTF by attending meetings or volunteering.
Accomplishments of the GACDTF to date are:
Met twice monthly since January 2010 to study existing plans on Georgia Avenue, survey the community, plan a Community Review and hear community stakeholders present their issues and concerns.
Maintained a mailing list of over 350 residents, business owners and stakeholders on Georgia Avenue who have an interest in working together to ensure community ideas are a part of new development.
Contacted owners of the more than 70 vacant properties on Georgia Avenue to involve them in the process of visioning the community.
Distributed over 8,000 surveys door to door and online during March and April seeking the community’s input on the types of housing, retail and public services they wanted to see come to Georgia Avenue. The report with the results is available to download.
Held a Community Review at the Howard University School of Architecture where over 100 people attended a day long sessions to discuss ideas and issues on Georgia Avenue.
ECAC Director Sylvia Robinson co-facilitates the Task Force, and the ECAC has hosted many of the Task Force meetings.
ECAC
continually finds ways to empower the residents of Pleasant Plains
to create a vision for their community, and to communicate this
vision to those seeking to redevelop the neighborhood. Although
much of the focus has been on Columbia Heights, the Georgia Avenue
corridor is considered the next frontier for redevelopment with
many major projects underway. ECAC's goal is to reunite
and reestablish the voice of the community leaders in this process. This
is a natural extension of ECAC's role in the community. Since
2006 we have been a voice of the community through our activities.
We have a strong presence in the Pleasant Plains Civic Association,
ANC 1A and 1B meetings, Howard University Community Association
meetings, and MentoringWorks2 Community meetings, and we promote
our activities door-to-door monthly to at least 300 neighbors,
and weekly via email to over 2,500 people. Building on
our previous outreach efforts and relationships with businesses
and nonprofits, we are establishing a network of residents and
business owners that can be informed and active in the community.
In June of 2009, ECAC partnered with Mentoring
Works 2, who works with the youth in the community, the Pleasant
Plains Civic Association which has been active since 1921 and
Sankofa Video and Books, a significant cultural bookstore, café,
and entertainment venue, to create a neighborhood network and
newsletter. This monthly publication, the “Pleasant Plains Neighborhood
Network News” features articles on neighborhood events, volunteer
opportunities, neighborhood history, environmental concerns,
youth perspectives and civic issues. Future plans include business
advertisements and web presence. ECAC will use this forum to
educate the community about history and environmental concerns,
new development, volunteer opportunities, social events and civic
meetings. Feel free to download the electronic version of our
first issue, distributed
door to door to 1,500 households during the week of August 17th
with volunteer help from American University.
Having
researched and documented the building's heritage, ECAC wanted
to extend the research into the neighborhood of Pleasant Plains. Inspired
by the Columbia Heights Heritage Trail, we approached Cultural
Tourism DC in the summer of 2007 requesting a heritage trail
for Georgia Avenue from the Shaw to the Petworth Metro Stations.
A Heritage Trail is a self guided walking trail based on a set
of signs installed in public spaces forming a walkable route. The
signs lead visitors through a neighborhood along a route that
can be walked in 90-120 minutes, a distance of typically two
miles. A trail comes with two summary
booklets, one in English and one in Spanish, intended for free
distribution by businesses and institutions along the route.
Cultural Tourism DC has initiated a process for the creation
of the trails. The first step of this process involves the community
in the research and documentation.
ECAC received Neighborhood Investment Funds to purchase equipment and training to conduct video and audiotaped interviews of elder residents and business owners. Using middle school students, high school students, college students and residents, we conducted over a dozen interviews, capturing many fascinating stories about the neighborhood.
Decisions involving all aspects of the Georgia
Avenue/Pleasant Plains (GAPP) Trail came from the monthly Community
Working Group meetings held at ECAC. We made a significant
effort each month to recruit neighbors and business owners to
the meetings, and they were well attended. In June 2008 the trail
moved into Phase II, where Cultural Tourism hires a historian
to continue the research and draft the signs.
The GAPP Trail will highlight the history of Georgia
Ave. and will include points on Sherman Ave and 6th St as well
as Howard University. We feel that the history of this
area contributed greatly to the development of businesses, education,
and activism for African-Americans and other cultures as well.
Almost 700 volunteer hours went into the development of the trail
which shows a significant commitment from the community. Work
done thus far on the trail can be viewed at www.ecacollective.org/trail.
Building
on the research collected for the GAPP Heritage Trail, ECAC received
funding from the Humanities Council of Washington DC to conduct
one day workshops for children ages 5-12 to teach them local
history and the African Brazilian martial artform of Capoeira
Angola. Both of these workshops highlight very
important aspects of learning for young children. Recognizing
the sites of historical interest gives children more consciousness
about their surroundings. Many of the children recognized
the places they saw in the history presentation, but did not
know that anything significant happened there. As part
of the workshop the children did artwork about the history they
learned which further reinforced their connections.
The
Capoeira Angola sessions held in the afternoon connected the
children to traditional African culture through movement, music
and singing. Capoeira Angola is a traditional African art
brought to Brazil with the slave trade, and practiced in secret
until the 1930s. Learning the artform exposes children
not only to the acrobatic movement and singing, but also to the
aspects of community that are required as part of the artform.
We conducted 10 sessions during the summer of 2009, reaching
almost 200 children. The artwork was truly inspiring, and
all of the groups shared how much they learned from these workshops.
Working
in collaboration with Dr. Ernest Quimby, Sociology professor
at Howard University, ECAC has participated in his Community
Technical Assistance Project (CTAP) for the past three semesters.
Recognizing the need for students to experience the community
outside of the classroom, Dr. Quimby began CTAP in several years
ago as a way to make meaningful connections between Howard University
and neighborhoods in the city. In January 2008, he offered
ECAC assistance in conducting research on the Georgia Avenue/Pleasant
Plains Heritage Trail. His class was assigned to research
points on the trail and to make a formal presentation at ECAC
at the end of the semester. The presentations were videotaped
and audiotaped, and much of their work was adapted for the GAPP
Trail website. The students
also took the training for the interview team, and helped conduct
interviews of the elder residents and business owners.
In
the Fall of 2008, our collaboration with Howard University continued
with further research into the demographics of the Pleasant Plains
neighborhood. Students compiled qualitative
and quantitative data in areas such as jobs, education, and crime.
Their final presentations have become part of ECAC's initiative
to compile a comprehensive neighborhood profile.
In January 2009, Dr Quimby's students, in collaboration with ECAC, compiled profiles of individual Pleasant Plains businesses, non-profits, and schools. Through photos, interviews and research they provided ECAC with comprehensive data that will be used in a future project to create a CD-ROM about Pleasant Plains.
The ECAC/CTAP collaboration represents a significant bridge
between Howard University students and the community that will
ultimately improve long term relationships. Through CTAP,
Howard students learned about the history and significant resources
in the neighborhood that they had not been exposed to. Business
owners had an opportunity to interact with students in a positive
way. Our relationship with Howard University continues
as we prepare for Fall 2009. During this semester, we will
examine and document the relationship between Howard University
and the community.
March 22, 2010: Sylvia Robinson presented the history of the Pleasant Plains neighborhood to students at Banneker High School.
February 25, 2010: Sylvia Robinson and Jenny Masur from the Underground Railroad Project presented the life of Elizabeth Keckley and the history of the National Association for the Relief of Destitute Colored Women and Children to students at Banneker High School.
December 9, 2009: Sylvia Robinson was a speaker for the Neighbor Works Training Institute session on Leading with Spirit: Combining Leadership Development and Spirituality. In this workshop she shared her experiences creating the ECAC from her inner vision and spiritual guidance.
November 4, 2009: Director Sylvia Robinson participated in Howard University’s Middle States Accreditation process as a community collaborator.
October 21, 2009: Director Sylvia Robinson was invited to give a talk at Howard University’s Freshman Seminar on neighborhood history.
August 20, 2009: ECAC was the site of the US Department of the Treasury's Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund's award announcement of over $22 million to 55 depository institutions for serving economically distressed communities across the nation. The awards are being made though the fiscal year 2009 round of the Bank Enterprise Award (BEA) program. ECAC is the recipient of a loan from City First Bank, which qualified City First for the BEA program. ECAC was honored to host CDFI Fund Director Donna Gambrell, City First Bank President Dorothy Bridges, and a number of CDFI Fund and City First executives. During the brief ceremony, City First Bank was awarded a check for $700,000 from the CDFI Fund.
July 31, 2009: ECAC was invited to participate in a focus group for the Baltimore-Washington Regional Nonprofit Racial Diversity Collaborative as part of their efforts to create effective strategies which will attract, develop and retain racially diverse leaders in the region.
June 25, 2009: ECAC served as a model organization for the Fifth Annual Faculty Conference on Entrepreneurship at Howard University. This event is directed primarily to HBCU faculty members across the country and seeks to expose them to the diverse principles, thoughts and experiences of successful entrepreneurs in a variety of disciplines. Over 100 faculty members convened at Howard University to exchange ideas, strategies, and methodologies to promote entrepreneurship education.
March 21, 2009: Director Sylvia Robinson and Dr. Ernest Quimby of Howard University presented a paper at the First Urban Transformation Conference at American University on Preserving a Community in the Context of Gentrification. We presented our ongoing research and strategy for using asset-based community development to reduce the impact of gentrification in the Pleasant Plains neighborhood.
February 23, 2009: Director Sylvia Robinson and Jenny Masur from the Underground Railroad Project presented the history of Elizabeth Keckley and the National Association for the Relief of Destitute Colored Women and Children to two history classes at Banneker High School.