by Ashley Bean Thornton
A couple of months ago Kari Tingle at the non-profit organization V.O.I.C.E. (Viable Options in Community Endeavors) asked if I would speak about poverty and community service for the “Pathways to Success” group. Pathways is a program she helps facilitate for high school students. “We cover a variety of topics,” she explained in an email, “things that we believe will help them be better leaders.” I said I would be glad to do it.
I had all good intentions of coming up with a presentation so amazing that it would dazzle even the most studiously indifferent teenager. But, on the night before the group was to meet, I realized I didn’t have time to come up with even a boring speech, much less one worthy of shaping the leaders of tomorrow. I decided to go with a group discussion instead. It would be much quicker to write — all I had to do was come up with some questions.
The group was just finishing up a meal of chicken strips and ham sandwiches when I arrived. There were eleven students in all. They came from various local high schools including Waco High, University, Robinson, some of the charter schools and maybe some other schools I am forgetting.
They were chatting and laughing and teasing each other when I walked in, but, predictably I suppose, that all came to a halt as soon as I actually wanted them to talk. I had to do some prodding and poking to get them to speak up and to stretch their short answers to my questions into longer ones. In the end, though, they gave me plenty to think about.
“What is poverty?” I asked. Once we had agreed on a definition, I gave them a short spiel on the government’s definition. I had them draw pie charts guessing what percentage of people in Waco had incomes below the poverty guideline. Their guesses were pretty close to the real amount – 30%. I followed with, “What are some of the bad things that can happen to a person when his/her family doesn’t have enough money?”
Eventually I asked, “If you and your family have enough money, is it important to care about families who do not have enough money? Why and why not?” Most of the students immediately said, yes, we should care. I played the devil’s advocate with them. “I work hard. I earn enough to support my family. Why should I worry about someone else’s family?”
This is the part of the conversation that I keep returning to in my mind. I really liked what they had to say. I don’t think they were trying to be especially profound. They were just saying what they thought, the first things that came into their minds. Maybe that is why their comments struck a chord in me. I’m afraid I can’t quote them exactly word for word, but I think this is a pretty fair representation of their ideas:
One girl focused on education. “What if the person who would have discovered the cure for cancer is living in South Waco right now?” She asked. “What if because her family doesn’t have the money they need, she is not getting a good enough education? Then we won’t get the cure for cancer as soon as we could.”
Another student explained the financial practicalities of caring about those with no or low income. “If you have money, it costs you money in taxes to pay the benefits to people who don’t have enough money. If they could be making enough money on their own, you wouldn’t have to pay that money. So we need to help them be able to make more money.”
One of the boys said simply, “Everybody needs some help sometimes. You should care because you might have enough now, but you might need some help sometime. ”
According to the Texas Education Agency 2013 snapshot information, 87% of WISD students are considered economically disadvantaged. It occurs to me that, based on that figure, the ideas we were discussing were pretty real for these students. They had probably experienced poverty and low-income at close range, either first hand in their own families or from observing the lives of their friends and classmates.
It also occurs to me that these young people are not children. Several of them are in JROTC. In the next year or two, they could be starting careers in one of our armed services. Some of them are taking dual credit courses at TSTC or MCC. They are making decisions right now that will affect the incomes they earn for the rest of their lives. All of them will be old enough to vote in a year or two. They are already taking on adult responsibilities and will be taking on more very soon.
Our discussion about poverty and these follow-on thoughts leave me with mixed feelings. I feel encouraged and impressed with what the students had to say. I feel thankful for programs like “Pathways to Success” that provide a place where young people are challenged to think about serious issues.
At the same time, I feel concerned. Are our young people having enough of these kinds of conversations? Are they learning how to clarify and articulate their thoughts about important, complicated social problems? Do they know how to look at both sides of an issue and how to separate fact from opinion? We had a good first conversation, but I feel like they need more practice. They need more coaching on this kind of citizen-work. They need to develop their citizen-skills and citizen-muscles. I worry that they are not getting enough of that kind of exercise.
Also, I feel a little wistful. Their answers were simple. I envy that. At what point in our lives does the issue of poverty get so complicated and controversial? When is it that we lose sight of the idea that we need to make sure the kid in South Waco is getting a good education, because she might be the one who could find a cure for cancer? When do we stop understanding that if we don’t help people earn more money, it will end up costing us more in the end? When do we forget that everybody needs help sometimes?
This Act Locally Waco blog post is by Ashley Bean Thornton, the Manager of the www.www.actlocallywaco.org website and the editor of the Friday Update newsletter. The Act Locally Waco blog publishes posts with a connection to these aspirations for Waco. If you are interested in writing for the Act Locally Waco Blog, please email [email protected] for more information.
“Pathways to Success” is a program of V.O.I.C.E. a local non-profit that works with young people and their families. The Pathways program focuses on leadership development for students in high school. Any high school student is eligible if they meet the following requirements: maintain a B average in all classes, abstain from tobacco, drugs and, alcohol, and commit to volunteer a minimum of 46 hours of community service throughout their time in the program. The 2014-2015 Pathways group is already set, but VOICE will begin taking applications for the 2015-2016 group in mid to late summer. If you are interested in learning more about Pathways or VOICE please call 254.741-9222 or email Cheryl Allen at [email protected].
by Ashley Bean Thornton
I love that Waco is small-big town or maybe a big-small city. We are small enough that rush hour is still more like “rush 15-minutes” and big enough to have a public radio station to listen to if you happen to get stuck at a light. (Thank you KWBU!) We are small enough that I run into people I know at the grocery store, and big enough that I meet new people with new ideas every day. We are a great size for a city…umm…town…umm…whatever…
Of course there are some challenges with being big-small. As sort of a “small town,” we might be tempted to believe that we all have the same ideas about what Waco should be, and how to go about getting there. In fact, we are big enough and diverse enough that there are many ideas about Waco. We need to make a point of listening to each other to pull those varied ideas together into one coherent vision. On the other hand, as sort of a “big city” we might be tempted to lapse into “big city apathy”– the unfortunate habit of letting “them” make all the decisions and then getting mad at “them” when “they” do something we don’t like. In fact, we are small enough that almost any of us could organize a group of like-minded residents and influence just about any decision being made in our city/town.
Because we are small-ish we all have the very real opportunity and responsibility to participate in the discussions and decisions that shape our community. Because we are big-ish, we need to take communication and participation seriously. It doesn’t just happen automatically. We have to be intentional about it. Our local government, school district and other institutions need to continue to provide opportunities for input, to make sure those opportunities are accessible to a wide range of people, and to publicize those opportunities far and wide in plenty of time for people to plan to participate. “We the people” need to take full advantage of the numerous opportunities available to us to join in the civic conversation. (The phrase “use it or lose it” comes to mind.) Here are a few ideas for doing that:
Participate in city planning with the new “Plan Greater Waco” on-line site at wacoplan.mindmixer.com. – The City of Waco and the Waco Metropolitan Planning Organization (MPO) are working right now on long-term plans that will shape and guide Waco for the next 10, 20, 30 years. The “Plan Greater Waco” site is open for everyone in the community to pitch ideas and give feedback on topics like “What are the three most important challenges facing Waco and McLennan County that we need to address between now and 2040?” and “What are our best resources that we should build on to strengthen our community?” On the site, you can give your own input, and see and comment on what your fellow residents are saying. It’s easy, and fun, and your feedback goes directly to the folks in the planning office.
Get involved with “Prosper Waco.” – Prosper Waco is our community-wide initiative to address challenges related to the high rate of poverty in Waco. Those guiding this initiative have wisely adopted a holistic approach of simultaneously working on health, education and financial stability. The initiative is designed based on the “Collective Impact” philosophy that calls for all of us to work together on a common agenda. Prosper Waco has been years in the making and has already benefitted from the input of many, many voices. If you would like to receive updates about the progress of Prosper Waco, send a note expressing your interest and requesting to be placed on the distribution list to [email protected].
Keep an eye out for town hall meetings and information sessions, and go! – Our various institutions – the city, the school district, the public health district, Waco Transit etc. – regularly hold town hall meetings and public information sessions for the express purpose of getting more community input into issues that affect our community. Even in this age of Facebook and Twitter, going to meeting is still a great way to get to know like-minded and different-minded neighbors, and to get to know the people who work for you in the various city, school-district, county and other public offices. Two great places to find out about meetings are the Waco Trib and Actlocallywaco.org. If you hear about a meeting that sounds important and interesting make it a habit to call a friend or neighbor and go!
Serve on a board, commission or committee – The civic work of our big-small community gets done to a large extent by boards, commissions and committees. There are over 30 boards and commissions listed on the City of Waco website and they welcome applications from every Waco resident. In addition to city boards and commissions, every non-profit in town has a board to help plan its work and committees to help carry out that work. Participation on one of these boards can give you a whole new appreciation for what is required to build a great community. Not sure you have the skills to serve on a board? Consider applying to participate in “Leadership Plenty,” a free 10-week leadership development program available to Wacoans who want to prepare themselves for effective civic participation. For more information, google “Leadership Plenty Institute Waco.”
Waco is a terrific place to live. We are big enough to dream audaciously, and small enough to know that we have to depend on each other and work together to make those dreams come true. A big “Thanks!” to all of you who are already working hard to make our community great. If you haven’t gotten involved yet, there’s no time like the present for joining in! Start with something small like leaving a comment on the wacoplan.mindmixer.com site or going to a meeting. Before you know it, you will be the one inviting others to the party!
This Act Locally Waco blog post is by Ashley Bean Thornton, the Manager of the www.www.actlocallywaco.org website and the editor of the Friday Update newsletter. The Act Locally Waco blog publishes posts with a connection to these aspirations for Waco. If you are interested in writing for the Act Locally Waco Blog, please email [email protected] for more information.
by Ashley Bean Thornton
On October 27 last year I used this blog-space to say how excited I was that the City of Waco was hiring the W.J. Upjohn institute to do a study of income and employment in Waco. The folks from Upjohn delivered their report to the City of Waco on May 16. Since that time I’ve read through the “Upjohn Report” several times. It’s pretty complicated, and I’ve been struggling to find a way to mentally process it.
In the course of the last few years I have heard several theories about why our rate of poverty in Waco is so high. It occurred to me that one way to try to process the Upjohn report would be to see to what extent it seems to confirm or deny these theories. So, here goes. Here are six theories on why the rate of poverty is so high in Waco, and what I think the Upjohn report has to say about them. Note: throughout the report Upjohn puts economic information about Waco in the context of how we compare to nine peer Metropolitan Statistical Areas, or MSA’s, throughout Texas. Those nine MSAs are: Abilene, Amarillo, College Station – Bryan, Killeen-Temple, Lubbock, Odessa, San Angelo, Tyler, and Wichita Falls.
Theory 1: People just aren’t looking for work. – This does not seem to be the case. According to the report, “The good news is that in the City of Waco labor participation rates are relatively strong. This is especially true for the city’s Hispanic population. More than 70 percent of the city of Waco’s Hispanic working-age adults are in the labor force—either employed or looking for work (Figure 17). The participation rate for African American residents of the city is lower, 62.4 percent; however, it is higher than the average for the reporting peer MSAs, 56.0 percent” (p19).
Theory 2: We don’t have enough jobs. – It does seem clear that we are not adding jobs as fast as the rest of Texas, and we are also slightly behind our peer communities in this regard. Here’s a statement from the report that seems to apply: “Employers, the demand side of the area’s labor market, are generating employment opportunities, but not at the pace required to pull substantial numbers of residents out of poverty” (P. 13).
Theory 3: A high percentage of our jobs are low-paying jobs. – This seems to be true, not only for us but for our peer communities. Here’s a quote: “As shown by three separate data sets, employers in the Waco MSA and its peer MSAs appear to be seeking a relatively high number of unskilled workers” (P. 15). It is assumed that these jobs, since they do not require much skill, will generally be low-paying jobs.
Theory 4: A high percentage of our workers are only qualified for low-paying jobs. – This seems to be an important part of the problem. According to the report, “It has been repeatedly shown that education matters for income growth (Figure 4). More than 36 percent of the individuals who are living in poverty conditions did not complete high school (Figure 5). But, you can’t stop only at high school. High school completers account for 26 percent of the persons living within 200 percent of the federal poverty guidelines. What is disturbing is that nearly a quarter of the city’s impoverished population completed some college or has an associate’s degree. While the data do not allow us to separate out the associate degree holders from individuals who attended but did not complete their college degrees, it is very likely that most of the individuals who are struggling in poverty are noncompleters. Clearly the importance of educational attainment cannot be understated” (p. 7). For the purposes of this report, Upjohn and the City of Waco agreed to define “in poverty” as having a household income of less than 200% of the federal poverty guidelines. If I am adding up the numbers correctly, the preceding statement is telling us is that somewhere around 85% of the people in Waco who fit that definition of “in poverty” have an Associate’s degree or less, with the vast majority of them having less.
Theory 5: You get paid less in Waco for doing the same job someplace else. – According to the report, this is not a big part of the problem. Here’s the statement: “Finally, in many of the conversations conducted with area community and business stakeholders, a shared perception was that Waco employers pay lower wages, in general, than other locations. As shown in Table 6, Waco area wages are generally lower than state levels, especially for some key occupations such as industrial production managers, welders, and first-line supervisors; however, they are higher for licensed practical nurses and plumbers. Although not shown, we compared Waco’s occupational wage rates with those of the nine peer metropolitan areas and found no significant differences. While it is true that wages in Waco may be modestly lower than in larger metropolitan areas in the state, so is cost of living in the city. In short, it does not appear that wages, in general, are a problem in attracting qualified workers.” (P. 17).
Theory 6: As soon as people start earning more money, they move out of Waco to the surrounding suburbs. – The Upjohn Report does not address this issue. The only thing in the report that might even touch on this idea is a Venn diagram on page 22 of the report that shows Metropolitan Waco Commuting patterns. According to the diagram there are over 67,000 people who are working in Waco but living outside of Waco. Are these higher wage earners who work in Waco but live in neighboring communities? Possibly, but the Upjohn report does not comment on that possibility.
There is much, much more information in the report than what I have offered here. I’m still processing what it all means. I’d love for you to read it and let me know what you think are the most important points. Here’s the link again, let me know what you figure out: The Upjohn Report. Let’s get a conversation going!
This Act Locally Waco blog post is by Ashley Bean Thornton, the Manager of the www.www.actlocallywaco.org website and the editor of the Friday Update newsletter. The Act Locally Waco blog publishes posts with a connection to these aspirations for Waco. If you are interested in writing for the Act Locally Waco Blog, please email [email protected] for more information.
By Ashley Bean Thornton
Listen to the chatter on the street in Waco right now and this is what you will hear: “Have you been to the new stadium yet?” “Did you go to the first game?” “Amazing, right?!?”
You could probably throw a rock anywhere in Waco and hit fifteen people who are more devoted football fans than I am. But, despite my un-partriotically lukewarm attitude toward the national sport of Texas, I can’t help but be impressed by McLane Stadium. Wow! If you have to watch a football game, that is one fine place to do it!
Like about nine million other Baylor alums (give or take a few), I couldn’t resist snapping a pic of the new stadium and posting it on Facebook. A friend of mine commented on my post, “Does George Jetson have his own parking space?” His comment summed up what I was feeling when I took the picture. Gleaming on the banks of the Brazos, McLane Stadium looks like the future.
Do you think ten years ago there was someone…some starry-eyed, Pollyanna-ish, naïve Baylor supporter….imagining that in ten years the talk of the town would be “sail-gating” at the new on-campus, on-the-river stadium?
Think about it…Ten years ago, in 2004, no one I knew had heard the name “RG3.” Art Briles was happily racking up wins down the road in Houston. Baylor was coming off one disappointing season (3 wins, 9 losses), and heading into another (3 wins, 8 losses). Do you think there was anyone anywhere imagining that in ten years we would be hearing people say, like ESPN said recently, “Few college football cathedrals can match McLane … They don’t have to dream anymore on BU’s campus. All the pieces are in place to cement a spot among the nation’s best, year in and year out”? Really, do you think anyone back then was imagining we would be hearing that kind of pro-Baylor-speak from the TV sports people?
Yes, I think there were people who were imagining that very thing.
Even when it looked wildly improbable, there must have been people who expected we would get here. Yes, when they talked about it their friends rolled their eyes and smiled indulgently, but they kept talking about it anyway. When things looked like they were getting worse instead of better, they still promoted their vision every chance they got. Even when it was embarrassing and people were tired of hearing about it, they kept plugging away. They must’ve been constantly on the alert to seize opportunities, to put a piece in place here, another piece in place there until finally all the pieces came together. I’m pretty sure if there hadn’t been people like that then, we wouldn’t be hearing people say things like, “Awesome!” and “Fabulous!” now.
So, with great appreciation for the football visonaries of 10 years ago, and with our new shiny “cathedral” on the river as inspiration, let’s talk about the kinds of things we believe people could be saying in Waco ten years from now – in 2024:
“We thought about moving out of town, but we stayed for the schools.” — Ten years from now our school system is a magnet drawing people into Waco and keeping them here. College professors and employers are raving about Waco ISD grads. “They’re so well prepared.” “They know how to think.” “They’re such terrific problem solvers.” Our very own WISD grads are the technicians, engineers, health providers, teachers, artists and entrepreneurs who are pushing the Waco economy to new heights.
“I found a great job in Waco!” – The businesses we have now are expanding and hiring. Businesses and industry from other places have moved into Waco and started hiring. Our hometown entrepreneurs are growing and hiring. College grads are looking here first to start their careers. I imagine sitting on the plane from Dallas to Waco, overhearing the person sitting behind me tell her companion, “Waco is a great place to work. There are all kinds of new opportunities cropping up all the time. You’ll be glad you came.”
“This is such an easy town to be healthy in.” — I heard someone say this once about Austin, in the future we’ll be saying it about Waco. I envision healthy food readily accessible everywhere in town, in every neighborhood. Even hard-case fast food junkies like me will be giving in to peer pressure and starting to eat healthy. Parks, bike lanes, trails, and gyms will be bustling with activity as we have fun, get to know each other, and get fit all at the same time.
“How about if I meet you downtown somewhere? We can decide what to do when we get there.” — Ten years from now, people will be taking for granted that there’s always something great to do downtown. Downtown will be our gathering place, the hub of our community, the place where we run into our neighbors and friends, the place where we meet new people. It will be bubbling with enterprise, diversity, art, ideas, and great food! Businesses will be fighting for spots on Austin and Elm and 25th Street. Downtown residents will be enjoying their morning cups of coffee as they walk or bike to work.
“Let’s just take the bus.” – In ten years, people of all different income levels will be taking full advantage of our excellent public transportation system. We will all be enjoying the option to ride the bus to work, or to the doctor, or to meet friends to hear some music downtown. This freedom of movement will open up new job opportunities for many of us. We’ll be healthier, our streets will be less congested, our air will be cleaner, and we’ll be saving money because of it.
And, finally, the best thing we’ll be hearing in Waco in 2024…
“I wish I had invested in Waco ten years ago!”
This Act Locally Waco blog post is by Ashley Bean Thornton, the Manager of the www.www.actlocallywaco.org website and the editor of the Friday Update newsletter. The Act Locally Waco blog publishes posts with a connection to these aspirations for Waco. If you are interested in writing for the Act Locally Waco Blog, please email [email protected] for more information.
by Ashley Bean Thornton
For the last few years I’ve enjoyed the privilege, aggravation, exhilaration and frustration of being involved in some of the on-going, city-wide conversations about how to reduce the rate of poverty in Waco. I would not trade this work for anything! What I WOULD trade is the amount of time I’ve spent in meetings because of it. The other day, in one of these meetings, one of my fellow meeters summed up the general sentiment, “When are we going to quit just talking and meeting and start DOING something!” It doesn’t even really matter who said it or what meeting it was, because I’ve heard the same plaintive cry in many, many meetings – sometimes from someone else, sometimes just in my head, often enough coming out of my own mouth. Chalk it up to too much caffeine and not enough prayer and meditation – but sometimes all these meetings wear me out.
When I get frustrated by all the talking and meeting, I have to remind myself that we are already DOING something. In fact we are doing a whole lot. By “we” I mean the community of Waco. I mean our abundance of non-profit, government and faith-based organizations who are supported by a small army of professionals and volunteers and a generous plenty of philanthropists – including the kind who can give hundreds of thousands of dollars and the kind who consistently give fives, tens and twenties.
I seriously think I could list a hundred great things we are doing in Waco without even stopping to take much of a breath. Communities In Schools, and VOICE Inc. and Youth Connection are supporting our young people and helping them succeed in school and make good decisions. AVANCE and Parents as Teachers are helping parents of young children be the best parents they can be. Headstart and Talitha Koum and WIC are helping children get off to a good start in their young lives. And, that’s all in addition to the work that WISD and Rapoport Academy and Waco Charter School and our other schools are doing.
Our Chambers of Commerce are working to bring jobs to Waco. Christian Men’s and Women’s Job Corps and Workforce Solutions and Heart of Texas Goodwill are helping people learn skills to get and keep a job. McLennan Community College Adult Education is running GED classes and ESL classes all over town. Caritas and Salvation Army and Shepherd’s Heart are working to get food to people who need it, and there’s a whole page-long list of other food pantries in the area who are doing the same. And Mission Waco…oh my goodness! Mission Waco is running a boatload of different programs from arts programs for children, to jobs programs for youth, to shelters for homeless people. And what about NeighborWorks, Habitat for Humanity, Waco Community Development Corporation and the City of Waco Department of Housing and Community Development? They have been working for years to build up our neighborhoods and to teach us financial literacy and community leadership. I’m going to stop now just because of space, but there are many, many, many more good things we are doing that I could mention.
We are doing a whole lot. Yet, our rate of poverty remains stubbornly high – higher than other communities our size in Texas. High enough that we cannot afford to do some of the things that we would love to do make our community an even better place to live than it already is. So, it seems that there is more to be done.
Maybe the more-to-be-done is in the spaces above and below and in-between all the good things we are already doing. Maybe our next opportunities for moving forward lie in bridging the spaces between organizations and institutions and programs, between for-profit and not-for-profit, between races and socio-economic statuses and political parties and levels of education and all the other ways we separate ourselves from ourselves.
The challenge in reaching across a divide is that it involves forging new relationships among people who might not be pre-disposed to have a relationship. It involves wrangling with conflicting values, varied personalities, and different cultures and communication styles until we manage to shake out a shared vision and shared vocabulary and shared habits for getting work done together. It involves learning to work with people you don’t understand, who get on your nerves and go way too slow or way too fast for your taste. It involves taking the time to find common higher ground instead of settling for the lowest common denominator. It involves finding the delicate balance when someone offends you between speaking up for the sake of better understanding, and just letting it pass for the sake of keeping things moving. This kind of work can only happen by talking to each other and meeting together. (And, even then, it takes a little faith — there are no guarantees! )
Talking and meeting IS doing something. It may not always be the most fun kind of doing something. It is certainly not the only kind of doing something, maybe not even the most important kind of doing something. But, I think it probably is a necessary kind of doing something. If we want to make much more progress in reducing our rate of poverty I think we are going to have to do more of it and work at getting better at it.
There is an art and science to talking and meeting productively – and to making the transition from talking to more concrete action. In my more positive moments (less caffeine – more prayer and meditation) I believe we are, as a community, getting better at it. Lucky for us, we have some terrific leaders who have dedicated themselves to this work. Also, it’s encouraging that more and more people are joining in the conversation. (Which is great, but makes the meetings take longer!) Like most things worth doing, it takes practice, some coaching, a willingness to be uncomfortable, a little risk-taking, and the tenacity to keep showing up. We are already doing so much good work… we owe it to ourselves to get good at this part of the work too.
Ok, Ok, pull out your calendars…when are we going to get together again?
This Act Locally Waco blog post is by Ashley Bean Thornton, the Manager of the www.www.actlocallywaco.org website and the editor of the Friday Update newsletter. The Act Locally Waco blog publishes posts with a connection to these aspirations for Waco. If you are interested in writing for the Act Locally Waco Blog, please email [email protected] for more information.
by Ashley Bean Thornton
I got chewed out this week over something I wrote in an Act Locally Waco blog post. I don’t like being chewed out – who does? The chewing out wasn’t by someone who disagreed with me. In fact, I think my chewer-outer and I, when all is said and done, want the same thing. It wasn’t personal. I don’t even know my chewer-outer. His comments were delivered over the internet, and when I tried to respond through email, the email bounced. Also, it wasn’t something I could easily dismiss – it was a very well-written, articulate (though biting) chewing out that made several important points. So, I’m left to ruminate over this chewing out. I keep finding my way back to it in my mind and picking at it. I feel bad, but I don’t know how to fix it. I’m having trouble letting it go.
As it happens, the chewing out was triggered by one of the recent blog posts about the need for more public transit in Waco, but the particular subject is not important. I don’t think I got chewed out because I’ve been advocating for buses to come around more frequently. I think I got chewed out because I wrote something that to my White, privileged ears sounded fine, but that felt demeaning and dismissive to someone else. Now, looking back over the words I wrote with the fresh insight provided by the chewing out, I can see why they felt demeaning. That was certainly not my intention. I am sorry I was not more sensitive to how my words would come across to someone who lives with the day to day stresses of a life much less convenient and comfortable than my own.
I wish I could promise I would not make the same mistake again, but I can’t. I have learned in the last few years that community work, for me at least, is emotionally dangerous work. This is not the first time that – with all good intentions — I have said or done something insensitive. It’s not the first time I’ve been chewed out. I hurt someone else’s feelings; they hurt my feelings; we all end up feeling mad or discouraged or both. I don’t like it, but I don’t know how to fix it. Maybe you are better at this than I am, but sometimes – even when I feel like I have gone to great lengths to be careful — I still end up making someone mad. I could just keep quiet I guess, but that doesn’t always feel like a good option either.
To accomplish anything great in our community, we have to work together, and to do that we have to communicate. But, communication is hard. It can be especially hard between people with difficult lives and people with comfortable lives, between people with little money and people with plenty of money, between People of Color and White people. Sometimes it feels like every word is loaded with guilt and anger and frustration and impatience. Sometimes it feels like –rather than looking for ways to help each other – we are just waiting for chances to pounce on each other. Sometimes we are running mighty low on the “oil” required to give each other the benefit of the doubt. And, like in a car engine that is running low on oil, sometimes our surfaces grind and get overheated when they touch.
Yesterday, I ran across this ancient comment from Aristotle that seems to apply: “There is only one way to avoid criticism; do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.” Gee thanks, Aristotle. I still feel lousy, but at least now I know I can look forward to more of the same. Because, crummy as it feels sometimes… and bad as I am at it sometimes… doing something is still better than doing nothing.
This Act Locally Waco blog post is by Ashley Bean Thornton, the Manager of the www.www.actlocallywaco.org website and the editor of the Friday Update newsletter. The Act Locally Waco blog publishes posts with a connection to these aspirations for Waco. If you are interested in writing for the Act Locally Waco Blog, please email [email protected] for more information.
By Ashley Bean Thornton, Act Locally Waco
My mom was a librarian – or maybe she still is a librarian. She’s retired, but I’m not sure you ever really stop being a librarian. Because she was my school librarian for a while when I was in elementary school I enjoyed a great many advantages. For one thing, there was a limit on how many books children could check out at one time, but since I was the librarian’s daughter I sometimes got to check out MORE! Also, I could sometimes keep them LONGER without having to pay the fine. Yes, it was unfair – you are justified in your outrage. If it makes you feel any better, I have paid plenty of library fines since because of the bad habits I developed as a child.
One of the other (less morally questionable) advantages of being the librarian’s kid was that I always, always, always participated in summer reading club. Every year the librarians at the public library would cook up a theme for summer reading club. It would be something like “Join the Reading Circus” or “Race to Reading.” The first week of summer they would lay out a long butcher paper “track” on a table next to the circulation desk. It would be marked off with a starting line and then sections according to how many books the participants might read – 5 books, 10 books, maybe even up to 50 books! When you signed up for reading club, in “Join the Reading Circus” year, for example, you would get to pick out a little plastic lion or elephant or dancing horse and put your name on it. When you checked out your first books, you got to put your little plastic avatar on the starting 
line. Throughout the summer you moved it down the track based on how many books you had read. The thrill was that you could easily see if you were keeping up with or passing the herd of other readers, or perhaps even beating your arch-nemesis from the previous year at school.
I don’t think I ever actually won the summer reading club race, mainly because I would not stoop to the craven tactics of checking out a bunch of easy “little kid” books just to up my book count. I may have been willing to bend the rules about paying my library fines, but I did have SOME moral compass after all!
I could give you a long list of really important reasons why your kid, and all the kids in your life, and all the kids in our community should participate in summer reading club. I could show you statistics that indicate that summer reading helps kids maintain and even improve their vocabulary test scores on those all important standardized tests. I could quote the research that shows that access to libraries can help to close the well-documented gap in reading achievement between kids from homes with very little income and kids from homes with higher incomes.
But my reason for wanting our Waco kids to participate in summer reading club is more personal: I love reading. Childhood summer with its great gobs of deliciously uncluttered time was when I learned to love reading. Summer was when I stretched out on the cool pink bedspread in my grandmom’s back room with a book. The sweet summer boredom, the sultry heat, the rhythm of the oscillating fan and the hum of the bugs outside the open window made me a little drunk. My sense of time and place melted, the pages of the book melted, and at some point it didn’t make any difference where I stopped and the story started. When things were really good, I wouldn’t even hear my mom when she called me for dinner. Summer, when it was way too hot and humid for anyone to expect me to be doing anything, was when I crossed over the magical bridge between thinking of reading as something I had to do for school and thinking of reading as something I wanted to do for myself.
I want that for kids in Waco. It’s not enough for them to obediently read at school because they have to. It’s not enough for them to score adequately on some reading proficiency test. I want them to love reading – and summer is the season when that love takes root and grows.
Sign-up for summer reading clubs starts this week at all the Waco- McLennan County libraries. The big kick off is Saturday June 7, from 1-4 PM at the Central Library at 1717 Austin. It sounds like summer book club has come a long way since I was a kid. I don’t know if there will be any plastic animals at this one, but there will be a live animal program presented by Zooniversity and science experiment stations and snow cones. There’s a club for younger kids, and a separate one for tweens and teens. There’s even one for adults! For more information visit, our library’s website at wacolibrary.org or read James Karney’s excellent blog post “Read, Waco, Read!” Bring your kids, bring your grandkids, bring your neighbor’s kids…bring any kid you care about! Summertime is reading time!
This Act Locally Waco blog post is by Ashley Bean Thornton, the Manager of the www.www.actlocallywaco.org website and the editor of the Friday Update newsletter. The Act Locally Waco blog publishes posts with a connection to these aspirations for Waco. If you are interested in writing for the Act Locally Waco Blog, please email [email protected] for more information.
by Ashley Bean Thornton
My first car was a yellow AMC Pacer complete with an in-dash 8-track player. It was very round and had huge windows. It was like driving around in a big glass egg. Sounds cool right? Coolness (or lack thereof) aside, from the moment I first turned the key in the ignition of that yellow Pacer until this very moment I have never seriously worried about transportation. A few flat tires and other mal-functions notwithstanding, I have always had an operable vehicle and the means to drive it just about anywhere I wanted to go. And, oblivious well-off person that I am, I have always taken that luxury more or less for granted.
According to the Census Bureau’s 2008-2012 American Community Survey 5-year estimates, there are over four thousand households in Waco with no vehicle available. Those of us who have always had cars may have to let the implications of that sink in for a bit before we can even imagine what life without a vehicle would mean on a day to day basis. I have always taken for granted, for example, that I could get to work at any hour that my employer required. If I forgot something I needed, I have always been able to run home at lunch and get it. I have always taken for granted that I could get the milk and ice cream home before it was spoiled. I have never had to think about how heavy my groceries were and whether or not I would be able to carry them all the way home. I have rarely thought twice about being able to drive to the doctor in air-conditioned comfort if I was feeling bad. For households with no vehicles, these “simple” day to day activities require planning and negotiation, and of course the planning and negotiation is made many, many times more complicated if there are kids in the picture.
Our city is designed around the notion that our residents have dependable transportation. For example, many of our children now attend schools in neighborhoods other than their own. Our grocery stores and drug stores are not located in our residential areas. Perhaps even more important, neither are our workplaces. According to a recent report by the Upjohn Institute to Waco City Council, only 4.6% of the people in Waco work in the same census tract where they live. Transportation is not just a matter of convenience. It has consequences for health, education and certainly for employment.
For people who do not have access to a private vehicle, public transit is a lifeline. In Waco that lifeline is pretty thin. First of all, in Waco the bus only comes around once an hour. It only operates during limited hours: Monday through Friday from 5:00 AM to 7:00 PM; Saturday from 6:00 AM – 8:00 PM; no service on Sundays. Also, our bus system is a “hub and spoke” system with all routes radiating from the Transit Center on Eighth street downtown. That means if you need to change buses to travel across town, it could end up taking you more than an hour to get to where you are going.
All of this has implications for employment. If you depend on public transportation, you can’t, for example, have a job that requires you to work on Sundays. If you miss your bus you could be an hour or more late to work. In recent years, we have added the evening LINK, a limited “reservation only” service that people can use to go to work or school between 8:30 and 11: 45 PM. That service has helped some for people who want to be able to work shifts that end after 7:00 PM, but additional service with shorter wait times would make the bus a much more viable option for getting back and forth to work.
I attended a meeting the other day hosted by Waco Transit in which the speaker discussed some of these realities. At the end of the presentation one of the questions he asked was: “Do you believe there is community and political support to increase public transit in the Waco community?” I hope so, for many reasons. Even though I may never personally have to depend on a city bus, I would like to be able to use it sometimes. Also, I am better off if my community is better off, and I believe my community is better off with stronger public transportation. Our community is better off if people who cannot yet afford a car have a dependable way to get back and forth to work in a reasonable amount of time. Our community is better off if families of modest means can get by with one vehicle instead of having to spend precious resources on a second car. Also, as Waco grows in population (and it will), a good public transit system will help us keep the traffic and congestion to a level that we can all tolerate. (Beware the traffic of Austin, my friends!) Selfishly, as I get older, I imagine there will come a time when I can no longer drive my own car. I believe our community is better off if our seniors have a bus system they can depend on to maintain some level of independence.
The Greater Waco Community only has a certain amount of money allocated for transportation related expenses. Our city planners are asking to hear from us about how we would like to see it spent. They have invited us to give our input at a series of public information meetings to be held at different locations around town during the next few weeks, see the details below. I hope you will attend and let them know that you would like to see some of that money invested in a more robust public transit system.
Here’s the invitation: The MPO staff would like to invite all interested persons to attend any of the following meetings regarding development of the new 2040 Metropolitan Transportation Plan. Monday, May 5, 2014 – 6 p.m. at Hewitt Community Center, 208 Chama Drive. Thursday, May 8, 2014 – 6 p.m. at Lacy Lakeview Civic Center, 505 Craven. Monday, May 12, 2014 – 6 p.m. at South Waco Community Center, 2815 Speight. Thursday, May 15, 2014 – 12 Noon at Dr. Mae Jackson Development Center, City of Waco, 401 Franklin Ave. For more information please visit the website: www.waco-texas.com/cms-mpo .
This Act Locally Waco blog post is by Ashley Bean Thornton, the Manager of the www.www.actlocallywaco.org website and the editor of the Friday Update newsletter. The Act Locally Waco blog publishes posts with a connection to these aspirations for Waco. If you are interested in writing for the Act Locally Waco Blog, please email [email protected] for more information.
By Ashley Bean Thornton
Art on Elm was on April 13 last year. The night before, at the preview party, the organizers had arranged for a photographer. He had a big picture frame suspended from some wires and an assortment of goofy hats and other accessories to entice people to pose within the frame for a picture. My friend Ramona and I took full advantage — she wore the pink feather boa and I wore the huge crown. We had a blast.
The next day was one of those fine Texas spring days that make you remember why you love living here – perfect temperature, blue sky. I had breakfast at the Farmer’s Market, then headed over to Elm Avenue to enjoy the art festival. I strolled through the booths, yakked with some friends, listened to some fantastic music and enjoyed a scone at Lula Jane’s. On my way home from Art on Elm I decided to swing by the Habitat Restore on Franklin. They were having their annual half-price sale. The first thing I noticed when I walked through the door was a huge stack of big three-foot-square picture frames. Originally priced at $10 each, they were $5 each for half-price day. Who can resist that? I bought two.
One of my extra-curricular activities is managing a website called Act Locally Waco. The idea of the website is that everyone has a part to play in making our community a terrific place to live. It is kind of like an on-line Greensheet for getting involved in Waco. It’s full of local events, volunteer opportunities, announcements, resources… all kinds of things that contribute to the general greatness of Waco. Of course you can’t have a website these days without also having a “social media presence,” so I run the Act Locally Waco Facebook page as well. I am no social media expert by any means, but in my limited understanding, what makes Facebook fun is pictures.
It seemed providential that these $5 frames at the Re-store appeared in my life so immediately after having such a great time with a picture frame at the Art on Elm preview party. It sparked an idea: what if I take one of these picture frames with me on my adventures around town and catch people in the act of getting involved in Waco and then post them on the Facebook page? Why not? I bought a can of orange paint and painted one of the frames to match the orange in the website. Thus was born The Big Orange Frame.
In the course of a year I’ve lugged that frame to dozens of events and activities: The L.I.F.T. Workshop at First Baptist, Farm Day, Juneteenth, the Education Alliance Summit, the Farmer’s Market, First Friday Downtown, the East Waco Library mural party, The Texas Hunger Initiative Summit, The Cultural Arts Festival, Winter Wonderland, so many more… I cannot possibly list them all in the space available here.
It turns out that more people than you might think find it hard to resist a middle-aged lady in red tennis shoes with a giant orange picture frame and a camera. I bet I’ve taken almost a thousand pictures this year. I have pictures of every size, shape, race and age of person you can imagine. I also have pictures of a fair number of dogs, one goat, and a chicken of some kind – all captured in the Big Orange Frame. That $5 investment has paid for itself over and over in laughter and fun.
It’s been right at a year since the Big Orange Frame was born, and it struck me that it would be fun for the one year anniversary to try to put all the pictures on display somehow. My friend Susan Mullally in the Baylor Photography Department and John Orr at Frames, etc. on Bosque came to my aid, and thanks to them we figured out a way to get about 350 of them printed and framed in five giant posters in time to show them off at Art on Elm this year. That’s not nearly all of them, but it is an impressive chunk.
While working on that project I spent one entire afternoon looking at the years’ worth of pictures. It turns out I am not that great of a photographer. Many of the pictures are too shady or too bright…oh, but the people, the faces…each one is incredibly beautiful. Looking at the faces of our community, one after another – kids and middle aged folks and older people, every color and shape, smiling and shy, in groups and alone – struck a chord deep inside me, a chord that I don’t always attend to in the midst of my busy life. I cannot adequately describe how precious we all seemed to me in that moment. I got teary-eyed looking at those faces, and I’m getting teary-eyed again writing about it.
It reminded me of a quote from the Trappist monk Thomas Merton that I heard a long time ago. He had his epiphany watching the busy crowds walk by at the corner of Fourth and Walnut in Louisville, Kentucky. I had mine at a computer looking at beautiful faces from Waco, Texas, but the sentiment is the same: “I’m a member of the human race just like everyone else. I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. …. A member of the human race! To think that such a commonplace realization should suddenly seem like news that one holds the winning ticket in a cosmic sweepstake. …I have the immense joy of being a member of the human race: if only everybody could realize this! There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”
This Act Locally Waco blog post is by Ashley Bean Thornton, the Manager of the www.www.actlocallywaco.org website and the editor of the Friday Update newsletter. The Act Locally Waco blog publishes posts with a connection to these aspirations for Waco. If you are interested in writing for the Act Locally Waco Blog, please email [email protected] for more information.
By Ashley Bean Thornton
Like many White, middle-class Americans, I grew up understanding life as a competition, a footrace. The ones who run the fastest, and by that I mean work the hardest, win the prizes. I knew good, hardworking people – my parents for example – who were winning, and I expected to be a good, hardworking person who would also win. In fact, that is exactly how it has played out so far.
Of course… to feel good about winning, you have to believe the race is fair.
I don’t remember having “Black History Month” when I was in school, but we definitely studied slavery and the Civil War. We saw slides of the Little Rock Nine being escorted to class by the National Guard, and of White people turning dogs and fire hoses on Black people. We learned about Rosa Parks taking her seat on the bus in Montgomery, and we learned about Martin Luther King, Jr. and the “I have a Dream” speech.
Without even thinking about it, I interpreted all of this through my footrace metaphor, like so: (1) Slavery was an unthinkably horrible sin. (2) Even after slavery ended, the race was not fair. White people cheated – a lot. (3) Thanks to Dr. King, and the heroes of the Civil Rights Movement, Black people were able to use the legal system to make the race fair. Conclusion: Things were terrible before, but they are OK now; we can quit worrying so much about the Black/White thing, and just concentrate on running as fast as we can.
I was fairly comfortable with this conclusion for a long time.
Recently I came across a 2013 Pew Research Center Report partially titled “King’s Dream Remains an Elusive Goal.” According to this report, Black Americans are nearly three times as likely as White Americans to have incomes below the poverty guideline. The median net worth (wealth) for White households is more than ten times that of Black households, and Black men are six times as likely to be incarcerated as White men. With these facts in mind, I have to ask myself an uncomfortable question: if the race is fair, why do we continue to see such huge disparities?
It seems blindingly obvious now, but it took me a long time to realize that if I wanted to begin to untangle the knot of reasons behind these differences I needed to tweak my footrace metaphor. In my mind the race for success had always been an individual event. If I win it is because of my hard work; if I lose it’s because I should have worked harder. If you lose…well … you get the picture. I still believe this is the truth; it’s just not the whole truth. Hard work matters, but it’s also important to realize that the race is not, and never has been, an individual event. It’s a relay.
Let’s say, for example, my White grandparents saved their money and bought a house in the suburbs back in the 40’s. That house increased in value and became part of the nest egg my parents used to get an even nicer house in an even better neighborhood. That meant I got to go to a really good high school, and from there to a good university, and from there to a good job. Meanwhile Black grandparents in the 40’s didn’t get to buy that house in the suburbs because of prejudicial deed restrictions (not to mention inhospitable neighbors). To make matters worse, no (White owned) bank would loan them the money to build a nice house in a Black neighborhood because it was “too high risk.” That meant no nest egg, no nicer house for their kids, and a not so great high school in a declining neighborhood for their grandkids – my peers. Multiply this scenario by thousands of Black and White grandparents and you begin to see one reason why there is such a huge disparity in wealth between Black and White households today.
Even if the leg of the relay I’m running now is reasonably fair (or at least fair-er), the previous legs of the race were seriously rigged in favor of White people. I was way, way ahead before I ever started to run.
I do not know exactly what we should do to even out the disparities that have come about as a result of the inequities of the past. Should we invest more in public schools? In rebuilding high poverty neighborhoods? Should we provide more support to Black-owned businesses? Should we take a hard look at our legal system? Maybe we should do all of these things; maybe none of them; maybe there are other creative solutions I can’t even imagine. I don’t know. I just know that there is a limit to how much time even a great athlete can make up in the last lap of a relay. If we care about reducing the Black/White disparities described above any time soon, we are going to have to do something more than just telling people to “run as fast as you can.”
This week’s Act Locally Waco blog post is by Ashley Bean Thornton, the Manager of the www.www.actlocallywaco.org website and the editor of the Friday Update newsletter. The Act Locally Waco blog publishes posts with a connection to these aspirations for Waco. If you are interested in writing for the Act Locally Waco Blog, please email [email protected] for more information.