by Chris Jones, Vice President for Research, RPA
There is nothing like an old-fashioned barn raising to conjure up a longing for the kind of close-knit community that seems impossibly remote in our highly mobile, urbanized society. Romanticized in movies like Witness and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, this method of building a barn required the participation of virtually every able-bodied member of rural communities to support a single family. Everyone had their role, often defined by age and gender. The dramatic coda came when the side of the barn was hauled into place with everyone giving their all with ropes, pulleys and levers. Remarkably, in spite of the association of rural America with individual freedom and stubborn independence, this powerful image of communal values comes from our frontier past, when barn raising was most common.
But like an old gospel tune, the universal spirit of this practice has survived dozens of mutations and evolved into new models that can be found in today's urban and suburban neighborhoods. Both the continuity and differences with the past struck me when about a hundred volunteers from throughout the Tri-State area came together through a program called New York Cares to fix up my daughter's small school building in Washington Heights.
The building is the temporary home of Washington Heights Academy, a program started by a group of parents with a vision of education centered around relationships between school, family and community. The structure, one of the boxy, aluminum-framed modular buildings that New York City's Department of Education is using to address its classroom shortage in overcrowded districts, is functional and even provides a sense of intimacy. However, after several years of use by a middle school, it suffered from peeling paint, water damage, graffiti and general wear. Teachers, parents, administrators and other school staff worked overtime to get the classrooms ready for younger children in September, but the exterior problems were beyond the resources of the immediate Washington Heights Academy family.
Enter New York Cares, a nonprofit with a mission of mobilizing teams of volunteers to support public schools and service organizations throughout the five boroughs. Since it can't rely on the social bonds of a small community, New York Cares fills the void by tapping into networks of urban institutions, such as corporations and alumni associations. The results are impressive in scale with over 27,000 volunteers working with 850 organizations each year. In practice, the activities can replicate the spirit of a barn raising, but replace its standardized ritual with the diversity and organized chaos of a 21st century metropolis.
For Washington Heights Academy, New York Cares enlisted Citigroup to invite its employees to paint and spruce up the building and school yard on what was, thankfully, a sunny November day. By the time I arrived with Amy and Jenna, my wife and daughter, dozens of women, men and children were hard at work rolling fresh paint on the walls, covering the playground with games like hopscotch and twister, and creating a 40-foot mural designed by a teacher from the Academy's host school, P.S. 178. The crowd was much more diverse than the Amish barn raising scene I remember from Witness. The gender roles were far looser, although the guys still seemed to gravitate toward the big paint rollers and there were more moms than dads supervising children. As in earlier times, families brought homemade food for the workers, like fried chicken, Dominican rice and pasta salad, but like good New Yorkers a bunch of us just ordered take out pizzas.
Mostly, though, the day was an inspiring display of good will from people we had never met and will likely never see again. Yet the connections were real and in many ways as important as the transformation of our school's façade. I will never forget my conversation with the woman who drove up from Philadelphia and relayed stories of her own five-year-old, or how delighted the volunteers were to talk to Jenna and see her reactions to the new playground games and wall murals.
I can imagine now how the farm family must have felt when the job was done and their neighbors went home. While the job is finished, the work is just beginning. In our case, there is the process of turning what is now a Kindergarten-2nd grade program into a full-fledged K-8 public school. There are applications to finish, new teachers to hire and a search for permanent space when we outgrow our current quarters. And, of course, education is the main event and a continuous process. But now we know that there are people beyond our immediate network that we can call on when needed, even though they might not be our neighbors and we may not know their names.
There is nothing like an old-fashioned barn raising to conjure up a longing for the kind of close-knit community that seems impossibly remote in our highly mobile, urbanized society. Romanticized in movies like Witness and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, this method of building a barn required the participation of virtually every able-bodied member of rural communities to support a single family. Everyone had their role, often defined by age and gender. The dramatic coda came when the side of the barn was hauled into place with everyone giving their all with ropes, pulleys and levers. Remarkably, in spite of the association of rural America with individual freedom and stubborn independence, this powerful image of communal values comes from our frontier past, when barn raising was most common.
But like an old gospel tune, the universal spirit of this practice has survived dozens of mutations and evolved into new models that can be found in today's urban and suburban neighborhoods. Both the continuity and differences with the past struck me when about a hundred volunteers from throughout the Tri-State area came together through a program called New York Cares to fix up my daughter's small school building in Washington Heights.
The building is the temporary home of Washington Heights Academy, a program started by a group of parents with a vision of education centered around relationships between school, family and community. The structure, one of the boxy, aluminum-framed modular buildings that New York City's Department of Education is using to address its classroom shortage in overcrowded districts, is functional and even provides a sense of intimacy. However, after several years of use by a middle school, it suffered from peeling paint, water damage, graffiti and general wear. Teachers, parents, administrators and other school staff worked overtime to get the classrooms ready for younger children in September, but the exterior problems were beyond the resources of the immediate Washington Heights Academy family.
Enter New York Cares, a nonprofit with a mission of mobilizing teams of volunteers to support public schools and service organizations throughout the five boroughs. Since it can't rely on the social bonds of a small community, New York Cares fills the void by tapping into networks of urban institutions, such as corporations and alumni associations. The results are impressive in scale with over 27,000 volunteers working with 850 organizations each year. In practice, the activities can replicate the spirit of a barn raising, but replace its standardized ritual with the diversity and organized chaos of a 21st century metropolis.
For Washington Heights Academy, New York Cares enlisted Citigroup to invite its employees to paint and spruce up the building and school yard on what was, thankfully, a sunny November day. By the time I arrived with Amy and Jenna, my wife and daughter, dozens of women, men and children were hard at work rolling fresh paint on the walls, covering the playground with games like hopscotch and twister, and creating a 40-foot mural designed by a teacher from the Academy's host school, P.S. 178. The crowd was much more diverse than the Amish barn raising scene I remember from Witness. The gender roles were far looser, although the guys still seemed to gravitate toward the big paint rollers and there were more moms than dads supervising children. As in earlier times, families brought homemade food for the workers, like fried chicken, Dominican rice and pasta salad, but like good New Yorkers a bunch of us just ordered take out pizzas.
Mostly, though, the day was an inspiring display of good will from people we had never met and will likely never see again. Yet the connections were real and in many ways as important as the transformation of our school's façade. I will never forget my conversation with the woman who drove up from Philadelphia and relayed stories of her own five-year-old, or how delighted the volunteers were to talk to Jenna and see her reactions to the new playground games and wall murals.
I can imagine now how the farm family must have felt when the job was done and their neighbors went home. While the job is finished, the work is just beginning. In our case, there is the process of turning what is now a Kindergarten-2nd grade program into a full-fledged K-8 public school. There are applications to finish, new teachers to hire and a search for permanent space when we outgrow our current quarters. And, of course, education is the main event and a continuous process. But now we know that there are people beyond our immediate network that we can call on when needed, even though they might not be our neighbors and we may not know their names.
@RegionalPlan