At the Up from the UnderStory project presentation and community celebration in West Point on June 1st, there was a rich discussion about what the stories presented meant to folks.
Out of that discussion emerged the question: how can adults in the community better support our youth? The question was posed by an adult audience member to the youth media team. And the team didn't have many clear answers....but one idea that popped up was to figure out a way to link up adults with youth around shared interests and needs.
So we spontaneously (thanks to the quick thinking of Jonathan London from the Center for the Study of Regional Change at UCD) passed around a clipboard so that adults who were so inclined could jot down their name and the skills, knowledge, or experiences they had that they would be willing to share with interested youth. Great idea huh?
I'll be working over the summer with folks at the Blue Mountain Coalition for Youth & Families to figure out how to proceed with this list, but to honor the folks who signed up (thanks!) and share with the youth some of the folks who they could hang out with, learn from, or be supported by....i'm noting it below (note: i've left out phone numbers but we have them if you read about a person or interest area that you'd like to know more about or hook up with!)
Name; Skill/Asset
Dawn Frye Early Childhood Development, Delta College
Linda Mariani Homeschool, 4-H services, Charter School Admin Learning, Photography, UC Berkeley, Travel
Vicki Snead-Hinkell Real Estate, Small Business Skills, Yoga-Healthy Living Skills, Theater Arts, Vegetarianism
John Pelletti Real Estate, Medicianal Sciences, Prosthetics, College
Rick Torgerson Journalism and Print Production
Peggy Chambers Servicing Business
Mike Kriletich Getting through life
Pat Noll R.N Nursing, TCM Chineses Acupuncture
Donna Vial Entrapreneur (UCD Alumni)
Carol Oz Animals, Art, Guitar and singing, Environmental Science, Painting
Maryann Gravitt Gardening, Handy Person
Marilyn Shrouf Gardening, music, accounting
Alan Willard Blue Mountain Community, Youths and Family
Kevin Williard College Advisements
Eryn Brown Photographer
Darrell Dever Theatre
Friday, June 27, 2008
Adults Step Up for Youth
Monday, June 16, 2008
Notes from Community Discussion on 6/1
At the June 1st project presentation the community, youth documentary team, and UC Davis project staff had a very productive discussion. Lots of great ideas about moving forward with the project came up, here are some notes with future ideas:
Next Steps with UC Davis:
Creating a unique version of a sister-city with the Blue Mountain Community
Creating a support system to encourage the youth team to attend college
Working with local schools on formatting service learning projects
Forming a greater partnership with the
Modeling the
River Maintaining /Clean up
Go beyond
Set up skill and interest database to find ways to link people with skills and interests (Terra initiates people to do this through the youth center)
How can the Community Support Youth?
Don’t know how to get motivated
Get ideas/info on how to stay motivated in school
Meeting at the youth center among young people who have gone to school (Kevin Willard will start holding the meetings) and folks/youth interested in going to school.
Consider joining Boy/Girl Scouts to learn more about college, careers, etc.
Do more talking with each other
Meet again on Wednesdays to brainstorm ways to continue at youth center
Adults encouraged to comment on the blog
Read More......
Thursday, June 12, 2008
~ UC Davis Photo Entry ~
Group Shot of UC Davis Faculty & Staff:
Campus Tour!
Presentation!
Bill Lacey- Vice Provost for the University Outreach & International Programs
Audience watching the video
All the way from
West Point!
Youth Team leading a great discussion
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
UnderStory team visits UC Davis!
It is so hard to believe it has already been a week since the Up from the UnderStory documentary team traveled to Davis for lunch, a tour, and the Davis presentation.
The morning started early: before the bus left UC Davis to drive out to West Point, I went to meet with the driver to confirm that he had directions and water for the Documentary Team. Once everything was all set, he was off! And boy was he off. He made it to West Point, picked up the team and drove back to UC Davis in 2 hours, which is pretty fast for a bus.
The team, with family and friends, arrived at UC Davis Wyatt Deck right around 12:15. They were joined by myself, the Davis Humanities Team (who helped tremendously throughout the day), the ARCistas, jesikah, Jonathan, and Whitney. Everyone enjoyed a delicious sandwich lunch from the Davis Food Co-op beneath redwood trees and next to Putah Creek (Some youth were able to spot some baby ducks!). It was a little windy outside, but despite the wind everyone had a great time outside eating and talking with the ARCista members: Julie Sze, Julie Wyman, Ryan Galt, and Mike Ziser. We enjoyed some icebreakers and of course chillaxing. Each of the youth were presented with sone information about UC Davis and a framed photo of the group they were able to have others sign. Check out our group photos we took after lunch time: 
After lunch I headed with the youth, friends, and family members to South Hall to meet our tour guides for a campus tour. Even though there was a ton of walking for everyone, we were able to see the main central part of campus, go inside the library, learn about lots of resources that Davis has to offer, and even peek in on a HUGE lecture class. A few youth were able to go check out the KDVS campus radio station, and Grant was very excited to see all of the bikes and learn that Davis had a Bike Barn where students can work as bike mechanics. I think the bikes were surprising to most people, because as I was told by Michael Bowsher, it is hard to bike in all the hills of West Point!
The tour ended at the Memorial Union where everyone regrouped before the big presentation. It was a good thing there was a lot of lemonade and water, plus some sweet treats to recoup after all the walking! About 50 – 70 people came to the later afternoon/evening presentation. It was amazing and so positive to see how many people in the audience drove all the way from the Blue Mountain community to support the Up from the UnderStory project and team.
The presentation started off with an introduction by Jonathan London and then Bill Lacey the Vice Provost for the University Outreach and International Programs talked to everybody about the importance of community based projects. Julie Wyman spoke about her role in editing and taking her students to the Blue Mountain Community to do some filming. Julie Wyman’s UC Davis students were also able to offer their experience with the video documentary in the Blue Mountain Community. It was great to see how all of the people at UC Davis were linked to the evolvement of the project.
As I was watching the video and listening to another great discussion with the youth and audience, I really was touched by how successful and tight-knit the Blue Mountain Community is. I was born and raised in Davis. After my undergraduate education I worked for the City in the Community Services Department as a way to stay involved and have a part in my community. But I have not felt a community bond as strong as the Blue Mountain Community. Even though Davis is a larger community than Blue Mountain, I have to say that the Blue Mountain Community can really be seen as an inspiration for many communities, of all sizes, including Davis.
I was happy to have my parents attend the event, both long time residents of Davis, who left the presentation excited and with ideas. My mom, who has her own child development center, loved how Maryann and Blue Mountain Community members created the Art in the Garden community project. Inspired, my mom now hopes to create an Art in the Garden in Davis with her preschoolers. I think it is important to realize how the Up from the UnderStory project is inspiring and will motivate multiple communities and many diverse groups of people not just in the Sierra region but wherever their stories will be heard.
Last Wednesday was an amazing day. I had so much fun spending time with the youth, jesikah, family members, and friends. I felt honored to spend the day with a great group of teenagers who really worked hard these past few months in connecting with their community and working together with community members to present positive ways to grow as a community. It was a positive and incredible experience to share my school and community with members from the Blue Mountain Community that are working hard to share their own stories of community motivation.
The video will be posted on the Davis Humanities Institute Website. So check back soon for the full featured Up from the UnderStory Documentary: http://dhi.ucdavis.edu/
And check back on our blog tomorrow- Photo entries to be posted!
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
Project Presentation & Celebration!!!
The UnderStory project presentation at the West Point Elementary School last Sunday was a BIG success!!! (Project Coordinator jesikah maria ross and UC DavisCenter for the study of Regional Change Director Jonathan London strike a pose by the excellent banner made by the project advisory group)
Joyce Rummerfield and her family came around 3:00 to get started cooking up the yummy (and heavily requested) Indian Tacos. Joey Creekmore & his pal Garrett help dice tomatos for the Tacos. (stay tuned for shots of Joyce and her team at work!)
The youth set up the laptops they have been working on for the past 3 months to display their photos.
About 100 people showed up for the community potluck. Check out the youth team sporting the brand new Up from the UnderStory T Shirts!
Several folks stood up and spoke about different aspects of the project, but the feature presentation was definitely the 9 member youth media team sharing their digital stories about community renewal in the Blue Mountain area.
After presenting the media work (UCD student video followed by 9 digital stories produced by the youth media team), about 80 people engaged in a lively and long-lasting community dialogue. For real! The discussion went for about an hour and only wrapped up because it was getting late for a Sunday night!
There is much more info and images to share...so visit again. Or come see the next presentation at UC Davis, Wed June 4 from 4:00 - 6:30. Email jmross@ucdavis.edu for directions or info.
Read More......
Mapping Resources from Mike Ziser & Photos from Ryan Galt
After the community mapping workshop (see yesterday's blog post!), UCD English professor and Bioregionalism guy Mike Ziser compiled this info for folks in the Blue Mountain area interested in community mapping.
Here are some mapping resources for folks up in Calaveras.
CERES (California Environmental Resources Evaluation System) map of Calaveras County: http://www.ceres.ca.gov/geo_area/counties/Calaveras/. A great resource with different data sets and layers than the ICE maps (below), including historical landmarks, genealogical data, and other cultural information.
UC Davis Information Center for the Environment (ICE) maps: http://icemaps.des.ucdavis.edu/icemaps2/ICEMapInit.html. This is a public-access GIS map of California that can show about 30+ layers (land ownership, vegetation, bureaucratic jurisdictions, etc.). To use, select "Zoom In", click on Calaveras county, then click "Select Layers" to change the view.
I'm sure many already know about the Calaveras County GIS maps, but here is the site to post on the blog: http://www.co.calaveras.ca.us/departments/gisproj.asp.
Lastly, I want to encourage local citizens to share their knowledge of their place through the wikipedia pages on West Point and Calaveras County as a whole. Right now those pages have fairly general information, but it would be neat to see the actual residents take over the definition for themselves.... That is what Wikipedia is for, after all. To see what a robust regional wiki is like, they might take a look at our own Davis Wiki, nationally known for its deep coverage of a relatively small local area.
And Ryan Galt sent these photos of folks generating and presenting ideas at the workshop along with a group photo of everyone who came. Check it out!
Monday, June 2, 2008
Community Video & Mapping Workshop
Up from the UnderStory is community media project that brings together Blue Mountain (Glencoe, Wilseyville, Railroad Flat, and West Point) residents with UC Davis scholars and students to explore how rural communities in the Sierra Nevada foothillls go about making change to create local jobs, sustain the rivers and forests, and build a stronger sense of connection to each other and their place.
As part of this project, five UCD scholars have been engaged in various aspects of collaborating with local residents to create community media.
Julie Wyman, a documentary filmmaker and professor in Technocultural Studies, worked with a group of UCD graduate students and a subcommittee of the Up from the UnderStory Community Project Advisory Group (Katherine Evatt, Alan Willard, Rick Torgerson, Arvada Fisher) to create an "introductory video" to give context to the nine community revitalization digital stories that a team of Blue Mountain youth put together. The resulting 9 minute video produce through this collaboration covers some of the history of the area (mining, logging), the roots of the economic decline of Blue Mountain, and how the residents have been mobilizing over the past decade to revitalize the economy, sustain the environment, and create a thriving rural community. Here is an image of Julie (far right) with two graduate students filming on location!
Ryan Galt (Community Development) & Micheal Zieser (English) came up to West Point and worked with a group of about 12 Blue Mountain residents to explore the idea of mapping and start creating a community map of the area. Ryan and Mike did this by leading a workshop hosted by the Blue Mountain Coalition for Youth & Families. The 2.5 hour shin-dig included a presentation on how different ways maps are made, different uses for maps, and different aspects of a community that might be mapped. For example, the group came up with three different map themes--social/cultural, natural/recreational, and economic--what might be put on such a map. Have a look at what they generated....
i'll post some photos of the residents at work mapping away and Mike and Ryan in action in a future post. stay tuned AND feel free to weigh in on what you'd map in the community.
