H O L L Y W O O D

This past weekend, we explored Hollywood on our way to a BBQ hosted by one of the other JV houses. Since we were avoiding museums with entrance fees, we just wandered up and down Hollywood Boulevard and admired the walk of fame and the handprints of stars outside the Chinese Theatre.

Some of my favorites:

  

I was back in West Hollywood on Monday at the House of Blues for an Obama fundraiser/rally. I wouldn't say I'm his biggest supporter of late, but when someone offers me a free pass to a $250 event that gets me 20-25 feet from the president of the United States, I accept. I volunteered to help staff the event after I met a classmate at a Georgetown Alumni Association event who is currently working full-time for the Obama re-election campaign of Southern California.

My job as a volunteer was to be a gatekeeper of a staircase for VIPs only, which happened to be only feet from the stage...

The event was emcee'd by Jesse Tyler Ferguson (Mitchell on "Modern Family"), and there were performances by the Gay Men's Chorus of L.A. and the rapper B.o.B. (who actually has some songs you might recognize) to warm up the crowd. I'm really not sure what target demographic they were going for with this event, but it seemed to work.

So because my fellow stair-guarder and I spent a fair amount of time with Jeff the Secret Service guy (Is his name really Jeff? We'll never know...), we were allowed to sneak into the front section before President Obama came in. Not a bad vantage point:

  

  

The president spoke about the economy and the jobs bill he introduced, about his campaign for re-election, and about the 13 months until then. The overarching theme was that the vision he put forth in 2008 is the same vision he has for the country today. There were a few jabs at the GOP, but it was primarily a positive message directed at a lot of frustrated people. (Speaking of frustration, folks were paying $38,000 for the fundraising event that followed this one later in the evening; meanwhile, people are homeless and hungry down the street.)

The bad part was the commute, which was easy on the way there when streets were open, but quite an adventure on the way home when my phone was dead and I was wandering through West Hollywood...whoops. I knew where I was the entire time but just couldn't find any buses that were running, and in the end it only took me an hour and a half to get home. However, taking the bus did afford me the opportunity to do more sightseeing than I could while driving, and I can definitely understand why people who live in West Hollywood/Beverly Hills like L.A. It is a very different Los Angeles than the one I work in every day...

Mini-me?

We saw this girl at the beach, and my casamates tell me this is how they imagine me as a child...it took her about ten minutes to set up her coloring station, umbrella and hat before she could start coloring. Not sure when in life I developed my organizational skills, but I like the way this girl thinks.

CMC Mission Statement

We have two FJV (former JV) "support people," who come to our casa on a biweekly basis to support us in various ways. In preparation for our Program Coordinator's area visit in October (when a JVC staff person stays with us for a week to assess how everything is going, meeting with each of us and our supervisors one-on-one), our support people led us through the activity of creating a mission statement for our community. The activity was somewhat redundant after our many discussions at JVC Orientation, but it is nice to have something written out. Here it is:

In the tradition of St. Ignatius and our namesake, we the intentional community of Casa Maura Clarke seek to act selflessly, challenge lovingly, and communicate honestly, so that we can support one another both in joy and in struggle. We will foster individual and communal growth as we deepen our spirituality, work for social justice, and find solidarity in simplicity.

It doesn't read that smoothly, but we had a lot to fit in!

long week

Last week was LONG. The long week after a short week is always a struggle, and work is starting to feel more like work...which is nice in the sense that I'm settling into a routine. There were a couple of later nights at work (read: 5 p.m., and I recognize that is "early") because of interviews for the next CTP class, and the week was also full of after-work activities. For community night on Tuesday, Megan took us to LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art) because it's free on the second Tuesday of each month. Then for Wednesday's spirituality night, Sarah took us to the beach for a peaceful meditation. And on Thursday night, there was a Georgetown alumni event to welcome the Class of 2011 to the neighborhood! Come Friday, I was exhausted.

Lights outside LACMA (of No Strings Attached fame).

The only piece that I loved in the contemporary art building...I was more into the European art building.

Since the week was packed, it was great to get out of town this weekend. We headed to Malibu to hike the Escandido Canyon and Waterfalls. After reading reviews that raved about the hike, and also warned of its dangers, we ventured past the gorgeous homes of Malibu to find Escandido falls! (Literally, the trailhead was at the end of a long residential drive where we were reminded how we'll never be able to afford such huge, expensive homes.)

The first waterfall was easy to reach...

The second required a bit more work but was quite beautiful.

  

The "third waterfall" was actually just a higher view of the second waterfall, and was significantly more difficult to reach. It was less of a "hike" and more of a "rock climb."

 

But the views at the top were gorgeous!

And finally, the triumphant group photo.

CM in the PM

Since you've all been on the edges of your seats waiting to hear what I do in the p.m...

Every afternoon, I'm at the St. Joseph Center administrative building where I fulfill the Culinary Training Program (CTP) part of my "program assistant" responsibilities. CTP aims to put unemployed and under-employed ($22,000/year) individuals, many of whom have barriers to employment, to work in entry-level positions in the food-service industry. The culinary part of the class is taught by the executive chef at Bread and Roses, but in keeping with St. Joe's emphasis on self-sufficiency throughout all its programs, the class also includes life skills workshops -- study skills, financial literacy, job interview strategies, etc.

I help the program manager of CTP, who is the sweetest lady I've met in L.A. (and also my second supervisor), with recruitment of new students, interviewing applicants, and searching for new culinary job leads. If time allows, I'll also be helping her with résumé and job search workshops. But probably my most important role in CTP is as a case manager. I case manage within the Family Source Center (enter supervisor number three), which is a case management contract for LA residents. So, the CTP students who live in Los Angeles proper become my case management clients.

In one-on-one meetings, I help clients identify their goals -- with respect to education, employment, finances, benefits and legal issues, to name a few -- as well as barriers keeping them from reaching those goals. My objective as a case manager ("CM," shorthand) is to help clients manage these goals and overcome barriers, all within the context of self-sufficiency. I really admire St. Joseph's emphasis on self-sufficiency and empowerment within all its case management contracts, rather than encouraging a case management culture of hand-outs. Since my clients are all CTP students, my case management load definitely has a bias toward employment (and employment in the culinary industry in particular), but the obstacles these struggling individuals face make for a challenging and diverse caseload. Right now I am case managing about 15 clients, and when the next class starts on Monday, I'll add four more!

The learning curve on the case management part of my job is definitely steeper than the café management. Beyond mastering all the social services available for referrals and gaining an intimate knowledge of the detailed forms we use, I have a ways to go in honing my case manager intuition. Being a case manager demands a lot of reading between the lines and listening with a critical ear that I'm not especially experienced with. The closest experience I can draw on is conducting medical histories with SHARE (Study to Help the AIDS Research Effort) in D.C., where I learned -- over time and with great failure at first -- to focus first on the person and second on the forms.

Bread and Roses and CTP are connected institutionally in a number of ways (not least by the fact that both share the executive chef and the JV), but the two aspects of my program assistant position are quite independent of one another. Each carries significant responsibility, and each is demanding in its own, distinct ways. Hopefully I will be able to find the balance that allows me to devote great energy to both endeavors without burning out by 1 p.m. every day.

A weekend of peace

This weekend, a group of my casamates met up with Casa Dorothy Kazel and Casa Ita Ford (other L.A. JV houses) downtown for the Interfaith 9/11 Prayer Vigil. The event was spearheaded by the Episcopal Diocese of L.A., but leaders of all the Abrahamic faiths were represented, and the event was hosted at the religion-neutral L.A. city hall. The focus was definitely on the interfaith aspect of the event, and less on memorializing the victims of 9/11 and the war after. Still, it was interesting and inspirational, and very peaceful.

The more significant way we remembered 9/11 was at the Sunday 5:30 Mass at St. Monica's (in Santa Monica). We've been Church shopping for a while now, and St. Monica's is definitely my favorite. It reminds me a lot of the 7:30 Mass I went to at Georgetown for four years, but on a larger scale with an intense speaker system. The 5:30 Mass is the contemporary mass for young adults, so it suits us well. Everyone is incredibly welcoming, and we really like a lot of their traditions already -- like everyone receiving communion starting from the back, and everyone reciting the names aloud of each person we pray for during the intercessions. Our impression of St. Monica's became even better when they played Maya Angelou's "Amazing Peace" following the homily, in honor of the 10th anniversary of 9/11. The girls of CMC really like Maya Angelou, and her poem was a perfect way to end a peaceful weekend.


"Amazing Peace" (abridged)
by Maya Angelou


      Thunder rumbles in the mountain passes
      And lightning rattles the eaves of our houses.
      Flood waters await us in our avenues.

      Snow falls upon snow, falls upon snow to avalanche
      Over unprotected villages.
      The sky slips low and grey and threatening.

      ... ... ...


      Hope is born again in the faces of children
      It rides on the shoulders of our aged as they walk into their sunsets.
      Hope spreads around the earth. Brightening all things,
      Even hate which crouches breeding in dark corridors.

      In our joy, we think we hear a whisper.
      At first it is too soft. Then only half heard.
      We listen carefully as it gathers strength.
      We hear a sweetness.
      The word is Peace.
      It is loud now. It is louder.
      Louder than the explosion of bombs.

      We tremble at the sound. We are thrilled by its presence.
      It is what we have hungered for.
      Not just the absence of war. But, true Peace.
      A harmony of spirit, a comfort of courtesies.
      Security for our beloveds and their beloveds.

      On this platform of peace, we can create a language
      To translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other.

      We shout with glorious tongues at the coming of hope.
      All the earth's tribes loosen their voices
      To celebrate the promise of Peace.

      We, Angels and Mortal's, Believers and Non-Believers,
      Look heavenward and speak the word aloud. Peace. 
      We look at our world and speak the word aloud. Peace. 
      We look at each other, then into ourselves
      And we say without shyness or apology or hesitation.

      Peace, My Brother. Peace, My Sister. Peace, My Soul.

Labor Day: 'Bread and roses! Bread and roses!'

In honor of Labor Day, here's a background on the phrase "bread and roses." It's associated with the fight for fair wages for women, and in particular with a textile strike in 1912 in Massachusetts. The slogan comes from James Oppenheim's poem, where "bread and roses" refers to the call for both fair wages and dignified working conditions. It's pertinent as we think about labor and living wages today, but also as a background story to the name of the café I'm working in this year!

As we come marching, marching in the beauty of the day,
A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill lofts gray,
Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses,
For the people hear us singing: "Bread and roses! Bread and roses!"
As we come marching, marching, we battle too for men,
For they are women's children, and we mother them again.
Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
Hearts starve as well as bodies; give us bread, but give us roses!
As we come marching, marching, unnumbered women dead
Go crying through our singing their ancient cry for bread.
Small art and love and beauty their drudging spirits knew.
Yes, it is bread we fight for -- but we fight for roses, too!
As we come marching, marching, we bring the greater days.
The rising of the women means the rising of the race.
No more the drudge and idler -- ten that toil where one reposes,
But a sharing of life's glories: Bread and roses! Bread and roses!


So even though Bread and Roses Café is not just for women, the roots of the phrase make it clear that, just as the fight for fair wages was about more than the need for money, feeding the hungry is about more than the food itself -- it's about treating each person with dignity. "Hearts starve as well as bodies..."


In L.A., we celebrated the long weekend with the other JVs in the Southwest region with a party and a day at the beach. Casa Maura Clarke also visited the Getty Villa in Malibu, which houses J. Paul Getty's collection of Greek and Italian art.

 

Zuma Beach & the Getty Villa.

 

Gardens on the grounds of the villa.

learning by doing

The only way to learn how to be Café Manager at Bread and Roses Café, it seems, is by doing it...and by making mistakes doing it. On day one, my supervisor/the executive chef picked me up, we did the day's grocery shopping, and I got a quick tour of the facilities before I started managing volunteers while he ran the kitchen. By the end of the first meal, he was gone and I was on my own. I knew generally what needed to be done from studying the binder that's been passed from JV to JV, and, thankfully, there was a handful of experienced regular volunteers (including the chair of the board of St. Joseph Center) to back me up. Remarkably, I didn't actually get stressed about the fact that I was supervisor-less for most of my first day...I'm learning to roll with the punches this year.

I've had a few minor hiccups along the way, but I'm starting to get into a groove with the café, so I'm finally able to articulate to people what it is that I am actually doing. My title is "Program Assistant at Bread and Roses Café and the Culinary Training Program," which translates to me being café manager by morning and case manager by afternoon.

Every morning on my way to Bread and Roses (leaving between 6:30 and 7:15 daily), I make a different stop to pick up food donations. I roll into the café between 7:30 and 8:00, and I start prepping for the volunteers to arrive at 8:30. My most challenging task throughout the morning is definitely managing the volunteers. There are four to seven of them daily, and it's my job to make sure they work efficiently and happily. Things I have learned: volunteers do not like feeling bored, and they also do not like changes (e.g. The fact that I made a chart of how to set the table is actually going to cause a volunteer uprising.). Another tricky aspect is to try to appease the experienced volunteers while still sufficiently orienting brand new volunteers. I've started holding a daily volunteer orientation to get everyone on the same page, which has worked well when people are on time.

I'm responsible for overseeing most of the front-of-the-house activity of the restaurant, while the chef runs the kitchen. Beyond managing the volunteers, this also means I'm responsible for letting guests in off our reservation list, keeping a count of how many meals we're serving, and generally keeping our clients happy and orderly. The most difficult aspect of this is definitely the gatekeeper role I play...it's not easy to tell a hungry, homeless person that he/she cannot come in because we're full and he's/she's not on the list. Alas, that is sometimes what I have to do. Clients sign up for Bread and Roses meals at the Homeless Services Center, where they also have case managers (my casamate Jackie is one of these case managers). Luckily, I have the help of our security guard when things go wrong on the list/gatekeeping front.

We serve meals three times a day -- at 9:30, 10:30 and 11:30. I see many of the same clients on a daily basis, but we're always seeing new faces, too. Our dining room seats 40, so a "full house" puts us at 120 meals a day; however, we can serve up to 150 meals in a day by seating overflow in shifts within each seating. After cleaning up the last meal with my volunteers, I take stock of the kitchen and make the next day's shopping list before heading to the St. Joseph Center administrative building a few blocks away to work with the Culinary Training Program (CTP)! More to come on CTP in a later post since I've probably lost most people by this point anyways...

The job of café manager isn't terribly intellectually challenging, but it's been fun and exciting to interact with so many volunteers and clients. So far, I've been most tested in patience and multi-tasking, and the constant demand of interpersonal interactions is exhausting in itself. I feel as though I've been working at Bread and Roses for much longer than three weeks, but the time has flown by!

I should also mention that the food is GREAT.