Community Partnerships
Spring 2013 Community Parters
Alliance to Develop Power in Springfield, Massachusetts. Members of Alliance to Develop Power are Real People with Real Solutions building Real Power. ADP grassroots leaders fight for just policy reform, create new cooperatively controlled businesses, and build strong, vibrant communities, all while empowering a diverse grassroots base - we are creating a sustainable community economy that leverages power, relationships, and resources.
Maine People's Alliance (MPA). MPA's purpose is to bring individuals and organizations together to realize shared goals. They focus on leadership development to increase the number of citizen leaders prepared to work for positive social change.
MPA is known for their ability to do grassroots organizing and education that reaches more than 100,000 Mainers each year with direct personal contact and quality leadership development work that has yielded dozens of leaders and staff for MPA and other organizations. MPA was founded in 1982 (and officially incorporated in 1983) in the Lewiston/Auburn area with a focus on housing, rent and utility rate reform issues. In 1984, their sister organization, the Maine People's Resource Center, was created.
MPA is known for their ability to do grassroots organizing and education that reaches more than 100,000 Mainers each year with direct personal contact and quality leadership development work that has yielded dozens of leaders and staff for MPA and other organizations. MPA was founded in 1982 (and officially incorporated in 1983) in the Lewiston/Auburn area with a focus on housing, rent and utility rate reform issues. In 1984, their sister organization, the Maine People's Resource Center, was created.
MPA has three main chapters, in Lewiston, Portland and Bangor, where members meet each month to work together to advance the issues they care about.
Worcester Roots and Stone Soup Collective:
The mission of Stone Soup is to build grassroots power by connecting and enriching groups and individuals in our communities who are working for social justice in Worcester, MA. The collective is building community and economies based in cooperation and creativity while resisting oppression and gentrification.
As a part of the Stone Soup Collective, The Worcester Roots Project is a collective of youth and adult organizers on a mission to create opportunities for economic, social and environmental justice. They send these roots of opportunity into the community, sprouting up co-operatively run and green projects and initiatives that build toward a vision of neighborhoods that are safe for living, working and playing.
The organization was founded to address the environmental justice concern of lead in the soil. In 2005, Worcester Roots made the decision to prioritize youth empowerment through its projects. In 2008, they expanded our focus to address economic, social and environmental justice. Within our focus on economic justice, we have a particular interest in supporting worker co-operatives (businesses or projects that are run and owned by workers) and promoting the development of green jobs in our city. Current projects include:
- Toxic Soil Busters, a group of 10 teenagers using outreach, education and direct action to tackle lead contaminated soil in Main South and Piedmont neighborhoods
- Youth In Charge, a group of 6 teenagers working to identify and meet community needs in Bell Hill and Lower Lincoln neighborhoods
- Worcester Energy Barnraisers, an intergenerational group that uses hands-on weatherization barnraisings to educate Worcester residents about simple and low-cost ways to reduce their energy use
- Incubation and Training Collective, an intergenerational group developing video and print curricula and offering resources and support for groups interested in adopting Worcester Roots’ co-operative, community organizing, and/or youth empowerment principles
Students at an in class workshp with Alliance to Develop Power Director of Organizing Shannon Bade. Students broke through their fears and the boards they are holding!
Past Community Partners
Virginia Organizing in Danville and Martinsville, Virginia. Virginia Organizing is a statewide grassroots organization dedicated to challenging injustice by empowering people in local communities to address issues that affect the quality of their lives. Virginia Organizing especially encourages the participation of those who have traditionally had little to no voice in our society. By building relationships with individuals and groups throughout the state, Virginia Organizing strives to get them to work together, democratically and non-violently, for change.
Center for Education Policy and Advocacy in Amherst, MA. CEPA is an agency of the Student Government that works to advocate for and organize around student issues. We are student run and work to create a campus environment that is inclusive of and responsive to the diverse needs of students. This year, CEPA will have four core teams. One team will work on labor issues, supporting our campus workers who run our university but often face economic inequalities. One team will work on gender issues, advocating against sexual violence on campus and addressing concerns of women, transgender folks, and people who identify as queer. One team will work on campus culture, working to create a diverse and inclusive campus community for underrepresented groups. Finally, the last team will work on access and affordability, advocating for more funding for public higher education and more accessible education.
No One Leaves Springfield in Springfield, MA. NOLS is a group of community organizations and organizers dedicated to helping former owners and tenants stay in their homes after foreclosure. NOLS mobilizes tenants and former homeowners living in recently or about to be foreclosed homes (bank tenants) to stop evictions, protect Springfield’s housing and communities, and mobilize bank tenants to fight back against major lending institutions and banks that are tearing our communities apart.
City Life Vida Urbana, Boston, MA
City Life Vida Urbana has been fighting for housing justice for over 30 years. Located in Jamaica Plain, they work using their sword and shield model to block evictions and foreclosures around Boston and across the state. The lawyers they work with help residens to defend against foreclosure and to repurchase their homes at market price. GCO students have worked with City Life over spring break to help keep residents in their homes.
Nuestras Raices, Holyoke MA
Nuestras Raíces is a grassroots organization that promotes economic, human and community development in Holyoke, Massachusetts through projects relating to food and agriculture. The organization maintains an urban community garden on Main Street in Holyoke. The land is meant for Puerto Rican farmers to grow culturally appropriate foods and raise livestock. It has succeeded in bringing pieces of Puerto Rican agriculture to the urban setting of Holyoke. UMass GCD alumni have worked with Nuestras in the past to assist in the development of the TOP Farm Project, a large piece of farmland within the city limits of Holyoke.
New Road Community Development Group, Exmore, VA
New Road is a small, close-knit community within the town of Exmore, VA, a community of about 1500 on Virginia's eastern shore. The New Road Community Development Group was a partner in the first UACT Reverse Spring Break Program, the UMass Summer Camp at New Road, and the NERCHE-New England Resource Center For Higher Education grant on African American Curriculum.
Concerned Citizens for Cape Charles, Cape Charles, VA
Cape Charles is a small community on the eastern shore of Virginia about 20 minutes south of New Road. The partner organization we have worked with there is Concerned Citizens for Cape Charles. They work to combat the effects of gentrification and preserve housing and land for low-income families in Cape Charles in the face of increasing upscale development. They are concerned with the privatization of public space and work to ensure that all residents of Cape Charles will be able to share in its resources.
Nueva Esperanza, Holyoke, MA
Nueva Esperanza, Inc. is a community action program in Holyoke active in promoting development in three sectors: health and human services, housing, and economics. In 2004 UMass GCD students worked with YouthBuild, Nueva's youth development program. YouthBuild is a national program that works with inner city youth who have dropped out of high school. The goal of the program is that students attain their GED and a certificate in construction while working on Nueva's renovation projects. Nueva staff have served as community instructors in UMass classrooms. Members of YouthBuild have made several visits to the UMass campus in an expansion of the Reverse Spring Break program.
Jonestown Community Development Resource and Activity Center, Jonestown, MS
Jonestown is a small, rural, agricultural community about an hour SW of Memphis TN. The Community Development Resource and Activity Center was begun in order to address a multitude of issues facing the community’s youth. This included the creation of a community center and a variety of after school enrichment programs for young people. They are currently attempting to devise economic development programs for the community, provide job training for unemployed adults and create transportation opportunities so residents can have better access to the county seat.
Ivanhoe Civic League, Ivanhoe VA
Ivanhoe sits in Virginia' s historic lead mining district in the SW corner of the state. The Ivanhoe Civic League has been successful in mobilizing community pride and energy to revitalize a community that had been devastated by de-industrialization. In recent years, organized visits by college students have become an important part of the Civic League's strategy for completing important community work. This work includes beautification and renovation within the town as well as work with the elderly and the housebound. The civic league also manages the Virginia Water Project's Volunteers for Community. VFC places college students in 28 different communities throughout the southeast and trains those communities to collaborate successfully with college students to advance local development.