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St. John’s University School of Law student Samantha Ojo is a recipient of the
BASIL A. PATERSON MEMORIAL SCHOLARSHIP D EST I N Y V II Q 2 2019
National Grid Foundation
Basil Paterson Memorial Scholarship Recipients Shine at St. John’s Law By Christine Berardi
From his years at St. John’s University School of Law to becoming a pioneering and prominent labor and employment attorney, Basil A. Paterson carved a path not only for himself but for future lawyers. In addition to his legal and political career, Basil was a National Grid Foundation board member and chairman for 16 years. After his death in April 2014, National Grid Foundation created the Basil A. Paterson Memorial Scholarship so today’s law school students at St. John’s may rise above and create their own future. The $100,000 scholarship from National Grid Foundation provides partial scholarships to St. John’s Law students who have an interest in labor and employment law and who embody the same ideals as Basil once did. The grant was matched through the Law School’s Brennan Family Scholarship Matching Program resulting in an initial fund balance of $200,000.
Basil A. Paterson was a National Grid Foundation board member and chairman for 16 years.
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Destiny newsletter is a quarterly publication created to give you a glimpse into the stories of some of the organizations and programs National Grid Foundation supports.
Editor Creative Director Executive Director
Christine Berardi Pamela Focá Edward H. White Jr.
Destiny Newsletter Issue - VII Q2 2019
National Grid Foundation
“Basil Paterson was a role model for everyone,” said Carmen Fields, Vice-Chairman, National Grid Foundation. “His outstanding legal and political career shaped his legacy and is a stepping stone for talented and gifted students at St. John’s School of Law. The National Grid Foundation is proud to help further Basil’s legacy through the scholarship intended to help students flourish and benefit the greater good.”
Student Recipients Since 2014 when the scholarship was established, St. John’s Law provided financial awards to four students. Samantha Ojo, Class of ’19, is in her third and final year of law school. She is the director of Alumni Relations for the Black Law Students Association, president of the Labor Relations and Employment Law Society, a member of the Journal for Civil Rights and Economic Development and a director of Alumni relations for the Dispute Resolution Society. Currently, she is a law clerk for the Major League Baseball Players Association and will graduate in June 2019.
Previous scholarship winners include: Eugene Ubawike, Jr., the inaugural recipient in 2014, was a labor and employment lawyer with Jackson Lewis P.C. Eugene passed away in August 2017 following complications from an illness. Keith King, who received his scholarship in 2015, was a legal intern with the Queens County District Attorney’s Office-Investigation Division. Graduating in 2016, he currently works as an agency attorney for the New York City Human Resources Administration. Gregory Brown, Jr., received the award for Academic Years 2016-2017 and 2017-2018. During his first year of law school he was selected as a 2016 New York City Bar Diversity Fellow and also served as a Summer Associate at Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C. After graduating in 2018, he now works as an Associate at Milman Labuda Law Group PLLC.❧
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National Grid Foundation’s
Board Member Moment
Marcy Reed Marcy Reed is National Grid Foundation’s newest Board Member. NGF: H ow did you first become interested in National Grid Foundation? Why did you want to join the board of directors? MLR: I ’ve been familiar with the NGF since the KeySpan merger in 2007. At the time, I was responsible for the corporate giving activities in the new company, so the Foundation was a close relative. I’ve long admired its reach into the community and the good that it does. The opportunity to sit on the Board finally allows me to be part of the great work of NGF. I’m excited to join the committed team and Board to help even further leverage the relationship between the Foundation and National Grid. NGF: W hat is your vision for the Foundation? How does your purpose align with the Foundation’s values? MLR: M y vision for the future of the Foundation is for it to further leverage its relationship with National Grid to achieve more funding as well as even stronger brand recognition. I believe the Foundation and the company can and should have a strong brand connection. As a senior executive at the company, I know I can help make this happen. NGF: What makes the Foundation’s mission powerful?
MLR: T hinking globally but acting locally will, I believe, create maximum impact for the communities we serve. Its simplicity is profound. NGF: What motivates you?
MLR: I get out of bed every day with the intent to make a difference somehow, some way. Progress on social issues, climate change strategies, and seeing communities improve is what gets me going. NGF: What interests you most about the work that the Foundation does?
MLR: A s mentioned above, the very basic concept of helping communities with their environmental and educational needs is, for me, the foundational base on which vitality builds. NGF: W here do your strengths fit in with the board?
MLR: M y strengths are in stakeholder engagement, finance, and policy development. I’m confident that all these areas can help in some way on the NGF Board. NGF: Y ou serve on the boards of Blue Cross Blue Shield Massachusetts, Northeastern University, the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce among other organizations. How will your involvement in those organizations help NGF? MLR: T he other organizations where I am a board member are focused on health, wellness, learning, and community vitality. These are all directly related to the NGF and will help me be a productive member of the Board. ❧
Photos courtesy of YearUp
National Grid Foundation
A National Grid Rock Star Visits YearUp By Deborah Drew
This spring (May 2019), National Grid Vice President, Aware to Repair Process, Tatiana Roc, met with students at YearUp to inspire them as they work toward connecting to viable career and education pathways through dual-enrollment at Roxbury Community College and Year Up Greater Boston.
While with the students, Tatiana served as an informal mentor, conducted a “mock” interview, and shared her life and career experience to help motivate these young people on to continued success. YearUp, supported by the National Grid Foundation, provides young adults with the skills, experience, and support that helps them to reach their potential through professional careers and higher education. Mostly youth of color, these young adults come from underserved neighborhoods and have the motivation to succeed, but lack access to resources that enable them to do so – including access to companies who lack access to a viable pool of motivated and diverse talent! Year Up delivers for these youngsters through a teaching and coaching program that combines marketable job skills, stipends, internships, and college credits ❧ Find out more about Yearup please visit: www.yearup.org
Here’s what some of the students shared about their experience with Tatiana:
Her story was very relatable & interesting ... great woman in power
Best speaker we’ve had!
I appreciate your advice on knowing yourself & your triggers
Real perspective about being a woman of color in the workplace
National Grid Foundation
Class of 2018 Noalauni Smith, Anthony Prince Kharon Walton
YB Troy Student – Orange Shirt
Stephanie Szasz, Estella Regist, Jalagiah Spencer Photos courtesy of SEAT
SEAT Students Stepping Up to Rebuild their Lives and Community By Christine Berardi
YouthBuild Schenectady transforms lives and communities at the same time. This Social Enterprise and Training Center (SEAT) program provides a nine-month rigorous full-time education and workforce development training for young people ages 17-24 who are underemployed or who have dropped out of high school. Through National Grid Foundation’s support, more than 40 students who have participated in the program and graduated earlier this year have rebuilt their lives and neighborhood. Gaining valuable, practical work experience, industryrecognized credentials and marketable green building skills, the students have a unique opportunity to help themselves as well as their neighborhood. They participated in a construction project helping to a new affordable housing on Prospect Street in Schenectady, NY.
National Grid Foundation
YouthBuild Schenectady students spend 50% of their time in project based high school equivalency classes, 40% of their time spent on Occupational Skills Training in Construction and 10% of their time is dedicated to Leadership Development Training.
YouthBuild Schenectady students spend their time. Leadership Development Training
Occupational Skills Training in Construction
10%
40%
50%
Project based high school equivalency classes
Many meals will be made and enjoyed in this kitchen. YouthBuild Schenectady students learned various construction skills to build the kitchen cabinets and install the counter tops and island.
SEAT Success
Photos courtesy of SEAT
La’Shey, who dropped out of high school, had no focus or goal and moved from job to job. When a friend told her about YouthBuild Schenectady@SEAT and was intrigued. Participating in YouthBuild, transformed her life. She gained confidence, earned her High School Equivalency and National Center for Construction Education and Research certificate and learned a myriad of skills. After completing the YouthBuild Schenectady program, La’Shey now has an intern position in a Human Resource office with the goal to attend college. “YouthBuild Schenectady@SEAT is not a program for bad kids – it’s a place that gives youth a second chance,” she said. “… Life-changing for the better.” ❧
National Grid Foundation
National Grid Foundation
From the Corner to College College Bound Dorchester Transforms Gang Members, Works to End the Prison Pipeline By Deborah Drew
MISSION: E quip gang-involved youth with the attitude, skills and experience to graduate from college VISION: End cycles of urban poverty, violence and lack of opportunity through education, realizing the full potential of urban cities
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hen you walk down the street of a highly urbanized city, look around at an underserved community and notice young people, especially young people of color, hanging out on a common street corner, what do you REALLY see? The team at College Bound Dorchester, supported by ...
Alex Diaz speaking at our annual We Are Uncornered Gala. Photo: Romana Vysatova
National Grid Foundation
... the National Grid Foundation, sees neighborhood leaders and potential. College Bound Dorchester (Boston) aims to end cycles of urban poverty, violence and lack of opportunity through education. Its mission is to equip gang-involved young people with the attitude, skills and experience to graduate from college and become positive leaders in their community. It calls these young people Core Influencers because they are a small population clustered in small geographic “hotspots” of crime yet have a significant social and economic impact on major urban cities. College Bound engages Core Influencers at the heart of the violence and puts them on a path to being the solution -- transforming neighborhoods that have been stuck in cycles where violence is the norm to those where citizens are realizing their full potential in safe, prosperous communities. And this year alone, they have engaged more than 250 Core Influencers, putting them on a pathway to a post-secondary credential and family-sustaining employment to significantly reduce street violence in target neighborhoods. While Boston is a city of great opportunity, innovation and promise, like many urban cities, it still has too many neighborhoods defined by generational cycles of poverty, street level violence, and a widening gap of economic inequality. Only 1% to 7% of the population drives most of the street violence in only a few communities. They
Frank Melo, 21
Student of Bunker Hill Community College Photo: Romana Vysatova
Frank’s life changed forever when he was arrested the day of his 20th birthday and sentenced to 12 months behind bars. When he was released, he knew he had a decision to make. He could spend his life going back and forth between prison and the streets or he could make something of it. That’s when a friend told him about College Bound. With the support of its staff and the livingwage stipend, Frank is able to focus his full-time on pursuing a degree in Finance.
National Grid Foundation
are often gang-involved youth (16 to 24year old), using their skills and influence for disruption. But, with the right support and opportunities, the only 3,800 gang-involved young people in Boston are agents of change and the solution to unlocking the full potential of communities and urban cities. College Bound Dorchester offers Boston Uncornered : A model program to transform cities by moving gang-involved youth from street corners to college and using their “leadership” to motivate, influence and engage other highly off-track youth. The power of Uncornered – a dual play on words that means getting youth off the street corners and that we have all felt cornered in our lives but have overcome those challenges -- is in recognizing that Core Influencers, are the people with the most destructive power yet their influence, leadership abilities and networks hold the key to unlocking neighborhood potential. College Bound knows that with a collegefocused education that leads to the skill development and career opportunities to turn away from “street corners” for good, Core Influencers can begin to shift social norms in their neighborhoods, decreasing crime, and increasing educational attainment and employment for all. Rather than just focus on removing a young person from gang life, the program’s main goal is to eventually enroll them in a four-year college. To do so, the program, launched in 2017, provides enrollees with a $400 per week stipend for 35 hours of
“For too long we have tried to fix communities without engaging Core Influencers and so the same neighborhoods remain struck in cycles of poverty and disruption. These highly influential young people are the solution and we’re thankful that National Grid Foundation has been a strong partner in this Uncornered work.” – Mark Culliton
CEO of College Bound Dorchester
school, tutoring, and work-based learning to eliminate some of the financial incentives young people have for leaving school and entering gang life. So far, the results have been successful. Mark Culliton, the CEO of College Bound Dorchester, said that while less than 1% of Core Influencers matriculate into college nationally, 70 percent of the Core Influencers they’ve worked with have matriculated into college, and 67 percent continue to progress to a post-secondary credential. With 91% of Core Influencers engage not committing a new violent crime, he expects
National Grid Foundation
“When you deal with someone who is the leader of a basketball team...what happens is that the rest of the team follows...and same thing [happens] within our neighborhoods, and our neighborhood street gangs. If you touch the leader of that crew, what happens is that the rest of the neighborhood catches on and starts to think about doing things in a more positive way.” – Conan Harris
Senior vice president policy and external affairs College Bound Dorchester
the program to save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as much as $700,000 a year by breaking the street to prison pipeline. “For too long we have tried to fix communities without engaging Core Influencers and so the same neighborhoods remain struck in cycles of poverty and disruption. These highly influential young people are the solution and we’re thankful that National Grid Foundation has been a strong partner in this Uncornered work.” There are three core components to the Boston Uncornered model that ensures students engage, progress and persist: Connected Mentors, in which formerly gang-involved men and women are hired
and trained as College Readiness Advisors (CRAs) with the credibility and experience to engage Core Influencers; high expectations are set because it has been proven that when challenged and given support, young people rise to the expectations set for them and move from the corner to, and through, college; and the financial support ganginvolved youth need for holistic support to choose college over the corner is provided. Financial support in the form of living-wage stipends allow students to focus on their education full-time. Conan Harris, senior vice president of policy and external affairs for College Bound Dorchester and former gang member who spent time in prison said, “I am those young people. I grew up in the neighborhood where gangs were just beginning in Boston, and I was involved in a gang as a young man,” he recalled in a recent interview with Boston Public Radio. “What we realized even back then is that if you penetrate the particular neighborhood, and work with folks in a deliberate way, and really give them the opportunity to put the gun away and put something in place of it, that’s when you start to open the door to real opportunity.” Harris continued, “When you deal with someone who is the leader of a basketball team...what happens is that the rest of the team follows...and same thing [happens] within our neighborhoods, and our neighborhood street gangs. If you touch the leader of that crew, what happens is that the rest of the neighborhood catches on and starts to think about doing things in a more positive way.” ❧
National Grid Foundation
UNCORNERED BY THE NUMBERS During the 2018 program year, National Grid Foundation’s support, in part, has: n Served 543 highly off-track youth and young adults, including 169 Core Influencers. Only ~ 35% (1,300 individuals) of Boston’s 3,800 gang-involved young people are the key influencers and “shot callers”. College Bound Dorchester now serves 15% of these young people n Developed an AIR process (Assessing Influence vs. Readiness) which utilizes trained CRAs community knowledge and connections to local gangs/crews and dynamic rivalries to identify and serve the influential/disruptive Core Influencers. CRAs assess students based on factors looking first at their Influence (i.e., are they a leader/”shot caller”, their activity/neighborhood impact, their family history/ prominence) and then on their Readiness (i.e., educational attainment, attendance at tutoring/classes, safety, mental health) n 80% of Core Influencers do not recidivate. When students engage in Uncornered programming, they decrease their involvement in disruptive behaviors and do not return to jail (compared to the 50% recidivism rate in Massachusetts) n 70% matriculation rate among Core Influencers (compared to the national rate of less than 1% for similar students) n 67% persistence rate among Core Influencers. When students enroll in college, they receive holistic supports that ensure they persist. Nationally, community college persistence rates hover below 50% n 18 proven-risk students (7 Core Influencers) obtained post-secondary credential/higher wage employment
Alex Diaz, 31
Student of Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology Photo: Romana Vysatova
Alex was born and raised in Dorchester. By the ninth grade, he had dropped out of school and was hanging on the streets with a local crew. His choices eventually led to him being incarcerated for eight years. Wanting a better life for himself and his daughter, Alex joined College Bound upon his release. Five years after later, he has graduated from Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology (BFIT) with a certificate in Electrical Engineering. In January 2019, Alex expects to return to BFIT to continue his education and earn his Associate’s degree.
National Grid Foundation
CHELSEA COLLABORATIVE:
Let’s Get Ready! By Deborah Drew
Andrea is a wife and mother of a small child. She has a great deal of restaurant experience, but is limited by her understanding and English-speaking capability. Enter the Chelsea Collaborative. Under the Collaborative, which is located in Chelsea, MA, Andrea attended several sessions of skill building and received personal support, which includes training and education in work-readiness, English as a second language, computers, and “soft”-skills. With this skill building helping to get her ready, Andrea achieved her goal to attend the International Institute of New England’s job-training program that helps that provide job opportunities for newcomers to the United States who have medium proficiency in English and a minimum of six months of work experience in the United States.
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ndrea believes that without the Collaborative’s support and skills building sessions, she would not have been recently hired by Encore Boston Harbor, a luxury resort and casino located in Everett, MA. Andrea starts her new job in June and hopes to work a day shift, a welcome change from the evening job she currently holds. Andrea says she is extremely grateful for the support she received and the referral to outside training. She hopes to continue in the culinary industry and be able to help with the financial sustainability of her family, along with remaining a resident of the City of Chelsea. Andrea’s story is not unique to the Chelsea Collaborate, the only Latino-led organization in Chelsea. It offers a collection of community initiatives – developed and led by residents
– to address persistent issues of inequity, which negatively impact the well-being of Chelsea residents, particularly those most vulnerable, such as children, immigrants, and refugees. Its initiatives meet the basic needs of Chelsea residents, foster leadership and citizenship among newcomers, develop the next generation of leaders, respond effectively to crises, and create systemic change that increases equity and justice for years to come. It works with the community through direct services and case management in the shortterm, and through community organizing targeting systems of power that perpetuate inequity in the long-term. The mission of the Chelsea Collaborative is to empower Chelsea residents to enhance the social and economic health of the community
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Chelsea Gets Ready, is supported by the National Grid Foundation. Most recently it graduated 300 people from its programs and currently has more than 400 clients in the pipeline. Photos: Courtesy of Chelsea Collaborative
and its people; and to hold institutional decision makers accountable to the community The Chelsea Collaborative’s Workforce Development Pipeline for adults, Chelsea Gets Ready, is supported by the National Grid Foundation. Most recently it graduated 300 people from its programs and currently has more than 400 clients in the pipeline. Programs and learning opportunities offered at the Collaborative include skill-building courses in English language, literacy, technology, citizenship, and job readiness. In partnership with BEST Hospitality Training, as an example, it use assessments from BEST’s English for Hospitality to incorporate language proficiency, technological skills and financial literacy into its English as a second language classes, contextualizing them for the hospitality industry. Members participating in these ESOL classes increased competency in general English/vocabulary skills; green facility practices; grammar; technology; and more. Its career advising services help underserved people determine “best-fit” pathways, complete resumes,
and identify job openings. It also adds one-onone case management which connects people to wraparound supports and benefits that enable them to meet basic needs while investing in new skills development or career pathways. Building upon its history of organizing daylaborers and engaging them with local reputable employers, it uses its community outreach connections to focus on specific career paths and enhances the socio-economic status of participants by offering educational opportunities, upward mobility, and long-term stability within their own community. Chelsea Gets Ready addresses barriers faced by Chelsea residents by linking them to services, education, and work readiness training and/or direct job placement in expanding industries such as hospitality, trade unions, and more. It engages with several local employers-such as the Encore Boston Harbor gaming facility, WashCycle Laundry, Cataldo Ambulance, and local hotels and trade unions-- to achieve the shared goals for economic development in Chelsea. ❧
“ The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” Socrates