Pulse Magazine: The practice and importance of community engagement reporting

Table of contents 01

02

Purpose

03

Westward Ho

09

Children First Leadership Academy

11

CFLA Donation Drive

13

CFLA Workshop

17

Engagement in action

19

Final reflection

About the author

Savannah Rose Healani Dagupion is an honors student at Arizona State University double majoring in journalism and English.

She is the editor-in-chief of ASU’s independent print and digital magazine, State Press Magazine, and she has been at The State Press since the Fall 2021 semester. Savannah is a freelance reporter for the worldwide travel journalism company Lonely Planet, and her work was recently published in its latest “blue spine” guidebook on Maui. She is a digital marketing specialist at the Cronkite Agency and a member of the Asian American Journalists Association. Savannah was on the Spring 2022 editorial board for Write On, Downtown: A Journal of Phoenix creativity, in which she wrote profiles and curated poetry and prose. In 2021, she was recognized as Hawaiʻi’s Journalist of the Year by the Journalism Educators Association.

Savannah hopes to become a reporter or editor in print/digital journalism with the goals of diversifying coverage, representing underrepresented communities, and focusing on the social work sphere.

Purpose The way I see it, community is always at the core of journalism. Journalism is a public service meant to strengthen democracy and enrich the public through reliable information; therefore, it should address the needs of the public and accurately reflect those within its community. By doing so, journalists uncover stories that resonate with people, promoting awareness and engagement. Essentially, this is community engagement reporting — the symbiotic relationship between journalists and their communities.

Community engagement reporting pushes journalists to step outside of the traditional practice, which prioritizes expert sourcing, a fastpaced news cycle, objectivity, and neutrality.

First, community engagement reporting requires a journalist to analyze their role in the community or society — whether that be their identity, their biases or what makes them unique — and use that analysis to determine how that role can influence their reporting. This is a vital first step because it acknowledges that objectivity doesn’t always have to be the standard and that reporting processes can vary.

Second, it requires a journalist to immerse themself in a community, which means talking to community members, observing things that aren’t typically seen in surface-level interviews, and even being a part of certain activities or functions. This is where the engagement happens — where the journalist can identify community needs, and where the journalist will find the content of their story or project. This is also where transparency happens — the community is exposed to the reporting process, resulting in a stronger trust in the media.

Third, it requires a journalist to produce something useful and meaningful. If the second step is conducted successfully, this third step

should be a no-brainer — there should be no shortage of ideas on how to serve the community the second step was conducted in.

This third step will look different each time, but it typically results in solidarity journalism, solutions journalism, accessibility, or a creative, community-centered activity.

Pulse Magazine seeks to highlight the process and result of community engagement reporting in communities. This issue focuses on housing insecurity and homelessness in Phoenix at different stages of life.

The first community is the Westward Ho, a subsidized housing complex for elderly and individuals with disabilities. My purpose for working with the Westward Ho was to cover the complexities surrounding housing insecurity and homelessness through personal stories. I felt that humanizing housing insecurity would make the topic digestible and relatable, encourage readers to care, and improve mine and my readers’ understandings of a situation seldom reported on and experienced.

The second community is the Children First Leadership Academy, a nonprofit K-12 charter school that serves students and families experiencing housing insecurity or homelessness. My purpose for working with the CFLA was to not only cover it as a unique school, but also serve its students through a workshop and donation drive. I quickly learned that unlike other schools, CFLA fills students’ needs both in and out of school and that a simple report wouldn’t do this school justice; therefore, a community engagement reporting project was born.

Finally, I checked in with working journalists who implement community engagement reporting into their process to see how it has influenced their outlook on the industry.

02

When Gail Barton was homeless, she’d pray or watch the people and cars go by to pass time. One time, she excitedly shared, there was a narcotics bust next to her set up, which meant four hours of free entertainment. She watched from the other side of the fence as officers and K-9s busted six guys.

She described her experience being homeless as “[not] too bad,” despite also saying that she was robbed about six or seven times at gun and knifepoint.

She stayed calm while they ransacked her things, and she let them leave when they didn’t find anything valuable. If it wasn’t already clear, she has an optimistic outlook on life and a thickskinned mentality.

Luckily, at 72 years old, Gail doesn’t have to worry about those things anymore. Now, she lives at the Westward Ho, a subsidized housing complex for the elderly and individuals with disabilities, with her cat Baby, who is “one of the most important things” in her life. “She is what is keeping me going because if I didn’t have her, I really wouldn’t care,” she said.

Gail is from Omaha, Nebraska.

Growing up, she said, she had a childhood but didn’t at the same time.

Her parents both worked two or three jobs at a time, so her mother always left her notes on what was for dinner or what needed to be done around the house.

“She would tell me what had to be done so it’s all done by the time they got home,” she said. “I had to make sure my homework was done or the housework was done.”

Her family only had one car, so she vividly remembers the days her parents couldn’t drive her to school. They lived 18 miles away, and at the time, there were no city or school buses, so she had to walk.

“If it snowed or rained, especially in the winter time, you had to get up at 4:30 in the morning, get out there and scoop everything before you ever got dressed to leave for school — and we

lived on a brick street, and brick is very slippery,” she said.

School had a big influence on Gail’s life. A lot of the time, school was tough because there weren’t enough books for everyone, so classmates had to share.

That meant Gail would have to wait until someone finished their assignment to do hers, which also meant she couldn’t get her work done because they wouldn’t give her the books she needed.

“You had to always watch out for all the bratty kids,” she said. “I call them that because they'd like to steal your books or do whatever they could just to be rowdy.”

Her parents spoke to the school, but, according to Gail, the school didn’t do anything. Seventeen days into her senior year, she got too fed up with people stealing things like books, coats and other personal belongings.

“I just said, ‘The heck with it,’” she said. “I threw my books down, walked out the door, and I never went back, so I never graduated. I'm not happy about the situation, but I wasn't getting anywhere. And I figure I'd learn more than I would have ever learned if I had the books. There's street smarts and then there's smart smarts, and I've learned both.”

To make a living, she took odd jobs helping people, like being a caregiver, driving people to their doctor’s appointments, getting people’s groceries, and doing laundry and housekeeping.

She was married and had her son at 19 years old, but she and her husband split due to problems he was experiencing after his military service.

He got checked in to Veterans Affairs, and Gail had a low income and experienced homelessness, so they argued over whose parents were going to take care of their son. Eventually, Gail’s parents took him in.

“He was about two years old when I gave him to them, but I kept contact with him all the time,” she said. “My mom and dad told him about the

situation, why I did what I did, and so he didn’t hold any grudges against me or anything like that.”

In 1983, Gail ended up in Arizona under unanticipated circumstances.

One of her friends told her that his son was getting married in Arizona, but a woman in the wedding party got sick and couldn’t be in it anymore, so he offered that Gail be in it. Gail didn’t have enough money to go to Arizona, so they paid for her ticket. However, it was a one-way ticket, leaving her stuck in Arizona.

She made a living doing what she did in Nebraska but still experienced housing insecurity and homelessness.

The biggest problem she said she faced during this time was having patience while waiting for shelters or resources.

“I still got applications all over … but unless [someone] either passes away or gets moved to a different facility, [you’ll remain on waiting lists],” she said.

On Oct. 7, 2022, she moved into the Westward Ho. She likes that she has a roof over her head and a place where her cat can run around.

“I like TV now that I can watch it again,” she said. “I play with my kitty, I like cooking, I like cleaning up, talking and visiting friends, having coffee, and just general stuff like that. I have a few friends here.”

Her brother and her son are still in Nebraska, and she talks with them occasionally. The only time she went back to Nebraska was for her mother’s funeral, as she usually can’t afford to go back.

“I wish I could ... live there, but I’d probably never get back there,” she said. However, she does have dreams of going to the Grand Canyon one day.

Gail had some final advice to anyone reading: “Just be alert and watch your surroundings. Be friendly. Don’t be overbearing — sometimes I can be at times, but I try not to be. Always be on your toes for safety reasons. That’s one thing I learned being homeless. Be on your guard.”

04

Staying positive seems to be William Howard’s mantra for life. It’s unclear where it stems from, considering he’s been through a lot. Perhaps it’s his lust for life, or perhaps it comes from his sidekick Nemo, a little chihuahua dachshund mix that goes with him everywhere. But whatever it is, he attributes his positivity to getting himself out of homelessness and into the Westward Ho. William was born in 1953 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was raised in the Bronx, New York. As a kid, he was “hard headed,” always getting into some kind of trouble. At the age of 17, he dropped out of high school but quickly realized that he couldn’t get a job — “I didn’t have no skills, so I couldn’t do nothing,” he said — so he decided to join the Navy, following in his father’s footsteps. However, because he didn’t graduate high school, the Navy redirected him to the Army, and he enlisted. “[The Army will] take you even if you’re dumb as a brick, and they took me, dumb as a brick,” he said.

05

In the Army, he got his GED and learned discipline. “I can clean my own house, I can wash my own clothes, I can iron my own clothes, I can mend my own clothes, I can G.I. my house because that’s what the military taught me,” he said.

He also got to travel abroad at the ages of 18, 19 and 20, going to places like Bangkok, Thailand; Sydney, Australia; Rota, Spain; and Berlin, Germany. He explained his experience in service by saying that going to Vietnam was “something that [he] had to do, [but] thank the lord [he] made it back.”

When his service was complete, he was discharged in Fort Meade, Maryland, which is where he found the next stage of his life: working for a traveling carnival.

When asked if he operated the games, his answer was a resounding “no,” almost as if he was offended. “I was a ride operator,” he said proudly.

“I was not a jointee, which is the stick joints, the games and all that. Ride jocks and jointees do not get along

together.” He worked for the Strates Shows, putting on carnivals in big cities from Florida to Maine.

“My ride was a big people ride — my ride was the Himalaya,” he said. “It would go forward, go backward. I spun the music that was for the ride because the big rides had sound systems on ‘em. I could make my own mixes, ‘long as it was friendly with no cussing.”

However, the fun and excitement of the job eventually got to him, and after 15 years, he ended his carnival career, settling in Gainesville, Florida.

“It’s just that I got tired because that’s for young people to do; I put in my time,” he said. “The owner told me, ‘Come on Willy Bo, give me one more year.’ One more year ended up 15.”

Some time after leaving the carnival, William ended up back in his hometown of New York City. It’s unclear how or why he got there, but he experienced homelessness there.

“It’s nothing like being homeless [in Arizona],” he said. “It’s big, the shelters is full with peoples. It’s not a

good environment because some places you go sleep in midtown Manhattan, you wake up with no shoes. … And I mean, the shoes that was taken was a beat up pair of tennies, so I guess somebody wanted my tennies so they took ‘em off my feet.”

William said being homeless in New York “takes it out of you.” He explained that when it was cold, he’d lay on steam grates and get used to how hot they were. “It’ll score you, but it’s either that, or sit on the street in 15 degree and below weather,” he said.

After a year, he went back to Gainesville, Florida, through a program that gives individuals experiencing homelessness transportation back to where they came from. When he got back, he lived in shelters and held a few jobs here and there, but he ultimately decided that Florida was not for him. “That’s when I got [a] vehicle and said, ‘I’m out of here. I’m going west,’” he said.

Five years ago, William bought a car for $500 and headed for San Francisco. Along the way, he stopped at a QuikTrip in Arizona to use the bathroom. When he got back into the car to continue his journey, the head gasket blew, and William has been in Arizona ever since, living out his first few months in Arizona homeless.

“I’ll tell you what, it’s really a blessing,” he said. “If I wouldn’t have broke down here, I might still be homeless in San Francisco — and so maybe it was in the cards that I break down here.”

Soon after, he adopted Nemo from an animal shelter. He went in initially wanting a middle-aged, big dog; however, the animal shelter had all the small dogs in the front, and then 1-year-old Nemo caught William’s attention. “He just took my heart,” he said. “I didn’t really want a little dog.”

William listed Central Arizona Shelter Services as his address so he could adopt Nemo, and ever since then, the two of them have been taking on the world together.

“People say, ‘A homeless person shouldn’t have a pet,’” William said.

“But they gotta realize that you see a lot of homeless who got pets that are well taken care of than people who got houses. … I mean, look at him. He never missed no meals, even out there he never went hungry.”

The way William sees it is that Nemo takes care of him. Nemo was a big motivator for William to get a roof over their heads. Often, William would “fly the sign” — he had two signs, one for himself and one for Nemo, that said things like “homeless” or “hungry.”

“I stayed positive,” he said about his attitude while he was homeless. “I didn’t let myself get run down. When I put my mind to getting some place to live … I kept my eye on the prize. … I may be homeless, but I’m not helpless.”

And his determination worked. One day, when he and Nemo were sleeping on a bench, a security guard woke him up and said “You and your dog shouldn’t be here. I’ll tell you, go right down to the Westward Ho down there, put in an application,” according to William.

At that moment, he already had applications filed at nine different places, but he thought it wouldn’t hurt to try another one. Westward Ho was the first place to get back to him, and he moved in on Nov. 19, 2019.

“That’s pretty lucky because a couple more months I would have been caught out there [during the COVID19 pandemic]. I just thank the lucky stars,” he said.

Now, William enjoys the little things about having a place to live, like locking his own door, taking a shower

and eating when he wants to. He said he even loves paying his bills.

“I’m retired, I stay at home, I got my music, I got my big screen TV,” he said. “I just sit at home and chill because all I gotta do is just sit in my golden years and relax. … Me and Nemo sit, we eat, we listen to music, watch videos.”

“I wanted to get out the street,” he added. “… that concrete out there ain’t no joke. … I love it here. I love my neighbors. … When I first moved in, I said, ‘Only way you gonna get me up out of here is if you blow me up out of here with dynamite and pull me out with a bulldozer.’”

One instance that stuck out to him while he was homeless was when three girls, who attended Grand Canyon University at the time, stopped to talk to him and Nemo for three hours.

“They asked me questions, we laugh, we joke, we had a good time,” he said. “I’m not invisible. People walk past like I’m not even there. I mean, acknowledge me. … You don’t have to give me nothing. Just say, ‘How’s your day?’ … If you see somebody homeless, say hi. I mean, just recognize that they’re human too.”

But it wasn’t just the way they stopped and talked that stuck out to him. Afterward, they told their classmates to donate things to him.

“They didn’t have to do that,” he said.

On top of that, when he finally got his own place at the Westward Ho, he called them to share the good news, and they got him housewarming gifts like dishes, towels, sheets and pillowcases.

“That made me feel real good,” he said.

When asked what his final word of advice is to anyone reading, he said, “For somebody who’s out there: You gotta have faith in yourself. You can’t say [you] give up.”

06

“Chance. When you think of the pivotal points in my life, chance,” said Barbara Brown, a 79-year-old Westward Ho resident.

Barbara was born in the Bronx, New York, and grew up in Queens. Living only a block away, she vividly remembers going to the beach every day with her three other siblings.

Her mother was a housewife who made money typing up things like labels — because she was a fast typer — and eventually got a job in the office at their apartment complex. Her father was a “street kid who never got past the 8th grade” but was a car salesman for most of her life.

The six of them lived in a humble two bedroom, one bathroom apartment in which her parents slept in the living room. Barbara recalled being in high school and bringing dates home. She and her date would have to walk past her parents in the living room, and her father would knock on the wall when it was time for her date to leave.

07

Barbara’s first introduction to chance was in the ninth grade when she sat next to one of the smartest girls in the class. Barbara never really got good grades and slacked off often, but she said meeting this girl changed her life.

“I was always bright, but I was not disciplined,” she said. “Her house was quiet, she had her own room, and I’d go there every day in high school to study for the regents. I got some of the highest grades studying with her.”

Barbara graduated high school and went to the University of Buffalo, becoming the first in her immediate family to go to college. She majored in English and graduated in three and a half years. In her junior year, she met someone, and they got married having only known each other for six weeks.

According to Barbara, it was “against [her] parent’s advice” and “very impetuous.” It didn’t end up working out, but it wasn’t Barbara’s last relationship.

After graduating college, she got

her first job teaching the sixth grade, which was “terrible” because she wanted to teach older students.

Meanwhile, she got her Master’s degree and “finally” got a job teaching high schoolers. Then, she ended up working in Manhattan after her friend from high school’s mother, who worked for the board of education, helped her secure a job there. “I was very lucky to get this wonderful apartment for $300 a month across from the UN with a doorman and everything,” she said.

Every summer she would go to Europe, which was helpful for her lessons — she taught Julius Caesar, so she would go to Rome and the Colosseum. One summer she was headed off to Europe, so she figured she’d rent out her apartment for the time being. Apparently “they sent [her] this very good looking English guy to rent [her] apartment.”

Her second brush with chance came when her ship to Europe was delayed. The guy was already renting

out her apartment, so she decided to stay with a friend but go to her apartment every day to feed her cat.

She and the guy got to know each other, and one thing led to another.

Eventually, they moved to London together and got married a few months after they moved.

After living in London for a year, Barbara’s husband got a work assignment in Phoenix, so they moved. Barbara got her real estate license and worked in Scottsdale.

She said her third brush with chance came when the top salesperson where she worked said, “Barbara, why are you doing real estate? Anybody could do that. You have a legal mind. You could go to law school.”

At this point she was 30 years old, so she was worried about how long it would take her to go through law school and start practicing law. But eventually she was convinced, studying law at ASU and becoming a sole practitioner in law for over 20 years.

One moment that stood out to her in her law career was when she wrote the legal memorandum for Planned Parenthood to get birth control allowed to be prescribed at ASU’s health services.

“In the late 70s when I went to ASU, the student health center had doctors,” she said. “As a woman, you could get an exam, you could get your pap test, but they wouldn’t give you prescriptions for birth control. So I wrote the legal memorandum with an attorney from Planned Parenthood, and we convinced the Board of Regents to change the policy.”

Because of this, she got her “15 minutes of fame.” Newspapers, TV stations and radio stations called her

all wanting to hear the birth control story. She even said Lawyer John Frank, who was a part of landmark cases like Brown v. Board of Education and Miranda v. Arizona, introduced her to an attorney who worked on the Roe v. Wade case.

She emphasized that throughout her time being a lawyer, she mainly enjoyed civil rights cases, which she accidentally fell into, initially wanting to be a real estate lawyer.

“The only way I got veered off — again, chance — from real estate law was because I got mad about birth control pills,” she said. “I was good at [being a lawyer], and I was fearless because I’d be against the top law firms, just me, and they knew if I didn’t settle good, they weren’t gonna scare me with all their depositions.”

Unfortunately, Barbara was suspended from the bar association for six months and a day because of a “failure to adhere to a reasonable request of the bar.”

“There was a conflict with my best client,” she said. “His daughter was the one who used to pay his bills, and they asked me to do a bankruptcy and divorce for her niece, which I didn’t like doing. I took the money that she gave me and put it to her father’s bill — she was the money person. The bar said I shouldn’t have put the money on this account when it was for that account. It was $1,000, so I just paid him back so the money wasn’t an issue anymore.”

According to her, the bar wanted her to pay $1,000 per year for someone to watch her on probation and to watch her practice after the suspension. She declined to do so.

“My best friend was a judge, and she said, ‘Barbara, I’ll give you the money. Don’t fight the bar.’ But I’m

stubborn. That’s me,” Barbara said.

After she stopped doing law, she substitute taught, which she said is why her income got so low.

She added that there was another situation that led her to be low income, and eventually, housing insecure.

“I sort of self-destructed,” she said.

“Unfortunately, I have a history of impetuous romantic decisions. I met this guy in my office, and he’s the one who I lived with for 15 years on and off and got nothing from that.”

After trying to describe the situation and settling on the fact that it was a “questionable case,” she made it clear that he promised her a place to live, but she got thrown out.

That, coupled with her low income, led her to being “borderline homeless,” during which she figured out where to stay month to month, whether it was a shed or a friend’s house.

She eventually moved into the Westward Ho in October 2020 and has lived there since. Currently, she has hopes and dreams of starting a newspaper, traveling to Italy and settling her suspension with the bar so she can officially retire.

Summing up her life, she said she’s a lifelong learner — always asked questions and was always independent. A conversation with her mother stuck out to her: “I said, ‘If you had your life to live over, how would you live your life?’ and she said, ‘Like yours.’ I said, ‘But why? I’m always hand to mouth.’ She said, ‘Because you answer to no one.

You do what you want to do.’”

Her final word of advice to anyone reading? “Think more of the future,” she said. “I made choices that didn't protect my money.”

08

Children First Leadership Academy campus helps students in and out of the classroom A Phoenix school that primarily serves low income families has unique curriculum and resources to help students succeed *Note: This article was finished on May 2, 2023, as part of a final project for a Community Engagement Reporting class. It was never published.

When David Ollarsaba was a junior, he got kicked out of his public high school for not going to class and not doing his work. Learning at the same pace as everyone else, he often lost focus and fell behind.

“I was very far behind in math,” he said. “I’d look away for a minute, and then next thing you know, we’re on the whole next year … I was like, I don't understand this at all.”

Ollarsaba knew he needed help from his teacher; however, he was uncomfortable asking in an environment where he barely knew his teacher or his classmates.

Now, the 18-year-old is set to graduate from Sequoia Online Learning Center Phoenix in May. The Sequoia Online Learning Center Phoenix is based out of the Children First Leadership Academy campus, which is a school known for addressing students’ needs beyond traditional schooling through unique resources.

Ollarsaba started at Sequoia in January 2021 as a junior, and despite being at a freshman level in math, he was able to catch up by doing four years of math in two years with support from Elisha Flynn, an academic coach at Sequoia, and RightPath, a program that helps students reach their academic goals.

“It’s way easier to ask for help here, and get that help, than at a normal high school,” he said.

Addressing needs beyond education The Children First Leadership Academy campus is tucked on the corner of 16th and Mohave streets between a vast, arid neighborhood and the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport.

Mural-splashed walls, long hallways lined with posters, a cozy library and the abundance of classrooms mask the building’s previous identity as a Food City.

In July 2008, CFLA opened its doors as Children First Academy Phoenix under Edkey, a nonprofit charter school support organization.

09

According to Jerry Lewis, Edkey assistant superintendent, the name was changed to emphasize the school's efforts to help children recognize and develop their leadership skills.

CFLA was born in July 2008 from a series of Maricopa County alternative schools known as the Thomas J. Pappas schools, which mainly served students experiencing homelessness. However, the schools eventually shut down due to funding troubles.

“In January 2008, Edkey was approached by concerned members of the Schoolhouse Foundation to consider providing a charter for the Tempe and Phoenix Pappas Schools because they were being shut down and the children needed a stable learning environment,” Lewis said in an email.

After months of research, Edkey CEO Ron Neil decided that it was a moral imperative to keep the schools open and perpetuate the mission of the Pappas schools, according to Lewis.

Today, the CFLA campus houses multiple programs with more than 250 students enrolled: The Children First Leadership Academy, a K-8 charter school The Sequoia Online Learning Center Phoenix, which provides personalized learning to students seeking high school education The Kinetic Education Learning Lab for Youth program, a school for students with behavioral and emotional needs The TERRA program, a school for students with autism The Black Mothers Forum, an educational organization that aims to end the school-to-prison pipeline.

“I don't think it’s necessarily that we’re independent programs,” said Danielle Hainsworth, a CFLA health aide. “It’s that we’re all working together at the same campus to provide services for these families and what their needs are.”

Aside from its multiple programs, the school is unique in the community it serves and the resources it provides.

Though it’s available to anyone in

Phoenix, children and families experiencing housing instability or with a lower income have historically attended CFLA. Because the school serves families that are more transient, many students live outside of the school’s immediate vicinity.

“Outside of the school, [families] might not know where they're sleeping that night,” Flynn said. “They might not know what they're going to eat, what they're going to wear … but at least here, they know what's going on … And so being that support, being that constant, is super important when everything else is not.”

With serving this particular community, the CFLA campus often fills the needs of their students that are not being met outside of school.

Offering a change in mindset When Skye Jones, a junior at Sequoia, got sick, she needed soup. But as an 18-year-old who no longer lives with her parents or immediate family, getting that simple necessity posed a challenge: she didn’t have any soup at home, nor would she have food stamps for another three days. Luckily, she was able to get cans of soup from the CFLA donation room.

Jones started attending Sequoia as a freshman after falling behind at Dobson High School. Through Sequoia, she has been able to catch up on all her credits with the help of RightPath and its online program Arizona Distance Learning.

She is looking forward to returning to Dobson for her senior year.

“The reason why I’m moving schools is because it's a Mesa public school, and then Mesa Community College is offering two years free for college,” she said. “And that's what I want to do is to get those two years for free and just figure out what I want to do.”

Attending college wasn’t at the forefront of Jones’ mind before she caught up, but looking at her progress through Sequoia has given her a sense of accomplishment.

“The school is mostly kids that have to raise themselves or are on their own for whatever reason,” Hainsworth said. “That's what the school is focused on: helping (students) deal with those boundaries that they may have outside of school so that they can focus on school … Now she sees herself going to college. Now she sees herself finishing high school, where I felt like there was a split second in time where it could have been a fork in the road.”

Not only did Sequoia help her academically, but it has also given her a safe space that, according to Jones, is “definitely better than home.”

“When I'm home, it's more of a negative thing around me — that's what it feels like,” she said. “Knowing that I have access to get here and do school made life easier being away from that house.”

Despite being able to aid students in various facets of life, CFLA still faces challenges, with its biggest challenge being transportation.

According to Hainsworth, CFLA serves many families without vehicles and isn’t a community school, so trying to find buses for students who live across Phoenix has been difficult.

Jones wakes up at 5 a.m., leaves her house at 6:20 a.m. to catch the city bus and arrives at school by 7:20 a.m. After school,

she’ll usually go to different places with friends and hang out until she tries to get home before 9 p.m. if she’s walking.

Many other students resort to the city bus, which has posed safety issues and uncomfortable situations.

Jones said she has many stories about her experience taking the city bus everyday.

With strangers trying to talk to her, getting followed and people trying to play with the charms on her backpack, Jones is familiar with navigating unsolicited social situations.

“I've learned to just not deal with it or interact with it as much,” she said. “I usually keep to myself.”

Another challenge is establishing communication with families who can’t afford a phone or a phone plan. Hainsworth said she has to jump through a lot of hoops to contact a student’s family when they’re sick.

Hainsworth added that the school is constantly in need of funds and donations because they depend on it to function. She said everything a child needs, the school needs.

“Believe it or not, it seems like there's a lot here, but right now, if you're aware of what's happening in our community, there's a lot of homelessness, there's a lot of people living in housing instability, all the agencies that we have — everybody's strained for resources and our resources are limited,” Hainsworth said. “We are willing to take whatever help that we can get.”

What makes it different Across Edkey’s 28 schools and programs, the CFLA campus is the only one that services this demographic and has its specific resources, according to Hainsworth.

The school partners with agencies like Phoenix Children’s Hospital and the Bob & Renee Parsons Children’s Dental Clinic so

students can have access to healthcare. It also partners with local educational and resilience-building programs like RightPath, Free Arts, Kids in Focus and Community Schools Initiative.

Within the school, students and faculty have access to showers and a laundry room — resources often not available to the school’s population.

“They feel the same feelings that all the other kids feel, so it's not like they're comfortable being dirty,” Hainsworth said.“They have phones. They see these people on Instagram or TikTok … They want to be like that too.”

She added that the mentality of the school is to provide resources that tend to whatever roadblocks — emotional, mental or physical — students may be dealing with.

Another aspect of life some CFLA students struggle with is having a place to regularly sleep. The school is understanding and allows students to catch up on rest during the day if they’re feeling tired.

“I had students that’d be sleeping in a car, like a family of seven in a tiny car,” Flynn said. “They’re exhausted, they didn’t get any sleep, so they’re sleeping here. But to provide a place like a little corner or a bed where they can just take a quick nap and then get back to work has just been so helpful for the student to … focus on the importance of education.”

The Children First Foundation provides much of the funding to keep CFLA functioning. Through the foundation, the school is able to stock its donation room with food, clothes and hygiene products that students and faculty have access to whenever needed.

“Most people that work here believe education is the out to poverty,” Hainsworth said. “That is the solution to ending a cycle — them being able to get education to be self independent — to not live in poverty to be able to get a job.”

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Donation Drive The most unique part about the Children First Leadership Academy, in my opinion, is its donation room. Essentially, a lot of CFLA students don’t have access to basic necessities outside of school, and so the donation room is there to fill their needs so that troubles outside of school don’t impact their education. Anyone can donate to the CFLA donation room, so long as the items are needed, in good shape and unopened. Then, if a student needs anything, like clothes, snacks or hygiene products, they can notify a staff member and get what they need.

As soon as CFLA health aide Danielle Hainsworth told me about the donation room and gave me a tour, I knew I wanted to hold a donation drive. However, I wanted my donation drive to be sustainable and have an impact on both parties involved. What I realized is that a lot goes to waste when college students move out of their dorms; therefore, I made move-out the premise of my donation drive and collected items from students throughout move-out week.

I advertised my donation drive through a flier

(seen on the opposite page) that I got posted in on-campus housing newsletters, I placed on bulletin boards in student housing, and I posted on social media. I worked with Hainsworth to ensure that only the most necessary items were listed on the flier so that the school didn’t get stuck with impractical items, and Hainsworth was really helpful in giving me feedback on my flier.

The flier is proven to be successful, as I did this in May 2023 and May 2024, and both times I was able to bring CFLA a great amount of items to stock their donation room with.

Writing the article was one thing, but helping the school meet its needs was an entirely different feeling I have never gotten from journalism before — it made the written piece feel more complete and worthwhile. I feel happy to have impacted this school beyond what’s typical in journalism, but I’m even more grateful for the impact this school has had on me. This project made me fall in love with journalism again, and it’s driven me to want to do more projects like these in the future.

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Workshop After sitting down and chatting with Elisha Flynn, academic coach for the high school students based out of Children First Leadership Academy, I learned that the high schoolers aren’t given much exposure to post-high plans, let alone feel like higher education is accessible.

Acknowledging the privilege I have as someone who had college resources in high school and is now attending a university, I realized that I can help in some way. Therefore, I pitched the idea of hosting a journalism workshop with the students to Flynn, and she was immediately on board.

What I didn’t think about that Flynn pointed out is that the students would be receptive to me because I’m close to their age and because they never get the opportunity to listen to people speak about the future, so I created a lesson plan tailored to the students. My goal for the workshop was to center it around what I know — journalism and community engagement — and use that as a platform to get them thinking about their own futures.

First, I introduced them to traditional journalism versus community engagement reporting. Then, I held an interactive portion in which the students interviewed each other for five minutes with the goal of learning about each others’ futures. I gave them some questions, but I

also taught them how to ask follow up questions.

I thought they would be apprehensive to participate, but they were completely willing to take this exercise seriously. At the end, they even shared what they learned about each other. The next part of my lesson plan was the creative portion. The premise behind this portion was to show students that journalism can be creative — that it goes beyond news writing. Therefore, I gave them 30 minutes to create something — whether it was a poem, story or picture — based on what they imagine their future to be (the interview portion should have gotten their ideas flowing on their future selves). I showed them some examples of creative pieces, but they were very eager to start, so I gave them markers, colored pencils, papers and even some juice and snacks (because that also helps the creative juices flow), and they began. The results are on the opposing page. A lot of them drew characters because they wanted to be an artist or an animator. Others had interest in entering the medical field, playing soccer, being a good mother, working in construction, or being a teacher. They were having so much fun being creative that they didn’t want it to end, but we did have to wrap up, so I let them know that they could reach out to me if they had any questions.

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“{Community engagement reporting] is the best way to involve the communities [we] report on in the work we do, and in my opinion, the backbone of journalism. It’s important because it brings journalists back to the beginning of what makes journalism exist in the first place: the community. It’s the most accurate way to report, because the story comes from the community, not what the journalist thinks about the community. It helps the current journalism climate by reminding everyday people that journalists are also often part of the communities that they report on, and can help restore trust between reporters and the wider community. It lets people know that journalist is there to serve them, to help their community, and to get valuable information out into communities.

“Community engagement journalism is what made me want to stay in the industry in the first place. Before I learned about it, I was in a really bad place regarding my mindset towards journalism - and nearing a decision on leaving it altogether. It changed my perspective on the role that I can serve as a journalist, that it’s not always a transaction in order to meet a deadline or to write a story to please an editor. It brought me back to the root of why I wanted to be a journalist in the first place: to help communities get the information they need and tell stories of people from a place of careful intent, with ideas that came from the community to begin with.

“I often get story ideas from the community itself, rather than from my own idea of what a community might be facing. I let what the community tells me and what I learn from them shape the story and shape the way I tell a story. I will spend time, to the best of my ability, in a community before I report about it, and try not to just swoop in and come up with a story without gaining background on how it can impact or represent a community. I follow up after stories are published to hear how things are going in the community I reported on, and to keep up that good relationship.”

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“Community engagement reporting is a really powerful and important tool for local newsrooms to establish trust between them and the community they cover and tell stories that the community really cares about and needs. As trust between the media and the public is at an all-time low, actually getting out in the community and chatting with folks is really important. People trust you more if they’ve actually met you and know who you are.

“It has definitely reemphasized to me that our role as journalists is to serve the public and serve our community. It's our job to inform our communities about the things that they care about, the services and structures that impact them and hold those in power in these communities accountable. It’s shown me that we are more than just storytellers or a check on power. Journalists are a service that community members can rely on to stay informed on what’s happening around them.

“While I haven’t put together a listening session, I’ve used principles of community engagement reporting while working on a variety of stories. For my thesis project for Barrett, The Honors College, I was reporting on how a growing Phoenix has impacted the historic neighborhood of Garfield. To hear these people stories and connect with them on their own turf, I attended a trash pick-up event in the neighborhood. I put on gloves, grabbed a trash picker and a large black trash bag and joined the residents to help clean their neighborhood. This served as an informal listening session as I chatted with folks on their streets and in their homes about the issues that were impacting them without trying to beat a deadline or ask for on-the-record comments. Instead, I was just listening and trying to get to know them. More recently in a more formal setting, I joined three women who were out trapping cats in a midtown Phoenix neighborhood. While I was there with a camera and notebook, I engaged in this work. As needed, I helped hold a trap down as a cat freaked out inside or grabbed a cat trap or rock to help with the process. Those moments gave me a first-hand experience of the issues that members of the community that I cover are facing.”

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Community engagement reporting has reignited my passion for journalism. It’s shown me that I can make the greater impact I’ve always dreamed of—not through rushing to meet deadlines or focusing solely on the final product, but through methods that prioritize empathy and care. I’ve learned that fostering connections and involving the community in every step doesn’t interfere with a journalist’s ability to “act independently,” but instead, makes the story more whole, giving it depth and authenticity. Above all, this experience has underscored the value of human connection — because, in the end, that’s what we all really want: to be heard, understood, and seen.