School on Wheels and Meals on Wheels West - Blog #15 (The Final One)

School on Wheels is a service for homeless children in Los Angeles, Santa Barbara and Ventura Counties as well as chapters in Indiana and Massachusetts. The agency strives to enhance the educational opportunities for homeless children from kindergarten through twelfth grade. Some of the services offered are one-on-one tutoring, backpacks, supplies and information on where to find schools.

The program offers a lot of flexibility for the children where tutors will meet the children where they are living, at shelters and follow their progress even if they move around. The organization was founded by Agnes Stevens, a retired school teacher.

The agency has created 9 learning rooms in shelters that serve as a quiet and controlled environment for the educational process. Each room was created at no expense due to donations and each room has furniture, computers, educational software, books and supplies. There are two more rooms in development.

There are two types of volunteers. Volunteer tutors provide academic assistance to the children, communicate with the parents and shelter as well as working with the child's teachers. The other type of volunteer is the location coordination that is a liaison between the shelter and tutors. Location coordinators do all the behind the scenes work to make sure there are volunteer tutors and that they have all the resources that they need.

The story ideas that came out of the presentation are a profile on the deceased founder, following the volunteer process and to follow the progress of a homeless child. Newspapers do long series that follow a child or a family and the series are usually extremely successful.

The agency plans to create a scholarship fund and expand into Long Beach and Orange County. This is a great organization that should be supported by anyone that believes education is fundamental to success.

The second agency report was on Meals on Wheels West, which serves Santa Monica, Malibu, Pacific Palisades and Topanaga. The program offers home-delivered hot meals to elderly people in need. I have volunteered with Meals on Wheel with my mother and it was an interesting and great experience.

All the Meals on Wheels are different organizations and the idea started during World War II, which the delivery of food. Anyone that is home-bound and cannot provide for themselves or anyone experiencing a short term or permanent illness, regardless of age.

There are not only old people in the program, the age ranges from 32- to 102-years-old. They serve the rich, middle class and poor, according to Coleen Conway.

The program can cater to the needs of the recipients but most importantly the program lets people connect with others. When spending a long day at home alone the volunteers bring joy to the recipients and they form a bond. It is not uncommon to develop friendships with people in the program.

Meals on Wheels was active in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Families that were displaced were still able to get meals and provide for many of those in need. Some of the new clients that are entering the program are veterans from Iraq that need extra help.

The possible story ideas that came from the presentation would be a look at the Iraqi soldiers that are now in the program, a feature on a family and a ride along that features a volunteer and a client.

This is the last blog for the class but it is not the end of the class. We have done 15 blogs about a variety of topics as well as agency reports. I still have to present on my agency next week. This class has solidified things I have learned in other Journalism class as well as provided helpful insight to working in a newsroom.

As a class we covered the anatomy of a city council, created this JourBlog, covered ethical and legal issues, lead writing and elections. To read more about each of these things read below.

My favorite topics to cover where the elections and the police sections. Those are two of the most common types of stories for new journalists starting out and can be easy great stories or can be nightmares. Traveling through the labyrinth of sources and quotes can be daunting but also exhilarating.

Public Affairs reporting is a capstone course for the journalism program because it takes a mature journalist to dig deeper and find these in-depth stories. Whenever I am asked why I want to be a journalist I think back to a story related to public affairs reporting, because at some point I covered something and wrote something that made a difference. I am not a journalist for money or for the byline.

The biggest value I got out of this class was the experience of being basically forced to blog. I want to learn about innovation story telling ideas for print journalists and this was a good first step. I might maintain a blog after this class is over but probably like this blog no one will really read it.

Future journalism majors in this class should spend some time out in the field covering their agency and people in the community. So many of the stories that come from the Graphic are conducted over the phone and over email. There is nothing like observing people during an interview and walking through a sources office. Do not be a desk jockey, journalists should be out in the world and always be learning.

This class complemented everything I have learned in the past few years working and studying as a journalist. I really enjoyed spending the time with my peers and everyday we laughed together in class. Luckily, there was not the typical Graphic staff members vs. other journalism majors segregation in the class. Everyone worked well together and hopefully learned something that will help to improve their craft, I know I did.

The things left to do are a portfolio that will serve as a reference guide and an in-depth article on our agency. My agency is the Santa Monica Mountain Conservancy, which is a gigantic organization and I think my article will be about the camping issue going on in Malibu. This issue has already been receiving some press but has not been tied in to the Pepperdine community yet. There are many students that go camping and would benefit from the new regulations and then there are also students living in those hills who will not want to open their backyards to anyone with a tent and a flashlight.

Thanks you for you time and energy in reading this and other blogs, and thank you to Dr. Jordan for making all of us write these things.

L.A. Commission on Assaults Against Women (Rape Crisis Center) and the Los Angeles Suicide Prevention Center (Suicide Crisis Center) - Blog #14

Cara Van Meter presented on domestic and sexual violence in class today. The opening was very dramatic with overwhelming statistics that show how huge of a problem violence is in our society. The organization was renamed in October to Peace over Violence.

The organization was started when a woman was raped on Sunset Boulevard. in the mid-seventies. All violence starts at home with domestic violence and spreads out into other violence, said founder Peggy Reyna. The group is a non-profit that operates a 24-hour toll free number. In 1994 the organization was named the United Way Agency of the Year.

The name was changed to make them sound more independent since they are not part of the county. They also wanted to recognize that there are men that are victims and that their foot print extends further than just Los Angeles. The organization operates three offices that runs numerous programs to help end violence.

The majority of the funding for the organization comes from grants, which are a great way to operate a non-profit without using solely tax payer money. There are about 33 staff members and 250 volunteers. The turnover is about five-years for the organization, but they do have many loyal employees and volunteers. The staff goes through 64 hours of intense training. There are two main types of volunteers: hotline volunteers and violence prevention volunteers.

The atmosphere of the office was very upbeat and encouraging. There was not a sense that everything in the world is wrong. The agency is also run by consensus, not a huge bureaucracy.

The agency provides five services: hotlines and emergency services, conseling and advocacy, community education and violence prevention, latina services and deaf and disabled and elder services. The number one priority are the hotlines, where volunteers can answer calls from the comfort of their own home. Volunteers have to be on call for at least 4 hours a week. How are the calls monitored by the agency?

The most amazing services provided are the deaf and disabled services, which typically require twice as many hours of counseling coming out at an average of 20 hours. There are also the violence prevention volunteers that go out into the community and speak to the public and education others about the agency.

Story ideas that came out of this agency are denim day, the deaf, disabled and elderly services and media consultation. Denim day is a huge fundraiser that started when a woman was raped and a judge did not convict the alleged criminal because he said her jeans were so tight she would have had to pull them off herself, so there was no rape.

This is a great organization that provides services to thousands of people every year. Growing up in an environment of absolutely no violence, and then getting into a living situation in college where there has been violence it is easy to see how even the strongest of people need help and can become victims.

The second presentation was from Patricia Martinez about the suicide prevention center. The warning signs of suicide include: expressing suicidal feelings directly or bringing up the topic of suicide, giving away prized possessions, settling affairs, making out a will, signs of depression, change of behavior, risk-taking behaviors, increased use of alcohol or drugs, social isolation and developing a specific plan for suicide.

The organization was famous for starting the first 24-hour prevention hotline. Started by doctors, the agency aims to if calls would make an impact on the suicide problem. The ways to help a suicidal person is to first of all listen and to accept the person's feelings as they are and not simply try to cheer them up.

The organization operates four different crisis lines. The SPC local crisis line serves Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernadino Counties. The Hope National Hopeline Network is a national network of crisis lines. The Suicide Prevention Life Line is also a national network but is funded by SAMHSA. The Teen Line specializes in teen suicide calls.

The agency also offers a survivors after suicide groups, where individuals and family members gather to support one another. There is a licenses therapist and councilor at the meeting to help direct the discussion and support the attendees.

The agency has about 135 volunteers and applications are on the Web site. The interesting part is that there is a required $50 donation to cover the cost of the materials sent with the application. I think that's a hard sell to make to volunteers. It would be better for the agency to write a grant to cover any costs associated with acquiring volunteers instead of requiring a donation. There are administrative, office and outreach volunteers.

The main story idea that came out of this agency was the confidentially of the victims and the families. Martinez was not even allowed to speak to the volunteers or see where the hotline is run from. Another idea was to feature some of the more unique programs and groups or cover some of their fund raising events.

The suicide hotline is a great organization but it is sad that they have to be so secretive to reporters that are trying to do positive stories on the agency.