Hello Hi. It's nice to finally meet you. I can hear you now.
Thank God for all this time doing virtual I would know how to unmute myself. How are you doing?
Oh great. It's finally great to finally meet you.
It is great to finally meet you too. That is a dear friend of mine and she talks so highly about you and so I'm actually up in Georgetown right now. So at some we were supposed to get together but it's just works been a little nuts for both of us.
Gotcha with home base for you.
Charleston, Charleston time base and that's where by my my organization is based in downtown Charleston. So. So what about you? Are you based in downtown Georgetown?
Oh, I'm actually in Colombia. I'm just a hometown girl, just taking advantage of opportunities to do great work in the community.
Well, I am, I grew up in Colombia. So that's my that's my original hometown.
I live in lower Richland. Yeah,
great, great. I went to rich Northeast High School and then was a big fat trader and went to Clemson University.
So it was funny to hear. How are you doing?
I'm doing well. Good morning guys. How y'all doing today?
Doing all right. Are you all ready for the holiday break like I am.
I am. I was last week I have already I'm ready for
it. I can't say I'm not because there are a couple of deadlines. We didn't like.
Oh, yeah. Everybody's got that final push to like get it done before the holidays. I
don't wanna say stressful, but that's probably the right word. But it's all good stuff. So you know, you can't complain.
So I can say I've read through the draft and the RFA or the RFP, let us let me know what you're thinking.
Sure, and I also want to just start off just to I would love for you all to talk to me a little bit more about what what you do and also to let you know that I put together that draft kind of working in a vacuum so please don't think that I There's definitely lots of room for massaging that I just put this as a placeholder in general like broad strokes just to get it out to some of our partners because they needed to see what their roles might be with that. So I just wanted to mention that that I'm not trying to shove anything down anybody's throat at this point, just wanted to have something to go off of. But I would love to hear from you both about what your work in the community is especially the village group, and then anything else you all are involved with in the plantersville community would be really helpful if you don't mind. Taking a few minutes to do that.
First of all, thanks for this opportunity to chat with you with you in Virginia this morning. We fortunately rekindled our relationship match the spreadsheet with Regina and started off with something dynamic with her in her the village group been around since 2005. And our focus is to help our young people find their niche in life early on. As opposed to waiting on on time. You know and we do that by providing enriching opportunities for them to learn about their environment, their space around them. And also, you know, we provide after school programming and summer programming, and that we try to bring in all kind of holistic approach to learning how they can see and be a part of the community. You know, a lot of people from the country which we are based from, you know, there's a lot of opportunities right there in the network. It was just kind of, kind of be open about it. And we want them to see that the environment in which we had an awesome opportunity this past summer to work with the Regina and her team to support lactation on aquaponics program, this being able to show them a kind of eating perspective that this is part of your history. This is something that's natural and it's something that you can learn it and be a part of. So So what we try to do is bring in to the table to to, to the exporters or young people that you know, the world happens to be your domain, everything is ready in your hands. If you would visualize and understand that you have at your disposal at your fingertips, the world where where do you want to be placed? in it? And not to think that the world stops and ends at plantersville in the Georgetown? Because that's only the starting point. What we want the distinct thing about global thinking in global contributions and how they can help our society become what could and should be, you know, so so we think, as a organization as a family, because we think families are important for the, you know, the nurturing of our young people in our community you know, we have a high poverty level community. Now we hope to break a cycle. We hope to be able to move through this process one child at a time, to help move our kids to have their families to move out of poverty and start thinking in terms of how they can then in turn, muttering some of the blessings that they have received to others. So the work that we're doing, I think, from an environmental standpoint, we've just been really blessed. This past year, we had partnership with quartz Caroline University on our aquatics program on one hand, we had Dr. Ciphrah team with the environmental component, so we just, you know, we just really, this past summer, just off the chain, it was really, really, really exciting and really, really good and that's what we want to bring to the table exposure. Let them see what is there for them to be involved with. You just never know what child you might impact. You just never know. So we don't take any opportunity to miss the opportunity of whether or not kids know that you can believe and have the vision but a lot of times our kids they simply just don't have the vision they don't they don't see beyond the face. That two inches in front of me. That's all they see. And I think if we can expose kids to more that's readily available to them. I mean, it's right there. You know, can you imagine his living in Placerville who have never been to the beach before.
Can you imagine it? But that's that's a fact. Now that's one of the kids but there are kids who don't have the opportunity to do that. You know, that's a simple one. That's a low hanging fruit right there. How can we let these kids know that, you know, it's not where you from? It's where you're going. You know, and so our job is to bring to the table. Bring together you know, we serve as a conduit bring bring sources and opportunities like you've been able to work with Dr. Ciphrah her team and that the great her team and in other professionals to help our kids see and do in such a way that's very loving and caring and warm as well. So that's a little sneak preview of what we do.
I mean, I can say from my perspective. I have two lens, Evie. Being a hometown girl. I can ditto everything that Mr. Funnye said, having come up in that kind of community where you know, I was on the shoulders of the prayers of the community, right. And so, the lens I'd like to bring too is that you don't have to leave home to have opportunities and success. Like there's lots of opportunities right here happening and lots of industry opportunities that are you know, available to you and where you can advocate for the environment, which is part of our ancestral legacy. But then the other lens I come through is through my company verbalizing visions that provides thought partnership, professional development, research and evaluation with educational leadership, but particularly when we think about culturally sustaining frameworks and stem literacy. So my work with that is this summer I was the lead with bringing in the in-service teachers and the pre-service teachers who came in and they learned about Gullah culture and about aquaponics and developed the curriculum for the village group. As we know, there's a shortage of educators that shortage is, you know, getting deeper and wider. However, those who go into education tend to be young white women who may not have the ability to relate to kids of color. And so that's where the culturally sustaining framework comes in and giving them opportunities, particularly pre-service teachers the opportunities to be in the community to learn about communities and to embrace cultures as educators.
We don't mind I'm just being archaic writing down notes.
Oh, you're fine. I can I turn on otter, I don't know if you use otter. With zoom, now. I can send you the raw transcript. Believe me it doesn't do a perfect job. But it takes transcript notes, thats part of my evaluator lens I use tools like that. So yeah.
A little harder to decipher. That's, that's great. That's great. And the village group, specifically you work with K through five. Is that still correct? I saw.
No, that's Kate. Dude ninth graders and we have some time. Yes.
Okay. Okay, great. Okay. Great. For some reason, I had K through fifth so that's great to know. Okay.
Actually, program is K through five. This little program, clarify that something the program is K today. And some tips.
Summer Program is K through ninth or 10th And then after schools K through five. Okay.
And does this set the Saturday Academy? How does that work with the funnies that
the cytokinin is focusing on elementary kids. And I need to talk to you about ceremony Academy as well. I've got an opportunity that just came away and
we can hang on after this.
Right. Um, well thank you both. That was that was really helpful. And I, you know, I wanted if it's okay, I'd like to just share a little bit about the EPA proposal, why it's framed the way it is, and see if you know, what we're proposing is fits in and definitely with some massaging of the text and deliverables. But um, the EPA grant, there's an they have every couple years they have a request for proposals or requests for applications come out and they're they have very strict I mean, all proposals do but I feel like EPA just has a whole other in a whole nother stratosphere with what they want to hit. So they have certain educational priority categories and then certain environmental categories and so the whole project has to be framed within these very specific project or priority areas for them. And so that's why if you read that first it says a lot of jargon, but that's it's really trying to get up front that we're focused on community projects. And these are this their categories, community projects, environmental justice we have in their reading their description. I'm not sure it fits their description what we're proposing to do, but I've got it in there right now. But community projects and then career development. Those are two big environmental education priority areas for them. On the environmental side, we chose water they have a whole host of them, but water quality and climate change are the ones that fit the best with what we were initially trying to do. So within those categories, we're trying to build out this some opportunities for the plantersville community looking at youth, but also family units. So looking at chat, you know, opportunities to connect to the environment through through some established programs. So we have some we have some established programs based here in Charleston that do some salt marsh restoration projects like building out oyster reefs, planting and growing Spartina grass and then doing that on a local level but then coming out as a community and building rebuilding parts of their local salt marsh pull it and pulling that water quality component in with with that one. But are and then the career component. Whoa, weaving that throughout all of the activities that we would do so anything that we would do, for example, if we did a community oyster build, we would have students and their families out. Having professionals in the field out there at that time and having time carved out to talk about their profession, and then getting a little bit more formalized having we're calling it a career catapult to where we're going to have some toolkits that we're going to develop if we get funding to where based on their profile and their likes their dislikes. They can track to something in the environmental field. It doesn't have to be research, not everybody's cut out to be a researcher but there's so many other if they love the environment, there's so many things economics, business, I mean, there's so many other avenues. So we're trying to flesh that out and then having an opportunity for schools and and students to go visit North and when Yabe the brute marine field lab, go up to Coastal Carolina, take a trip down to Charleston to the marine lab down there, meet different professionals and have an opportunity to connect with them and work with them. After that point, not a not a one shot deal. So be a little bit more lasting rather than just like hey, this is me and see you later. So weaving that career component through some of the activities that we're looking to do. To build and I'm sorry, I'm trying to get a condensed down because I know it's kind of all over the place. But with the community side of things and the community projects you're looking at, kind of kicking things off with community days in plantersville to where we could have partners come we I mean I I'm I'm sensitive to the fact that I don't want to I don't want to have I think building trust is very important and and sustaining relationships throughout a project is important and having a community day to kick off the grant. One, it's a two year it would be a two year initiative.
But having a community a every each year to kick off the new year have students, their families and even members of the community come to potentially you know, one of the title one schools and plantersville and during that time we would have activities and demonstrations talking about water quality talking about what does it mean to have an oyster healthy oyster reef nearby? How are you connected with the rivers and plantersville Why is it important to take care of your local waterways and how does that impact your local saltmarsh ecosystem but having engaging activities so wouldn't be a lot of you know, content. It'd just be fun. Let's take a look at your watershed. Let's look at you know, here's an oyster let's look at some fun Critters. And then by the way, here are some projects that we're gonna be working on over the course of the next two years. The other the other components with that community de is having a platform to hear from the community members about what their concerns are and what their needs are and their environmental concerns, areas that they're interested in learning more about and capturing that and using that as fodder for a Library Learning Series at the Congress Bay library. So then that way, that's a direct response to the needs of the community. So if there's a huge need to learn more about watersheds for example, or you know, just any any topic, we can pull in experts to come it can also be a way to highlight careers at that point as well. Have a really informal library learning session a couple of times a year for four to six times a year to where our students their families, members of the community at large of course can come and learn more. With regards to working with some of the title one schools looking at having some teacher trainings during the summer, having teachers trained in salt marsh restoration how to we have a few projects that already established where we have teachers from all over the state growing marsh grass in the classroom and then coming out to transplant it in the spring but doing a training on that and maybe some other some other content areas environmentally focused. I'm trying to think of the big highlights here and then as far as the village group goes, working with both the after school sessions and a Summer Academy to work with students on looking at you know, water again these these broader strokes with this environment with this EPA proposal looking at environmental programs off site field trips, and then with the Summer Academy, perhaps delving a little bit deeper and coming up with some stewardship projects that they identify see needs in their community that they can identify, work on and then present out to their families. At the end of the summer session. was the last part Oh, the the Tour de plantersville. I thought that's such a great event. It looks just wonderful. But perhaps having some of the participating students and teachers or the community share out during that time what they've been involved with, so salt marsh restoration or any other stewardship projects they have taken on and the plantersville community so those those are really broad so I know I talked way too much but I was trying to give just like broad strokes on on the on the projects, just to see what your initial reaction was. And if that sounds like something we can work together on. Oh, one last thing one big thing. We we are able to give out some awards up to $5,000. And we'd really like to be able to provide a sub award to the village group to help with either the Summer Academy or the after school enrichment sessions as you see fit and we can certainly work on that together.
You're muted Mr. Funny.
Thank you. Thank you very much. But thank you so much for inviting me to the table today. What you share with us was really because we've been around for a while and we, for the past couple of three years been working toward this environmental aspect of development for our kids. You know, we've been doing stem a lot but hadn't pushed the environmental part of it and so I just been blessed to have Dr. Dina and Dr. Murray they helped me not bring that to life but really bring that to life now and now when you come on board now this is another dimension that will just perfectly ties into what we've already been doing. You know and doctors I can talk about this more, but I like the idea. You know, he mentioned the community today. That's to me is powerful. You know, if you don't know we've been partnering with the Walker Wildlife Refuge so that primarily at Hayes point is born as a new addition to that refuge. And the prior owner who requested that, that wildlife refuge work with us, the community to enjoy and to utilize that space there. And I was wondering, you know, you said community day could be at school but why don't have it at the plantation. I think that we're sitting right next to the environmental court that we're trying to bring to life at the at the new added refuge, which is right now community has a lot of space as all kinds of you can, you can learn and bird water things there. You know, so, you know, that's something that we can certainly have some discussion with Craig Sasso who's the manager there. You know the planning of grass and growing grass and high and replanting them Atlanta time on listings are important for our kids to understand that these are real jobs potential is that you can have a meaningful life right here in Georgetown. If you want to be I think it's important to see the world too. I think not being able to see other places in the world is very important. But knowing that at home where we need you most is this an opportunity that could be had if you apply yourself so I'm hoping that we can afford this relationship you know, you know one of the things like first the yaki the yaki Foundation, the Europeans preserve as well. And we another space that kids can go over there to see a private Preserve. Hi that's operated with is different from a public one, you know, you know, that's another opportunity as well.
And Mr. Funny if I can interrupt really quickly, there so DNR, we try to we try to do an oyster build and then plant the marsh grass behind just for shoreline stabilization. They work really well together. They have three sites and they're very close to the yaki Wildlife Center. So that's, that's perfect because that was that was an area that we were hoping to include as a destination for the students and families as part of this so glad I'm glad to hear you say that it's a beautiful Preserve.
Yes, I understand that. I heard last week. I got a call last week someone was what they were looking for other sites around the county for OSHA preserve as well and some collection sites. We have two or three have now is one ad to put into production. And then looking at what could be some other locations that we can identify as potential sites for collection of oyster shells and so these are these are good I want to mention this. Last year we worked with a good friend and another plantation. We we had a project with housing bill water cars last year and the kids had a great time not only we learn how to build them, but we also learned about some other parts of that meditation. You know the the work involved with maintaining that site and this gives her a chance to operate a backhoe. You know what the hell they go into battle with the machines and be able to learn about you know, that kinds of environmental trustee work. So, so. So these are, these are spaces in our backyard and like I grew up there and I didn't know it was there. So being able to edit earlier any let us know that this is this is this is this is a space that you can consider. Thank you very much.
Thank you for that and I'm I'm happy to hear you mentioned these places and and that's probably my fault. I know talking with Beth Thomas. She mentioned there was a relationship with the walk them off refuge and i i have not included that in the proposal but she had actually mentioned that so but I love that idea for being a Ciphrah community day just a place that can connect people again to their local environment. And one as a quick aside with the oyster piece, we were thinking that with the with the community oyster bill that we could have the after the fact we could come back and have an oyster roast, so that it could be something fun to where we could be it could be an opportunity again to share out what we've learned, where we're going, what future opportunities are there but we could all have some community building after the Western world. So or even
flip those so that we take those oyster shells and take I had a couple of questions. As far as like the teacher fees. I'm wondering if it's a missed opportunity to not have not only just increases the knowledge in your evaluation, but then how they take this back into practice. So my brother lives in, you know, an after school program that they're doing, or they've incorporated somehow, like you're saying into their classroom, I was just wondering on that piece of it. And if the idea is that it's the ownership of the village group to have to train teachers or have you allocated funding through your sources to be able to support the teacher training, finally implementation and in that piece
Yes, the great questions. And the teachers I've we kind of captured it broadly with I think the second objective, there was teachers and families identifying and implementing and developing skills, but we can refine it further especially to have a separate piece we have to submit a logic model we can even have that captured. One of the evaluation tools we've looked at are doing pre and post and then also implementation with the teachers as part of this part of the overall evaluation plan. But I like that and I think we can maybe massage the those objectives a little bit more to where it's more reflective of the actual teachers and even
the students because I was wondering how the community days could be less delivered to the students and families and more opportunities to participate in particularly if the programming throughout the year could take place like we're seeing a hazy point plantation and other sites right there in the community. How could families and students be sharing what they're learning almost like a community symposia with these folks coming in? Because again, we want to value communities knowledge and communities. Participation in this along the way and so making sure there's that space that they are able to share where they are in the projects and what they've been learning in context with the community with the experts who have come in and kind of share and enhance as well.
Well, and as you're talking, we, we originally had thought about doing more than one community and then having a Community Summit to do that same thing and we took we took it out once we scaled it down but we can certainly put it back in and I wonder and I like what you're saying because you know, having a kickoff event, but then maybe having some other ones throughout the year would be really nice, even something to round out the project instead of just having it as a kickoff. We can have something that kind of culminates the whole year and maybe even you know and also as a kickoff for the second year or something but having a few more of these community days throughout the year. To share out in a light. I like that I know we have spaces for that feedback, but not as a as a larger community. And I like that a lot. Yeah, and that way, that way the project can be responsive to current needs. So if something didn't quite stick or we needed to take a different tact based on needs and the community will have the opportunity to do that
kind of science wins. Here are some things that we're noticing and it can lead to other questions and in further investigations and opportunities to do work from a citizen science perspective as well.
I like that and as far as the funding, um, I don't I don't think I said this to you last night. But I put together a table of partner roles and one of the things that we would like to provide is the is the funding for supplies. The training we we have the folks who will be leading the trainings have funding for these projects, to to provide we're also going to write in funding for any supplies that are needed. And then the training will come from for these teacher trainings. They will come initially from myself and then Clemson and then DNR for the the oyster the salt marsh grass and we have Clemson who is on board for doing some water quality and they do they have some really they're called Carolina yards, but they're that it's all about water conservation and water quality and she leads a wonderful training. We can have the supplies but then we try to give the tools to the community to do to do it with some guidance. It's not us doing it, but it's us training and then there for support. As communities kind of develop the skills for some of these projects, and put their own spin on it too. I mean, that's the wonderful part about some of these trainings. I do a lot of teacher trainings and I love providing the boilerplates there but it's so inspiring to hear teachers and what they take and how they're thinking and how they apply it in ways that I never would have thought about and it's really empowering for them to take charge and say well, it would work better to do it this way. And that's great. So we try to provide that foundation, that foundational piece and also know that there's support with personnel if there's an issue or there's a question, we're only an email or a phone call away, if there so I don't know if that answers the question in a long winded way
It answers my question
Great. Um, what would you all be? Um, would you all be interested in receiving a subaward amount, we can go up to $5,000. And, you know, we can ride it for whatever, whatever you need. If it's personnel time, I know it's not a ton of money. But if there's supplies needed, you know, or stipends for some of the instructors you know, however that works. It looks like you know, we're happy to write that in as a subaward. Free Well
yeah, I think we would be interested in specifically you know, always salaries is a big thing and we can also look at, you know, maybe even look at our young people, to encourage them to be stipends for them as well. getting them involved and provide a stipend for them to be a part of that. That's, that's an opportunity. Okay, great.
I will probably need to send you welcome all to all the paperwork right. I'm probably have to send some just drafts, budgets for y'all to look at some categories just for you all to take a look at and see what will work for y'all. And I can try to get that to you sometime this week, just for you all to play around with so if you want stipends or if you want supplies, we'll have the general categories. There and then you can see what amounts look good on your end.
Let me know what you would be thinking about for verbalizing visions if you want it to include my company to come in and assist with some of the cultural sustainable please with working with families and the teacher. Because it most likely in that case it would be stipends for participation for families teachers particularly if I can bring in some pre service teachers as well as salary stipend.
Okay, I would love to I would love that piece and I would you have some time. Maybe for the two of us to chat about how the training we can incorporate verbalizing visions into these teacher trainings salutely. With that, would you have some time sometime this week? I don't know what your schedule looks like,
but I can shoot you some dates and times this week.
Okay
and then the last thing, um, would you all if I send just kind of some bullets, some basic bullets would you all have a chance to maybe send a letter of commitment. Back to Me, our deadline for the proposal is December six. And I'm happy to provide you some bullet points or anything that y'all need. Sir not starting just from scratch. I know sometimes that's helpful or not. Maybe it can be confusing, but
I would appreciate the bullet. We certainly couldn't use that to have crafted them things that support because I think we would support it because it's a good thing.
And that's something that in our next meeting we can go ahead and just hammer out. Like for us to collaborate. So yes, the answer is yes.
That sounds great. That sounds great. Thanks. I know people are like send me a letter of support or like, give me some language
well, are there any concerns I know I feel like I just dump a whole bunch of stuff on and I don't ever want it to seem like it's here's this project that we want to dump in. I don't want to ever seen that way. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I don't mean to be like this is what we want to do. Is there anything
we when do you anticipate this project starting? When do you anticipate this project starting?
They the the RS A says the project's can't start any earlier than July 2022. So I would say realistically, I kind of kind of started the timeline August September just to give a little bit of a buffer so August or September of 2022 going for two year project and August or September 2024.
It'll be a nice combination at the community symposium. Mr. Funny of that 24 symposium. Evie that's like typically July.
Yes. Yes. Okay. Good. Good deal. This is good. This is good. Okay, well, do you all have any concerns or questions anything you'd like? Added or anything that I kind of glossed over that
