The Cities of Service Resilience AmeriCorps program trains and supports AmeriCorps VISTA members to help communities prepare for catastrophic events and ongoing challenges. Serving in city halls, AmeriCorps members engage citizens and community partners to build and sustain resilience in vulnerable neighborhoods.

Because of its location, Boulder is prone to a range of resilience challenges, including drought and flash floods. In 2013, the city was hit by flooding that swept away homes, leaving people, particularly those in impoverished communities, in dire need of assistance.

Cities of Service recently spoke with Mackenzie Boli, one of two Cities of Service Resilience AmeriCorps VISTA members serving as Community Resilience Coordinators in Boulder’s city hall. Boli played an integral part in developing the city’s Better Together workshop series, which teaches personal resilience, emergency management, and community resilience. The workshop brings together a range of citizens from across Boulder. To ensure that they are able to reach the populations that stand to lose the most, the team recruits people with heightened vulnerability to disasters, including the elderly and low-income, and has handed out informational fliers in communities with limited internet access. Boli shared stories with us about her work, explaining why citizen engagement has become a critical strategy for strengthening the City of Boulder’s response to natural disasters.

Boli also gave us a behind-the-scenes look at some of the innovative techniques she has helped implement in city hall, with the goal of improving the way communities and local governments work together to become more resilient.

Cities of Service: What do you think makes citizens uniquely placed to strengthen resilience in their own cities?

Boli: So much. We really depend on community members bringing ideas to us because we want to play a supportive role in what our community members want to see happen rather than imposing new ideas on our community. We try to encourage residents to bring forward the ideas that will influence Boulder’s long-term resiliency strategy. It’s amazing how we’ve been able to be responsive to many of these ideas, even if it’s a one-time thing.

For example — a community member suggested a potluck event for people who were thinking about resilience and disaster preparedness so that they could have a space to talk and generate new ideas. She even opened up her home for the discussion. The city manager’s office played a supportive role by marketing the event to interested participants and being present at the potluck event to answer questions and gather more ideas about how the community wants to work toward resilience in Boulder. We came up with some great ideas, like creating template neighborhood directories with space to include information about resources in the community.

In our Better Together workshops, we talk about the threats our community faces, and we talk with people about how they can start to make a difference in case of a community-wide emergency. We help connect them with their neighbors to understand what their needs are, as well as the skills and resources that everyone can bring to the table. We do all of this with the hope that we’re creating a more informed and engaged citizen who feels like they have a relationship with their local government, but also with the goal of creating lasting volunteers and advocates for the work that we’re doing.

Cities of Service: Can you talk a little about the “Resilient Together” platform you’re launching, and how it plans to engage citizens in resilience work?

Boli: Resilient Together is a community engagement platform or “e-townhall” designed to crowdsource information and provide feedback and engagement on strategic planning processes for local government. With all the topics on the site, we hope that people start to see that resilience isn’t just about floods and fires, which are the “shocks,” but also about the everyday stressors that weaken our society. We wanted to provide a platform where people can actually engage with the topics so that they aren’t just being told or given information, and we hope that it increases transparency and understanding of the work that we’re doing.

We also hope that we start to hear the voices in between those saying, “this is what I’m angry about so you’re hearing from me,” or “this is what I’m passionate about so you’re hearing from me.” We want to tap the people who are probably not going to spend all their Tuesday nights at council meetings for just one issue they’re concerned about. We believe that, if we have a platform that increases accessibility to voice problems and solutions on an ongoing basis — and allows for people to have productive conversations about them — this will start to change the way that people interact with local government.

Cities of Service: Why did you feel drawn to a career in public service? Has it lived up to your expectations?

Mackenzie Boli: I have always been interested in research, and I was told throughout my college career and field research experiences that it would be advantageous for me to work in policy so I could understand how the research I was doing would affect people. That’s really why we do research, because we want people to be aware of their environment and how it’s changing. In local government, you ask a big question or see a big problem and then you get to dive in and dissect some of the reasons why it’s a problem and how it can be addressed. I found more meaning and fulfillment in this work than I ever could have imagined.

Cities of Service: What has your experience with city government taught you?

Boli: What I’ve learned about government is that you’re trying to serve a diverse group of people with different priorities and needs. You can’t just make a decision and move forward, because the point is to make sure that you’re representing everyone in your community, especially the most vulnerable, and that is a process. It’s not something that happens overnight.

Cities of Service: How do you explain the value of the work that you do in the field of resilience to people you interact with in the community?

Boli: What I do recognizes that all the systems and departments within a government are interconnected, but they don’t always act like they are. The work that I do in Boulder allows me to draw connections and build bridges between things that are sometimes seen as unrelated. You have to consider all viewpoints; you have to recognize that every single person within a community contributes something unique, something that others are missing.

Cities of Service: What’s the next career step for you?

Boli: Through this work, I’ve seen firsthand that no piece of the puzzle is as strong alone as it is when it plugs into the others. So I want to continue to make connections between people and data. When we start to make these connections, all of our systems become stronger. It’s really powerful to be a part of that.

Watch this video to learn more about how Mackenzie Boli works with Boulder’s city hall and its engaged citizenry to strengthen resilience in the city.

Cities of Service is a nonprofit organization that helps mayors and city leaders tap the knowledge, creativity, and service of citizens to solve public problems and create vibrant cities.

This story originally appeared on Zilient.org and was written by Su Chon, Cities of Service Resilience AmeriCorps VISTA Member serving in Anchorage, Alaska’s city hall.

With 95 percent of Alaska’s resources arriving through the aging Port of Anchorage, Alaskans face the constant threat of food shortages if the port infrastructure fails in a natural disaster.

Residents in Anchorage’s Mountain View neighborhood — where geographical isolation and high unemployment contribute to a lack of access to fresh produce — are especially vulnerable.

Anchorage’s Mayor Ethan Berkowitz recognizes the importance of addressing this issue, and the city has been finding new and creative ways to increase resilience and preparedness among Mountain View residents through the Resilience Training Ground initiative.

AmeriCorps VISTA members in the Cities of Service Resilience AmeriCorps Program have joined the Mayor’s Office to spearhead this effort.

The Resilience Training Ground increases awareness of food security challenges and disaster preparedness through educational activities in schools and summer programs.

Over the past few months, they have focused their energy on the next generation of Alaskans — second graders at Mountain View Elementary School.

The VISTAs mobilized volunteers to construct a greenhouse at Mountain View Elementary that serves as a teaching tool for the “Kids for Resiliency” curriculum that they have developed.

The curriculum ties Alaska’s unique food security challenges to local resilience efforts through field trips, guest lectures by local residents, and practical gardening activities.

The precarious nature of Anchorage’s food system became real to the second graders during their field trip to the Port of Anchorage in March with Jim Jager, Port Manager of External Affairs.

Students were able to watch port operations and witnessed a crane pick up a giant shipping container filled with essential supplies.

Seeing the port first-hand, the students came to understand the difference between imported and local goods. A week later, when guest speaker Jesse Richardville of Refugee Assistance and Immigration Services, who manages Fresh International Gardens nearby, asked kids where their food comes from, hands shot up and a voice yelled out “The port!”

The curriculum teaches students that there are small things they can do to be more prepared for a port failure.

Patrick Ryan, Education Specialist at the Alaska Botanical Garden, taught the Mountain View students about gardening and Don Bladow of the Master Gardeners came to help students and their families build take-home container gardens to grow their own vegetables indoors.

Container gardens are a practical solution for the many homes in the neighborhood that do not have space for garden plots. Half of the families went home with container gardens and the invitation to reach out to the Master Gardeners with any questions or concerns.

During the program’s closing celebration at the end of April, Mayor Berkowitz joined the Mountain View students and their parents to congratulate them on completing the course.

As part of the final celebration, they moved their plants into the greenhouse where they will be tended to by volunteers from the Fresh International Gardens over the summer. When they return to school in the fall they will be able to see the fruits of their labor and realize the impact of putting seeds into soil.

The first cycle of the Resilience Training Ground was so successful, that a second grade teacher at Fairview elementary requested to bring the program to their school.

This summer, the VISTAs will organize volunteers to construct a greenhouse at Fairview Elementary School. The greenhouse will be a teaching site in the fall when 21st Century Afterschool Program delivers the ‘Kids for Resiliency’ curriculum to Fairview students.

In addition to resilience education for the city’s youngest citizens, the Mayor’s Office is partnering with the Department of Parks and Recreation and Fairview residents to turn a local park into a resilience learning lab for the whole community.

Last month, neighborhood volunteers created edible landscaping, such as rhubarb, apple trees, and blueberry bushes and installed interpretive signage to teach all park visitors about the importance and ease of growing food locally.

A series of container garden workshops in the park will follow throughout this summer.

This is a vital first step towards sharing knowledge on the issue of food security in Alaska, which we hope will create a sense of preparedness and a more resilient Anchorage as a whole.

For more information on making Anchorage more resilient, check out the Mayor’s Corner.

This story originally appeared on Zilient.org and was written by Su Chon, Cities of Service Resilience AmeriCorps VISTA Member serving in Anchorage, Alaska’s city hall.

This story originally appeared on Zilient.org and was written by Andrianna Betts, Cities of Service Resilience AmeriCorps VISTA Member serving in Minot, North Dakota’s city hall.

The devastation caused by the 2011 floods in the North Dakotan city of Minot in the United States, damaged more than 4,000 homes, it also eroded the relationship between residents and their local river.

The Souris river, commonly referred to as the mouse river, a nod to its French name which translated means “mouse,” the Souris has always been an integral part of city life.

The river provided both a source of entertainment and transportation. Today, concerns regarding flood control have contributed to the negative perception of the Souris.

The vibrant river culture of the past is in need of restoration and a community group called Friends of the Souris River (FSR) is contributing to the revitalization effort.

Resilience AmeriCorps Members Use Bike Ride To Engage New Citizens in River Culture

Last year, supported by Cities of Service, two Resilience AmeriCorps VISTA members pledged to strengthen resilience in the city of Minot.

These AmeriCorps members, Nancy Hoover Simpson and Mia Dillard, initiated a partnership with FSR and together they led four river clean-ups. Working alongside citizen volunteers they collected over 14 tons of waste in total.

Now, as the 2017 Cities of Service Resilience AmeriCorps class, we are continuing the tradition of collaborating with FSR and organized our first event of the year in April on Earth Day.

Entitled “Ride the River,” the fun and informative bike ride provided residents with a visual tour of the changes scheduled to take place under the city’s flood protection plan. More than forty participants listened to five speakers along the route that began in the Dakota Bark Park and ended in Roosevelt Park.

FSR members Shannon Straight and Josh Wolsky explained their group’s vision for Minot residents to engage more with the river. They are hoping that the city will include in its flood control plan the opening of the dead river loops, which have become collecting pits for trash.

“We have an opportunity to right some wrongs from the past as well as to re-invigorate the river culture in Minot, and for people to recognize the river as an asset,” said FSR member, Brady Randall.

“There’s a wider vision of opportunities like kayaking, paddle boarding, and fishing. That’s where I see we have a real opportunity,” he said.

Among the other speakers at the event was Dan Jonasson, City of Minot public works director. Jonasson showed maps and illustrations of the city’s flood control projects. Some of these projects include the flood wall, recreational pathways, and green space. At a time where there are signs along the Souris warning the public to stay away, Jonasson recognizes the importance of making the river a safe and welcoming space for all.

“Any place we can incorporate green space, a park area, to get people down to the river and enjoy it, we will,” said Jonasson. “It’s a big part of the project. The citizens need to feel comfortable and want to come down and enjoy the river.”

First River Cleanup of 2017 is Held by Resilience AmeriCorps Members and Friends of the Souris River

Creating an enjoyable space around the Souris requires improving the river’s aesthetic appeal; trash can be found submerged in the river and scattered along its banks.

To promote water appreciation and reduce river pollution, the members of FSR held their first 2017 river cleanup on 6 May. Starting at the historic Eastwood Park Bridge, we worked alongside over 20 dedicated volunteers who braved steep river banks and murky water to clear ­trash out of one of Minot’s last natural river channels.

Monica Peterson, a participant in the “Ride the River” event and a cleanup volunteer, described her vision for the city’s river future. “The river should be a place where people can hang out and enjoy, rather than avoid. Since I live in Eastwood Park which is surrounded by the river, its cleanliness and appearance is important to me.”

Another volunteer, Kelly Matalka, shared a similar optimistic outlook for the river’s future. “As a member of the community of Minot, I think it’s important to make it a place that I am happy to call home, which includes maintaining a clean environment and using its resources in beneficial ways.”

River Cleanups Bring the Community Together to Benefit from a “Cleaner, Less Polluted Earth”

The river cleanup resulted in a total of 1,500 pounds of waste being collected within three hours. The larger debris pulled from the river included patio chairs, a wagon, and a mailbox. While it is unclear how long this trash has sat discarded in the river, likely some since the original flood in 2011, what is evident is the need for more cleanups in the near future.

Community members like Devin Kampman are aware of the role they play to keep the river clean. “It was important to volunteer for this because we all share this planet and I believe that we can all benefit from a cleaner, less polluted earth,” he said, “Besides, it just looks much better when there isn’t trash and refuse strewn about.”

It will take continuous effort and coordination by the city and its residents to make the Souris River — the ‘Mighty Mouse’ — a source of pride once again, but based on what’s been accomplished over the last year, all signs are pointing upstream.

This story originally appeared on Zilient.org and was written by Andrianna Betts, Cities of Service Resilience AmeriCorps VISTA Member serving in Minot, North Dakota’s city hall.

The New York State Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery implements the Resilience AmeriCorps program at the state level. Serving within the Office, the AmeriCorps members engage citizens and community partners to build and sustain resilience in vulnerable neighborhoods throughout New York.

In recent years, several severe storms have left citizens in New York State reeling, including Hurricane Irene, Tropical Storm Lee in 2011, and Superstorm Sandy in 2012. Homes, infrastructure, and businesses struggled to recover from the damage wrought by these shocks.

In June of 2013, recognizing this new reality, Governor Andrew Cuomo developed the Governor’s Office of Storm Recovery (GOSR) to centralize recovery and rebuilding efforts across the state. GOSR assists New Yorkers with housing recovery, small business recovery, infrastructure improvements, and community-wide resilience planning through the innovative NY Rising Community Reconstruction (NYRCR) Program.

GOSR PROGRAMS GUIDED BY RESIDENT INPUT

According to Jamie Rubin, former Executive Director of GOSR and current New York State Director of Operations, the office is focused “on the notion that community engagement is the critical piece of resilience.” Resident engagement helps guide programmatic decision-making at GOSR.

“We want citizens to tell us what they feel is the greatest need,” said Chelsea Muller, Senior Program Manager at GOSR. “Using the NYRCR Program, we promoted a holistic understanding of resilience, and asked communities to inform us.”

Now that GOSR is in the implementation phase of the NYRCR Program, it was looking for new ways to connect to communities. GOSR staff were excited to hear about the Resilience AmeriCorps model, which is built on strong community relationships and citizen engagement. “The program aligned with the work we were already investing in, and what we wanted to elevate,” Muller said.

Cities of Service launched the inaugural class of Resilience AmeriCorps members at the municipal government level in 2015. In the Cities of Service model, Resilience AmeriCorps members are embedded in city halls to help communities prepare for acute and ongoing challenges.

GOSR wanted to implement the Resilience AmeriCorps program at the state level. In 2016, two Resilience AmeriCorps members, Sara Chin and Leigh Scudder, were placed at GOSR for their year of service.

CITIZEN ENGAGEMENT PRIORITIZED IN NY STATE RESILIENCE PLANNING

Through the NYRCR Program, GOSR connected neighborhood organizations across the state with professional planning firms, grant opportunities, and government resources to develop interactive, neighborhood-specific recovery and resilience plans. The plans, based on both expert advice and extensive community input, include immediate recovery measures as well as opportunities to rebuild neighborhoods to be more resilient in the future. The plans are especially empowering in low-income communities, which are disproportionately impacted by natural disasters and frequently have limited access to recovery resources.

“So much of our work is nose to the grindstone planning, and this program has allowed us to look up and connect nationally, share what we’ve done, what we’ve learned, and work with other communities that are thinking proactively about resilience work.”

— CHELSEA MULLER, GOSR SENIOR PROGRAM MANAGER

While the plans are vital resources for communities in need, Muller believes that the process itself has had benefits. The AmeriCorps members had the opportunity to participate in the planning and implementation processes and to “devote bandwidth to capturing the great byproducts that come out of engagement like this,” said Muller. The AmeriCorps members are also working to quantify and track the benefits and best practices of community resilience education.

The AmeriCorps members also had the opportunity to explore their individual interests while embedded at GOSR. One AmeriCorps member was interested in green infrastructure, and was able to work with experts on stormwater management and retrofitting projects. The other AmeriCorps member worked with GOSR’s nonprofit partners that assist with statewide project implementation, “capturing what’s working, what isn’t working, and supporting them in their day-to-day activities,” according to Muller. Chin and Scudder have also coordinated summits for citizens and statewide partners to come together for knowledge sharing.

AMERICORPS MEMBERS PROVIDE NEW PERSPECTIVE ON RESILIENCE WORK

AmeriCorps members in GOSR’s pilot program have connected with Resilience AmeriCorps members across the nation to share best practices and lessons learned. “We get to integrate our members with the different cohorts, and work collaboratively,” said Muller. “So much of our work is nose to the grindstone planning, and this program has allowed us to look up and connect nationally, share what we’ve done, what we’ve learned, and work with other communities that are thinking proactively about resilience work.”

After the success of the first year of the Resilience AmeriCorps pilot program at GOSR, the office is planning to embed three new AmeriCorps members to assist with its continued recovery work. One of the new members will focus on strengthening the relationships between GOSR and nonprofit partners. Another will focus on implementation analysis, and “analyze how we tell the story of our resilience work,” according to Muller. The final Resilience AmeriCorps member will work on affordable housing. “Some public housing in the state is receiving resilience upgrades. We’re looking to fold a Resilience AmeriCorps member into that project,” said Muller. “We want to ensure that there is significant resident engagement included in the process.”

The Resilience AmeriCorps model has opened the door for new opportunities and enthusiasm at GOSR. The AmeriCorps members have allowed the office to devote time to new projects, track successes in existing projects, and to enhance the citizen engagement component of all the work done at GOSR. “The AmeriCorps members have genuine interest in the mission-driven work, and fuse enthusiasm into the projects they work on,” said Muller. “We’ve been able to have a much larger impact thanks to the unique perspective they provide.”

Cities of Service’s work is made possible with generous funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies. Resilience AmeriCorps is supported by The Rockefeller Foundation, the Corporation for National and Community Service, and Walmart Foundation.

NEW YORK STATE GOVERNOR’S OFFICE OF STORM RECOVERY: ELEVATING RESILIENCE WITH COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT was originally published in Building Resilience on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Cities of Service Resilience AmeriCorps program trains and supports AmeriCorps VISTA members to help communities prepare for catastrophic events and ongoing challenges. Serving in city halls, the AmeriCorps members engage citizens and community partners to build and sustain resilience in vulnerable neighborhoods.

New Orleans is a city of small, locally owned businesses. “This isn’t a city of Fortune 500 companies,” acknowledged Jared Genova, the Resilience Planning and Strategy Manager. “You don’t see many chain stores around here.” And residents like it that way. Small businesses are a keystone of the city’s culture and economy. But this commercial landscape poses unique challenges. Many small businesses lack the resources to bounce back from disasters. Large-scale disturbances can destroy products, disrupt supply chains, and damage important documents like leases, licenses, and bank information. Unprepared businesses that cannot mitigate the damages risk closing their doors forever.

Genova wanted to help support the businesses that contribute so much to New Orleans. The city already ran a workshop series focused on emergency preparedness, but Genova wanted to expand the program to specifically help small business owners.

BRINGING RESILIENCE TO CITIZENS WITH PREPAREDNESS WORKSHOPS

When Genova heard about the Cities of Service Resilience AmeriCorps program, he knew he had an opportunity to expand outreach capacity while simultaneously getting a new, deeply engaged perspective on community issues in low-income neighborhoods. “The thing that appealed to us about the program was the focus on touching communities on a personal level,” he said. “It’s easy for resilience planning and the concept of resilience to stay up at 30,000 feet, but we wanted to involve citizens more.”

When Cities of Service Resilience AmeriCorps members Kate Gruzd and Mario Figueroa arrived in New Orleans, Genova tasked them with taking resilience to the people by providing training and tools for small business owners in low-income communities to prepare them for emergencies.

According to Genova, “resilience planning requires consideration of city-specific environmental, economic, and social issues.” To create an effective workshop, the AmeriCorps members needed an intimate understanding of the socioeconomic landscape of New Orleans. “We wanted to work with community members, and get information from the source,” said AmeriCorps member Gruzd. They planned to go door-to-door surveying small businesses to determine their ability to prepare for, respond to, and recover from disasters.

With the assistance of IBM and ARISE, a private-sector alliance for disaster-resilient societies, Gruzd, Figueroa, and Genova designed and tested a survey to learn more about New Orleans’ commercial ecosystem. They partnered with a team from FEMA Corps, a part of the AmeriCorps NCCC program, and surveyed hundreds of businesses in three low-income corridors of the city, including Gentilly Boulevard, Washington and Broad, and Harrison Avenue. The interactions lasted between 15 minutes and an hour. “It’s special to have a conversation with a business owner and say look, we’re here, we’re the City of New Orleans, and we care about your concerns,” Genova said.

During one of these conversations, Gruzd asked a business owner if he considered himself a resource in the community. “He initially said no,” Gruzd remembered. “But in his previous answers he mentioned lending out generators and lighting equipment to neighboring businesses during Hurricane Katrina.” When Gruzd reminded him of his past service, she remembered that “his whole demeanor shifted. His face brightened and he said, ‘Well, I guess I am a resource to my community. I just never thought about it that way.’ Seeing him recognize his importance was awesome to witness, and at the end of the survey he thanked us for helping him think about safety and preparedness differently.”

“The thing that appealed to us about the program was the focus on touching communities on a personal level. It’s easy for resilience planning and the concept of resilience to stay up at 30,000 feet, but we wanted to involve citizens more.”

— JARED GENOVA, RESILIENCE PLANNING AND STRATEGY MANAGER, NEW ORLEANS

RESTRUCTURING THE WORKSHOP AROUND RESIDENT INPUT

The survey received an impressive 75 percent response rate, perhaps due in part to personal outreach. “It was a demonstration of dedication to human contact, and to service,” said Gruzd. The responses gave the team a better idea of citizen needs. They learned that vulnerability was high across New Orleans, that few surveyed businesses were prepared for a disaster, and that business owners were interested in improving their awareness of risk-mitigation strategies.

Based on this specific feedback, the team restructured the existing workshop to go in depth and help participants know exactly what to do in the event of an emergency.

EDUCATING BUSINESS OWNERS TO BOUNCE BACK AFTER DISASTERS

During the new workshop, participants assess threats that could affect their businesses, and analyze the financial and operational impact of various disaster scenarios on their ability to provide goods and services. After learning about the potential impacts of a disaster, participants create business continuity plans, including information on delegating tasks, obtaining emergency supplies, saving vital records, and structuring communications during a disaster.

The plans are flexible enough to help businesses retain their normal processes during a disaster, whether the incident is a fire in their store, a power outage, or a hurricane. Participants walk away with a greater understanding of potential threats and a plan for bouncing back.

This year, the team plans to hold more frequent workshops to continue engaging citizens in resilience. And, after seeing the success of directly asking people what they need, the team plans to continue using surveying as a tool to refine the workshops and other potential programs.

The team will also establish a small business owner in each corridor as a “Resilience Champion” to further facilitate disaster preparedness. Through this approach, “we can empower the community to take resilience on, and help others get involved,” said Genova.

Cities of Service’s work is made possible with generous funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies. Resilience AmeriCorps is supported by The Rockefeller Foundation, the Corporation for National and Community Service, and Walmart Foundation.

NEW ORLEANS, LOUISIANA: IMPROVING CITYWIDE RESILIENCE, ONE SMALL BUSINESS AT A TIME was originally published in Building Resilience on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Cities of Service Resilience AmeriCorps program trains and supports AmeriCorps VISTA members to help communities prepare for catastrophic events and ongoing challenges. Serving in city halls, the AmeriCorps members engage citizens and community partners to build and sustain resilience in vulnerable neighborhoods.

Located at the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio Rivers, Pittsburgh was once known as the “Gateway to the West.” With easy-to-navigate waterways and abundant resources like coal, timber, and iron, Pittsburgh grew into an industrial powerhouse and forged a reputation as the “Steel City.”

Over the last half century, however, industrial manufacturing has folded under pressure from a changing economy — giving Pittsburgh yet another chance to define itself.

Celebrating its 200th anniversary in 2016, Pittsburgh has reinvented itself as a resilient hub for technology, education, healthcare, and finance.

While making an impressive transformation, Pittsburgh has not rebounded uniformly. With the loss of industrial jobs came divestment and movement away from manufacturing neighborhoods, leading to regional fragmentation and increased socioeconomic inequality.

Social stressors have been exacerbated by environmental challenges such as natural disasters, aging infrastructure, and hazardous materials incidents.

These challenges, however, are no match for the grit and ingenuity of Pittsburgh residents — they are taking action to build a resilient Pittsburgh.

PITTSBURGH REDEFINES CITY LEGACY WITH RESILIENCE STRATEGY

As part of the 100 Resilient Cities network, the City of Pittsburgh hired its first ever resilience-dedicated staff, with Chief Resilience Officer Grant Ervin leading the team as they develop and implement a citywide Resilience Strategy.

The strategy will facilitate better coordination between city departments while educating residents about ongoing resilience efforts so they are empowered to make change within their own neighborhoods.

“There are so many opportunities for people to get involved; it’s almost overwhelming. So, how do we wrangle everything that’s going on to create a better-trained cohort of engaged citizens?”

— REBECCA KIERNAN, SENIOR RESILIENCE COORDINATOR

The City of Pittsburgh partnered with Cities of Service to work toward a common goal: a resilient Pittsburgh. Through the Cities of Service Resilience AmeriCorps program, Pittsburgh embedded two Resilience AmeriCorps members in City Hall as fulltime resilience outreach and received the financial and technical support to involve the public in the Resilience Strategy.

To jumpstart the initiative, the two AmeriCorps members — Alex Cupo and Emily Costello — organized the city’s inaugural Resilience Fair in September 2016 and engaged the public in a dialogue about resilience.

AMERICORPS MEMBERS ENGAGE PUBLIC IN DIALOGUE ABOUT RESILIENCE

“For a lot of people, the word resilience doesn’t immediately ring any bells, but we got to discuss what it could mean for individuals, for neighborhoods, for the city, all while getting feedback from the community,” says Costello.

At the fair, more than 20 nonprofits and community-based organizations gathered at the South Side Market House, a city-owned senior center, to showcase citywide resilience initiatives and educate citizens about available services. More than 100 residents attended the fair and reported feeling more informed.

“The fair made me aware of things I would have never thought of on my own,” says one participant. Residents learned about volunteer opportunities in their neighborhood and how community-based organizations are working together on citywide resilience initiatives. “(The Resilience Team) serves as an integrator. (Government) agencies usually stay in their own lane, but we intersect them and connect service areas that may never talk to one another to improve efficiency and create co-benefits,” says Ervin.

To show community members what can be achieved through the power of collective effort, the resilience team helped coordinate a cleanup of the Hazelwood Greenway — a low-income and historically disadvantaged area — with community-based organizations such as the the Environmental Services Department. Partnering with University of Pittsburgh’s Make a Difference Day, over 70 student volunteers were engaged to remove knotweed and grapevine over an acre of land to create a trail for Hazelwood residents. The Hazelwood Initiative, a community-based development corporation, serves as a local steward for the greenway, providing tools and leadership for the volunteer effort. The demonstration showed residents what can be achieved through Impact Volunteering and prepared the City of Pittsburgh to embark on a new phase of its Resilience Strategy: Love Your (Resilient) Block.

RESIDENTS BECOME LOCAL STEWARDS FOR RESILIENCE EFFORTS

With funding from Cities of Service, the city is offering mini-grants of up to $1,500 and technical assistance by the AmeriCorps members to carry out projects. The City of Pittsburgh is already seeing changes in the community. Residents are eager to get involved in resilience efforts and have already submitted a record-breaking 33 applications for neighborhood revitalization projects. These projects will take place in 23 neighborhoods — 74 percent of which are moderate to low-income — and will not only build relationships between neighbors, but will help convert neglected lots into vibrant public spaces all residents can enjoy.

“We’ve been able to create not just better connections between our partners in the resilience effort, but also to take that message to the community and be better connectors for our residents,” says Ervin.

“We’ve been able to create not just better connections between our partners in the resilience effort, but also to take that message to the community and be better connectors for our residents.”

— GRANT ERVIN, CHIEF RESILIENCE OFFICER

Over the last 200 years, Pittsburgh has transformed from a rigid city of steel to a flexible, resilient city that is engaging citizens in its bright future.

Cities of Service’s work is made possible with generous funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies. Resilience AmeriCorps is supported by The Rockefeller Foundation, the Corporation for National and Community Service, and Walmart Foundation.

PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA: ADAPTING FOR THE NEXT GENERATION was originally published in Building Resilience on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

The Cities of Service Resilience AmeriCorps program trains and supports AmeriCorps VISTA members to help communities prepare for catastrophic events and ongoing challenges. Serving in city halls, the AmeriCorps members engage citizens and community partners to build and sustain resilience in vulnerable neighborhoods.

I n Chicago, Illinois, local government is working to strengthen communities and engage with citizens on a diverse set of issues, including resiliency. “Chicago’s largest resilience challenges are around social and economic resilience, including blight, divestment, and a lack of social cohesion in many neighborhoods,” said Aaron Koch, Chicago’s Chief Resilience Officer.

When Cities of Service Resilience AmeriCorps members Trevor Riley and Johannes Dreisbach arrived in Chicago, they wanted to target these challenges. They discovered a potential way to address these issues when they learned about the city’s Clean & Green service days.

AMERICORPS MEMBERS RETHINK EXISTING RESOURCES

For the past two decades, the Chicago Department of Transportation and the Chicago Department of Streets and Sanitation hosted Clean & Green events once a year. During the service days, residents, civic associations, and community groups came together to beautify public spaces in neighborhoods. These service days were organized by Ward Superintendents as large, spring cleaning-style events. Outside of these formal events, the city offered year-round assistance for citizen-driven neighborhood cleanups, including a tool-lending library and a post-cleanup event garbage pickup service. However, these services were underutilized because citizens were largely unaware of their availability, and neighborhood groups didn’t know how to organize cleanups on their own.

The AmeriCorps members recognized that by bringing together diverse stakeholders to improve their physical environment, the Clean & Green events provided a framework for a connected, resilient community. Riley and Dreisbach wanted to expand Chicago’s commitment to strategic service in low-income and underserved communities by enhancing the Clean & Green events and informing Chicagoans of the services available to them year-round. “Obviously you don’t spend just one day a year caring about your neighborhood,” said Riley. Inspired by the current program, they embarked on a journey to engage low-income residents in ongoing neighborhood revitalization.

TEAM STRATEGIZES PROGRAM REVAMP

The AmeriCorps members consulted with Cities of Service and developed a plan to host more Clean & Green events, as well as enhance several aspects of the program, including the marketing strategy, the programmatic relationships within City Hall, and community partnerships. They planned to schedule additional Clean & Green events to provide citizens with more opportunities for community networking and engagement, while beautifying their neighborhoods. The AmeriCorps members also planned to provide neighborhood groups with the resources to organize their own independent cleanup events year-round. “We want to breathe new life into this existing program,” said Riley.

The team knew that marketing the events was key to galvanizing volunteers and spreading knowledge of available cleanup resources. Clean & Green events had historically been marketed using fliers and press releases, but the AmeriCorps members wanted to develop a more comprehensive strategy to get the word out. Working with Cities of Service, they considered marketing mechanisms that would be effective for reaching more citizens. They are now working with the Department of Streets and Sanitation to update the Clean & Green website to include maps of cleanup locations, metrics from previous events, and online forms for tool lending and garbage pickup requests. The team developed a mock-up of the new website and a long-term plan for publicizing events and resources on social media.

AMERICORPS MEMBERS STRENGTHEN CITYWIDE CONNECTIONS THROUGH SERVICE

The AmeriCorps members are utilizing their unique position within City Hall to better connect low-income and marginalized citizens with the city, helping to ensure that city services are meeting the needs of the people. “We’re working to identify opportunities for volunteering that overlap with existing Streets and Sanitation services, like filling potholes, trimming trees, and dumping debris,” says Riley. Through this approach, “we can get city staff interacting with the community and creating a much larger impact than a simple neighborhood cleanup.”

Focusing in the traditionally low-income, south and west parts of Chicago, Riley and Dreisbach also had the idea to use their relationships with community organizations to broker partnerships and expand citywide capacity for citizen-driven events beyond the traditional Clean & Green service day. “We want to create a network, make sure people know about existing available services, and help organizations run their own cleanups,” said Dreisbach. The AmeriCorps members hope that knowledge of tool-lending libraries and other available resources will galvanize community organizations to organize their own cleanup events and take blight elimination into their own hands. “We want these organizations to run cleanups successfully,” said Riley. “They can’t do it alone, so we want to put them in the best position to help themselves.”

Dreisbach is excited about the steps the team has taken to expand the program. “It’s great to empower individuals and show that they can play a large role in improving their communities,” he said. “Getting neighbors out together, having them meet city staff, and cleaning their neighborhoods will help strengthen connections and social cohesion in these neighborhoods, while reducing blight.” “The AmeriCorps members are helping citizens have a greater voice, and a greater role, in improving their communities,” Koch said. “They are making an existing program stronger by more thoughtfully and thoroughly engaging citizens.”

Cities of Service’s work is made possible with generous funding from Bloomberg Philanthropies. Resilience AmeriCorps is supported by The Rockefeller Foundation, the Corporation for National and Community Service, and Walmart Foundation.

CHICAGO, ILLINOIS: RETOOLING EXISTING PROGRAMS TO MEET CITIZEN NEEDS was originally published in Building Resilience on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Last week, Cities of Service brought together over 30 city leaders from across the US and UK for our 2017 Annual Convening in Phoenix, AZ. This hands-on event focused on building the citizen engagement skills of local government practitioners.

Citizens are often an untapped resource in cities, but the power of the people can move mountains when it comes to addressing city challenges. This convening demonstrated different citizen engagement tools being used by cities across the two countries and helped city leaders to think about new ways to invoke the power of the citizenry to solve public problems.

Cities of Service Explores Phoenix by Bus

The convening began with a bus tour of Phoenix, the host city for the two-day convening. The city’s Chief Service Officer, Michael Hammett, and Director of the Department of Community & Economic Development, Christine MacKay, acted as our tour guides.

The tour gave convening participants a sense of the city, which just recently jumped to the fifth largest in the nation. MacKay described the impressive population growth of Phoenix’s metropolitan area — expanding from 3,251,876 people in 2000 to 4,192,887 people in 2010. From July 2015 to July 2016 alone, Phoenix added 32,113 people to its population — that’s more than any other city in the US.

We heard about Phoenix’s innovative Water Resource Plan which, despite the population growth and a prolonged dry period, has made it possible for the city to avoid placing water restrictions on its citizens. MacKay described how, with this plan in place, the city is prepared for the next 50 years and beyond — population growth included. We also visited the world famous Mayo Clinic, just one of the many stellar science and technology establishments in the area. Phoenix’s Mayo Clinic offers advanced cancer treatments, including proton beam therapy, which targets tumors while leaving nearby tissue unharmed.

Mayor Greg Stanton Welcomes Us to the Valley of the Sun

Mayor Greg Stanton joined us to kick off the convening’s sessions. He spoke about the fast growing city and it’s “why not?” culture that helps it continue to innovate and transform. He described the city’s science leadership, its expanding public transportation system, and its welcoming environment for refugees.

One of the major ingredients in the city’s secret sauce? Working with its citizens to solve Phoenix’s challenges. Mayor Stanton described how working with Cities of Service as a founding member of our coalition has fueled the city’s ability to create a trusting relationship between its leadership and its residents. This bond, and the many city programs that now rely on citizen engagement — from Love Your Block to Resilience AmeriCorps to the city’s recent establishment of a Chief Service Officer — all make Phoenix a special place to call home.

Graphic Facilitation Engages Visual Learners

Throughout the event, Graphic Illustrator Janine Underhill illustrated the findings and lessons shared during the sessions. Her artwork helped participants see the impact of their words and their work, as well as draw connections between different ideas and their implementations. Participants also used templates prepared by Underhill and Cities of Service staff to develop and illustrate solutions to the challenges they are facing with their programs.

Hands-On Sessions Facilitate Skill Building

Convening participants had many opportunities to learn from their fellow city leaders, share their own wins and challenges, and speak out about the experiences they are having back in their home cities. Cities of Service used a variety of session and presentation formats to create an environment that spurred critical thinking about citizen engagement.

Concentric Circles: In this session format, a circle of chairs surrounds four chairs in the middle. The four chairs offer a chance for conversation about the selected topic, and participants in the outer circle rotate in and out of the four center chairs when they have something to add to the conversation.

Focusing on “The New Normal” in government — where distrust between citizens and their leaders runs rampant — participants in this session talked about how their cities are operating in this new environment.

Pecha Kucha: This presentation format shows a selection of images for 20 seconds each while the presenter describes the images and tells their story.

Focusing on the topic of resistance, presenters Kathy Nyland, Director of the Department of Neighborhoods in the City of Seattle, and Andi Crawford, Neighborhood Resource Coordinator for the City of Lansing, talked about how they leveraged resistance to create new government systems that support and sustain citizen engagement. Khanh Russo, Director of Strategic Partnerships for City of San José Mayor Sam Liccardo, also used this presentation format to tell the story of how San José recently generated interest and buy-in from the Mayor to create a Chief Service Officer position.

World Café: This small group discussion format uses rounds of 15-minute discussions to promote collaboration and idea sharing. Each table has a host who stays put throughout the session, but all other participants switch tables at the end of each 15-minute round, eventually making their way around the whole room — or around the “world.” The session ends with a debrief that helps participants uncover themes.

This café focused on a selection of questions — Why is citizen engagement important in your city? When do you talk to/engage with “the community” and what does that interaction look like? How can engagement be dangerous or risky for a city?

Pop-Ups: This presentation format relies on a special presentation from a selected speaker, using slides, videos, and other accompanying storytelling tools.

The convening included several pop-up presentations. Jerome Smith, Boston Mayor Martin J. Walsh’s Cabinet Chief of Civic Engagement and Director of the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Services, spoke about how they use SPARK Boston to engage with and get buy-in from millennials in the city. Vicky Kovari talked about how she has used her role as Chief Service Officer for the City of Detroit to meet the Mayor’s goal of keeping people in their homes and increasing the city’s population. Grant Ervin, Chief Resilience Officer for the City of Pittsburgh, talked about the development of Pittsburgh’s Resilience Strategy and how citizens play a core role in strengthening the city’s resilience.

Participants Learn Lessons from Across the Pond

The convening concluded with a special session featuring five city leaders from our UK cities. The speakers shared lessons about citizen engagement and volunteering from London, York, Bristol, Plymouth, and Kirklees. Their programs are addressing a wide range of city challenges, from loneliness among their elderly populations, to energy use in homes, to nutrition and local food production. Follow @CitiesServiceUK to keep up with their work.

Situated along 144 miles of coastline, the ocean is both an asset and a challenge in Norfolk, VA. While it’s home to the largest naval station in the world, the city regularly experiences nuisance flooding due to rising sea levels.

As part of the Cities of Service Resilience AmeriCorps Program, AmeriCorps members Katie White and Pam Myers work with the City of Norfolk to engage citizens and community partners in initiatives that build and sustain resilience throughout the city.

In late April, the City of Norfolk hosted the Retain Your Rain Workshop so residents could learn about small-scale projects they can install at home to help mitigate flooding. From rain barrels to gardens, these types of green infrastructure can collect rainwater where it falls instead of running into the stormwater system.

The first Workshop of the season kicked off with great success. Over 40 volunteers gathered at Bay View Elementary to disconnect the building’s downspout as well as install a rain garden with barrels and a bioswale, all capable of directing an estimated 600 gallons of rainwater away from the stormwater system during weather events.

Not only did the workshop bring Norfolk residents together, it also gathered representatives from the Civic League, the Norfolk Master Gardeners, and the Norfolk Master Naturalists. As they worked together, they realized all of the organizations have resources they can pool together for a future Retain Your Rain Workshop or another green infrastructure training.

If your city struggles with flooding or other resilience challenges, learn more about these projects on the Norfolk Resilient City Blog or discover how the Cities of Service Resilience AmeriCorps Program can be a solution for you.

Next week, Cities of Service will bring together city leaders from across the country for our 2017 Annual Convening in Phoenix, AZ. This hands-on event focuses on building the citizen engagement skills of local government practitioners so that they can more effectively solve their city’s problems. Ahead of the event, we spoke to Khanh Russo, Director of Strategic Partnerships for City of San José Mayor Sam Liccardo, to learn why citizen engagement has become a critical strategy for strengthening the City of San José.

Cities of Service: How does Mayor Liccardo see citizen engagement as a strategy that strengthens his city?

Khanh Russo: We know one way to answer the call of government innovation is through our community. San José specifically has a unique situation because we have such a diverse community, both ethnically and technologically. San José is a very empathetic city. By combining that empathy with compassion, technology, and a yearning for service, and by better engaging our community through service and volunteerism, the Mayor believes we can solve our city’s most pressing problems.

Cities of Service: What challenges and successes have you had with developing new city systems around engagement?

Khanh Russo: There has been really great enthusiasm. We have strong existing programs in the city we can build upon and great civic groups to partner with to increase opportunity and capacity, as demonstrated by the South Bay Clean Creeks Coalition, Encore.org, and Service Year Alliance. The challenge for us is figuring out how to better streamline opportunities and make it easier for folks to sign up. There are great tools out there right now, like social media and NextDoor. How do we better partner with and leverage these platforms to excite folks into service?

Cities of Service: How has the Cities of Service Impact Volunteering method impacted your city broadly?

Khanh Russo: What I love about Impact Volunteering is the level of accountability, and I think that really resonates in Silicon Valley. It also helps us think through a different lens. For example, we know that education is really important but because of Impact Volunteering, we’re thinking about how volunteers in service can affect education goals. It’s not just about how many hours were spent tutoring; it’s about focusing on the transformation of lives — how many kids became literate? How many improved their reading? Traditional volunteering tends to focus on outputs, not outcomes, but Impact Volunteering has really shaped the way we approach, design, and think about our volunteer programs.

Cities of Service: Can you talk about the 100-year flood and how volunteers were involved in that recovery?

Khanh Russo: One of the points of pride for us as a city was how quickly our community came together — it really demonstrated the importance of our partnership with Cities of Service and the value of having that infrastructure and connectivity with the community already in place. Because of that, we were able to quickly mobilize, communicate, and accommodate all the volunteers. The flood hit Tuesday, and by Friday we were able to identify volunteer opportunities, coordinate with partners, and do the outreach. In that first weekend, we had over 2,000 individuals come out to support flood relief efforts. Because of that, we helped residents return home four and a half to five weeks earlier than they otherwise would have. It was amazing to see it working and to be able to measure the impact like that.

Cities of Service: What are you looking forward to with the Cities of Service Prepared Together Program, especially after having participated in the Cities of Service Bay Area Impact Volunteering Program?

Khanh Russo: We learned a couple of things, but perhaps the most important among them is: communication is key. We’re hoping to build out strategies to use communications platforms and social media to not only recruit, but also steward volunteers to help them feel good about what they’re doing and communicate the impact of what they’re doing.

Cities of Service: How did the city decide to hire a Chief Service Officer?

Khanh Russo: The strategy with piloting different types of service and citizen engagement programs was to prove the importance of service in a very tangible way. Part of it was proving it not only to the Mayor and the community, but to city staff because there’s a lot of change management that has to go on in order for us to get buy-in. The goal of this role is for it to continue after this Mayor, so we have to embed it and integrate it and get the buy-in from the rest of the city in order for this to be successful in the long-term.

Cities of Service: What are Mayor Liccardo’s hopes for the Chief Service Officer position and for citizen engagement broadly in San José?

Khanh Russo: This is really about people being empowered to take ownership of their community, making it easy to get people involved and provide solutions, and making it easy for people to engage with local government in a significant and substantial way. The Mayor comes from a background, an ethic of service. So this is core to what he is about and how he thinks about creating a strong community.

Explore ways to get involved in service opportunities in the City of San José.