Berkeleyan

Team-up for Youth’s Coaching Corps program is one of many local organizations whose funding is augmented by the Chancellor’s Community Partnership Fund. (Team-up for Youth photo)

Chancellor's Community Partnership Fund grants awarded
Campus partners help support Berkeley projects promoting neighborhood improvement and other local goals

By Glenda Rubin, Community Relations | 21 August 2008

The Chancellor’s Community Partnership Fund (communityrelations.berkeley. edu/ccpf) was established in 2006 by an agreement between the campus and the city of Berkeley. Since then, 46 grants totaling almost $620,000 have been awarded. The fund will award grants annually through the year 2020.

Eighteen projects designed to enhance the quality of life for residents of the city of Berkeley will share $212,700 in grants awarded by the Chancellor’s Community Partnership Fund for 2008-09. The fund annually grants awards to Berkeley-based organizations for projects addressing community needs that bring together the ideas, energy, and resources of the community and UC Berkeley faculty, staff, and students. This year’s recipients were chosen from more than 40 applicants.

“We are delighted to support these creative programs in the arts, educational enrichment, neighborhood improvement, and social welfare,” said Chancellor Robert Birgeneau. “These projects illustrate what can be accomplished when community groups and the university work together to make a difference in our community.”

Grants are awarded in two categories: neighborhood-improvement projects that enhance the city’s physical environment, and community-support and -service projects that improve the economic, social, and cultural well-being of Berkeley residents.

Community-service project grants were awarded to the following proposals submitted by a wide range of community and campus partners. Only the latter are listed here; the complete list of community sponsors is at communityrelations.berkeley.edu/ccpf/news.htm.

•  Vision 20/20: A Total Community Approach to Educational Achievement and Equity is engaged in developing a comprehensive approach to addressing the achievement/equity gap in the Berkeley schools. Campus partner: Office of Student Development.

•  The Dance for Parkinson’s Disease Project offers classes and teacher-training by Mark Morris Dance Group members in their innovative approach to movement exercise for people with Parkinson’s. Campus partner: Cal Performances.

•  Yellowjackets Performance Lab at Berkeley High School is a workshop to be held in conjunction with the Berkeley Repertory Theatre’s world-premiere production of Yellowjackets, a play about race relations at Berkeley High, written by BHS graduate Itamar Moses. Campus partner: Graduate School of Education (GSE).

•  WriterCoach Connection: Literacy Support for Berkeley Middle Schools brings trained writers to work with 7th- and 8th-grade students to help them master writing and critical-thinking skills. Campus partners: Cal Corps Public Service Center, GSE, Department of Ethnic Studies.

•  The Bay Area Student Collaboration to Assist the Homeless engages students from across academic fields and professional programs to provide direct legal services, health advocacy, and policy work on behalf of homeless people. Campus partners: Health and Medical Apprenticeship Program, Department of Ethnic Studies.

•  Coaching Corps Berkeley recruits, trains, and places Berkeley students as volunteer coaches and mentors for after-school sports programs at seven sites, serving hundreds of Berkeley youth. Campus partner: Cal Corps Public Service Center.

•  The Affirmative Asylum Program offers free or low-cost immigration legal services to refugees and immigrants and provides them with tools and legal knowledge to advocate for themselves and their community. Campus partners: Berkeley Law’s California Affirmative Asylum Clinic, departments of Ethnic Studies and Comparative Literature.

•  The Watershed Environmental Poetry Festival, a national environmental-arts project initiated by Berkeley professor of English Robert Hass, brings together poets, nature writers, musicians, visual artists, and environmentalists to inspire concern for the natural world. Campus partner: Professor Robert Haas.

•  Community in the Classroom places more than 75 Berkeley graduate students in Berkeley elementary schools to do 150 hour-long, hands-on science presentations. Campus partners: Professor of Chemistry Robert Bergman and graduate students in the sciences.

•  M3 Academy recruits and places Berkeley students as tutors and role models for Berkeley 5th- and 6th-graders in early-morning, after-school, and Saturday classes in math, sports, and life skills. Campus partners: Cal Corps Public Service Center, Alpha Phi Alpha, Cal Teach.

•  Berkeley Youth Collective connects Berkeley students with continuation-high-school youth to develop literacy, writing, math, research, and technology skills that expand their access to college-preparatory programs and educational opportunities. Campus partners: Cal Corps Public Service Center; departments of Sociology and African American Studies; bridges Multicultural Center; American Cultures.

•  Poetry in the Community brings the Poetry for the People program to the Berkeley community through such activities as performances by nationally acclaimed artists, community and school workshops, and multigenerational performances featuring national and local artists and students. Campus sponsors: Poetry for the People, Hip-Hop Studies Working Group, Department of African American Studies.

Neighborhood-improvement project grants for 2008-09 were awarded to:

•  The Atheon: A Temple to Science is a forthcoming art installation at the Magnes Museum’s new downtown Berkeley location that depicts NASA-generated imagery of the universe’s early years. Also funded is a synod to discuss the relationship between science and religion. Campus partner: Consortium for the Arts.

•  Berkeley Teen Eco-Service Days and Related Trainings involve local teens in hands-on habitat-restoration days at Berkeley’s Aquatic Park. Campus partners: College of Natural Resources, UC Botanical Garden.

•  Greening Berkeley Hands-On marshals community and campus volunteers, providing them with materials to create people-friendly, biodiverse green spaces in their neighborhoods. Campus partner: Cal Corps Public Service Center.

•  The South Berkeley Neighborhood Renewal Project brings together volunteers and residents to revitalize their neighborhoods through community cleanups, landscaping and creation of green space, and an art installation. Campus partner: Cal Corps Public Service Center.

•  The Willard Neighborhood Association/The Berkeley Project brings together more than 2,000 student volunteers, the city of Berkeley, and community members for one-day environmental, cleanup, and beautification projects around the city. Campus partner: The Berkeley Project.

•  The Youth at Hope Community Arts Project engages West Berkeley youth in a community public-arts project. Campus partner: Multicultural Student Development Office.