Renowned artist returns to DXC to sign his work

There was a young man who came here to DXC, quite a number of years ago. He took part in activities – playing ping pong and doing crafts. He might have especially liked doing crafts. He had an artistic side to his nature as later events would show.

Last week, that young man – award winning Dayton artist James Pate -- now a renowned artist, returned to DXC to put his name on a painting he did to show his gratitude for those happy hours he spent here.

The mural, showing the Dayton skyline along with scenes of gardens, had no date on it and neither Mr. Pate nor our long-time staff members could remember just when he presented it to the center; we think it might have been 1996-97. But since the day it presented, it has been a focal point of DXC’s Common Room where it sat in a place of honor on the stage.

Mr. Pate had never signed this particular work, and, had it not been for the fond memories of a couple of staff member who remembered him, the importance of the painting might have been lost to all concerned. But Ms. Ruby and Ms. Goins did remember – with good thoughts – that young boy who had come here often and who had said thanks in the best way he knew how, so DXC Associate Executive Director Sarah Williams got in touch with Mr. Pate and asked him if he would come in to sign the painting.

It was important to have him do that, you see, because the painting is going to be donated next month to Montgomery County Public Health Department to be displayed in the lobby of the Reibold Building.

“We decided to do that for a couple of reasons,” said Sarah Williams, DXC Associate Executive Director. “For one thing, we don’t really have the ability or the expertise to care for the painting as it should be. But mostly, we felt that this work, that shows such a hopeful and sustainable future for Dayton, really needs to be in a place where more people can see it. It’s a beautiful work of art and art should be for everyone to enjoy.”

During his visit, Mr. Pate was able to enjoy a short reunion with Ms. Goins (Ms. Ruby had left for the day, unfortunately) and the two shared fond moments.

Mr. Pate grew up in Cincinnati, attending the School for the Creative and Performing Arts there, where he earned a scholarship for the Art Academy of Cincinnati. In 1997, at age 33, he moved to Dayton, where he has remained ever since.

He taught art at Col. White and has been an art consultant with Dayton Public Schools. Twice, he has been awarded Montgomery County Individual Artist Fellowship and the Ohio Arts Council Individual Excellence Award. His works are shown museums around the country.

“We really feel very honored to have an original work of art by such a respected artist,” Sarah said after meeting him. “And to be part of bringing his work to a much wider audience is really exciting.”

Another way to make the neighborhood beautiful

We’ve been doing a lot of beautification events this summer and we’ve talked about nearly all of them here on the blog. But neighborhood beautification can mean a lot more than patrolling the streets picking up trash or planting flowers. It can also involve art.

A few months ago, we were contacted by Tracey Obenour who, along with her husband, paints murals on buildings. She wanted to do a mural on the building over on East 5^th Street building that would capture the spirit of the urban farm there and of urban farming in general. Of course, we were more than happy to agree.

The project was started in April, and the first week of August, we got an email from Tracey saying that the mural was about 90% finished and she wanted to know what we thought. We rushed right over and, as we drove into the lot, we had to smile.

Tracey’s mural certainly does capture the spirit and the essence of urban farming, and is beautiful to boot. It gives a whole, new, fresh look to a building that was serviceable but plain and, frankly, industrial. Now, it is cheerful and bright, and it will bring a touch of spring and summer even during the harshest of winter months.

While we were there, we took a look at the progress of the crops planted by volunteers this spring. Wow! Were we pleased! Tomato plants shoulder high, teeming with cheery and regular-sized fruit; beans that had grown, had been harvested by Ken and his volunteers; chives that were spreading over the ground, ready to reseed themselves; and even a couple of melons, tempting us in the summer heat.

Gardening has its pleasures, not the least of which is the witnessing of the growing and maturing process. To see a plant grow from a seedling to a mature, productive adult has the feel of a small, natural miracle and never fails to bring a smile.

Together with the great mural Tracey and her husband created, that small part of East 5^th Street is a whole lot better than it was at the beginning of the year.

And we’re very thankful to Tracey, Ken, and of course, all the volunteers who made that possible.

Weekends like this just don't come around very often!

As weeks go, last week was exceptional.

First, it was Global Youth Service Day (GYSD) on Friday and we had 18 very dedicated and enthusiastic students from Spring Valley Academy choose to spend their morning with us cleaning up the neighborhood and interacting with the residents, showing that today’s youth is interested in more than texting, tweeting and video games.

These young people we’re afraid to get their hands dirty. While part of them worked their way the full length of Ferguson Ave – about half a mile in length – picking up trash and even carrying large items from one end of the street to the other so they could be picked up by the city, another group helped out here at DXC, cleaning up the grounds so that we could look our best, too. Then, the full group traveled down Riverview Ave, where we’re located, ranging at least as far as they had on Ferguson. At one point, a resident came out onto his porch and stood applauding the students as they passed by his house, gathering trash. They exchanged greetings and the man thanked them for doing such a good job and everyone parted feeling a little better about what they were doing. By the time they were finished, not a single scrap of paper, not a discarded bottle or can, not a forgotten toy was left. They even found some – shall we say – very personal items which they carefully picked up and deposited in the proper receptacles.

That’s dedication!

There was a great moment at the beginning of the day when Global Youth Service Day Committee Member Cathy Guerrant, from nearby Catholic Social Services, and Dayton City Commissioner Nan Whaley stopped by for a visit. Both Ms. Guerrant and Commissioner Whaley have been great advocates of youth volunteer programs and have done a lot to encourage and support both programs and the local organizations, such as DXC, who host them.

Along with DXC Associate Executive Director Sarah Williams, Commissioner Whaley and Ms. Guerrant welcomed the students and thanked them for their work. This meant a lot to the young people, and meant even more when all three adults accompanied them outside to give them even more encouragement.

All this, by the way, was captured by local news media WDTN, Channel 2, who sent reporter Jordan Burgess out to get it on film and interview some of the students.

Students volunteer for Global Youth Service Day: wdtn.com

It was really special to see not only that young people would spend their morning doing work that many older, supposedly more responsible people tend to ignore. Maybe it’s the youth of our country that can set the example for us!

We really want to thank them, Spring Valley Academy, Ms. Guerrant and Commissioner Whaley, and WDTN for their support on GYSD. Because of it, our neighborhood is a better, cleaner and more prideful area.

But the good things didn’t stop there.
On Saturday, Sarah and Phil Greene, our AmeriCorps Program Manager were partnered with the Dayton/Montgomery County Public Health department at the Levin Health Fair, “Celebrating Health and Life.” This annual event, put on by the Levin Family Foundation, is one of the biggest, most important health-oriented events anywhere in this part of Ohio. It draws literally thousands of people and hundreds of health-related vendors from all over the Dayton area.

Sarah and Phil had the DXC display set up along with Public Health in a very high-traffic area. In fact, neither of them had much chance to catch their breath over the five hours of the event as people stopped by to pick up information and listen to Sarah and Phil talk about the 5-2-1-NA program.

That’s part of the GetUP Montgomery County program run by the Health Department – the reason we were partnered for the event.

That program seeks to address the epidemic of childhood obesity but changing our lifestyles and those of our kids. It advocates a daily regime of five servings of fruits and vegetables, having less than two hours “screen time” (video games, computers, television or cell phone), getting at least one hour of physical activity and having no or almost no sugary drinks, especially carbonated sugary drinks.

Here at DXC, though, we’ve taken it a bit farther. We’re also involved in teaching people how to take more control over their diet by growing their own food in backyard gardens or even containers. To that end, we’ve formed some pretty interesting partnership that we’ll be talking about later.

While at the Health Fair, Sarah and Phil also promoted DXC’s “In God’s Hands” child care facility and, was there ever a lot of interest!

“In God’s Hands” is a Title 20 child care program and, especially with the economic climate in Dayton right now, it is sorely needed. Sarah and Phil handed out so many pamphlets and brochures that they ran out, so we’re expecting to grow quite a bit over the next few weeks. We’ll keep you posted there too.

Finally, to close out the big week with a bit of fun, we hosted a community Easter Egg Hunt. AmeriCorps Member Cardella Scroggins put this event together as a way to give a bit to the community and let some kids discover the joy of the Easter season. From what we hear, nearly 100 people showed up and there was fun, laughter, and the thrill of discovered goodies had by all.

This is the first hunt we’ve had here at DXC but it more than likely won’t be the last.

DXC Welcomes a New Family Member

Since no one who knows Cardella would even briefly
imagine her to be shy, we have to conclude she's
part of the Federal Witness Protection Program.

There’s been a new addition to the DXC family this month. Cardella Scroggins has joined the team as an assistant to Tasha in the Childcare program. Cardella comes to us as an Americorps member and was previously posted to HighRise Services here in Dayton. She’s completing her degree in Early Childhood Education and she has already been busy developing a new integrated curriculum, evaluation policy and working closely with Tasha on several other projects – not to mention cleaning, straightening and organizing everything in sight! In fact, a staff member took a nap at break time only to find herself cleaned, pressed and hanging in the closet. She was rescued by Sarah who was looking for some copier paper.

All kidding aside, we’re really happy to have Cardella working with us. She sets the bar pretty high and keeps us on our toes, which is a good thing, and we’re convinced that she’s going to help us make a positive difference in the lives of our kids.

Cardella brings the Americorps count at DXC to back up to two, with yet another one coming on soon. (We’ll have an announcement on that soon, we hope.) Americorps has let us increase the staff here to levels that have been needed for a long time. With the experience and skills Americorps members provide, we’re able to begin moving forward with some very exciting new plans and programs (again – more coming on these later) and have the impact on our community that we’ve been looking for. Besides Cardella, our media relations are being handled by an Americorps member.

Cardella will be with us at least through September when her Americorps commitment closes out, but we hope she’ll be able to stay on much longer.