MOVING IN!!!

We're moving in this weekend to the top floor of our house, which will be the future rental unit. It's *almost* done, we're just waiting for the boilers to get connected and fired up. I'm upset about a few things, like the baseboard heaters being so flimsy and in installing it the crew mowed over one or two electrical outlets. If we had a bigger budget, I would have used Runtal baseboard heaters, which are much nicer with clean lines. C'est la vie pauvre. A few photos from the various stages of work:

Ugh, the worst room in the house: the bathroom. New vinyl window, new baseboard heating, but the tub is leftover from the previous cheap remodel, and the tiles are horrible. Since this photo, we've added a recycled toilet and recycled pedestal sink.

First bedroom, with refinished original floors, original base molding that needs to be fixed up, new aluminum-clad wood windows, and new baseboard heaters.

Second bedroom, refinished original floors, new baseboard heating, the original base molding, new vinyl window on the left, new aluminum clad wood window on the right, which faces the front of the house and therefore must be somewhat historic.

The living room with new vinyl windows, refinished original floors, new baseboard heating, new base trim and new matching window trim. It's not as ornate as the original, but we ran out of money. Maybe in the future we'll try to match the trim to what exists in the rest of the house.

Above is the kitchen with the new (cockeyed) baseboard heat and new bamboo floors. Since this photo, our contractor put together and installed the IKEA cabinets which look awesome. We prepped it for a washer/dryer combo on the left if the future tenant wants to buy and install their own set.

So, at least we are going to live in the house!!

Major Grant opportunity for Newburgh and its Artists!!!

Kresge Foundation Invites Preliminary Applications for Arts and Community Building and Artists' Skills and Resources Grant Opportunities

Deadline: February 1, 2012(Preliminary Applications)

The Kresge Foundation's Arts and Culture Program seeks to foster the power of arts and culture to recharge and rebuild communities of all sizes in the United States.

As part of this effort, the program is accepting preliminary grant applications from nonprofit organizations for its Community Building and Artists' Skills and Resources focus areas.

The Arts and Community Building focus area is intended to help develop a systematic way to support arts and culture as a tool for revitalizing communities. To achieve this goal, the program will invest in exemplary efforts and identify and share best practices within the field. At the national level, the foundation wishes to fund exemplary organizations dedicated to integrating arts and community-building activities and identifying new methods as models for the field; commission and publish research on efforts to integrate cultural organizations and artists into community-building efforts; elevate the visibility of arts and community building, and disseminate best practices through meetings, publications, and other means as appropriate. The foundation is accepting preliminary applications from grantseekers for national-level projects.

The Artists' Skills and Resources focus area is based in the belief that community transformation would be more widespread if more communities embraced artists as important contributors to the identity, vitality, and cohesion of the places where they live. The program seeks to boost artists' skills and resources by supporting leading practitioners as well as efforts to increase the number of live-and-work spaces for artists.

Preliminary applications for both funding areas will be accepted and reviewed on an ongoing basis through February 1, 2012. (After that date, the grant opportunity may be modified.) The preliminary application contains a data-entry component and several attachments, including a narrative. Applicants with promising requests will be asked to complete the second part of the application process.

CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE WEBSITE!

Good News!

Our contractor just informed us that the building next to us - a shell - is condemned and Habitat for Humanity will build a similar looking building in its place!! It has a beautiful facade and was probably an amazing house, but it fell on some serious hard times.

Great Grant Opportunity for Newburgh Art Community

New National Arts Initiative Invites Letters of Inquiry for Art-Centered Community Development Projects

Deadline: November 15, 2011 (Letters of Inquiry)

Eleven private philanthropies have joined with the National Endowment for the Arts and a number of federal agencies to establish ArtPlace, a nationwide initiative to drive community revitalization with a new investment model that puts the arts at the center of economic development.

ArtPlace will periodically awards grants to organizations doing groundbreaking work in creative placemaking in communities across the United States. The project recently announced its first round of grants, awarding a total of $11.5 million to thirty-four projects in cities from Honolulu to Miami.

Each project supported by ArtPlace was selected for developing a new model of helping communities thrive by strategically integrating artists and arts organizations into key local efforts in transportation, housing, community development, job creation, and other areas. The program will provide a similar level of support in 2012.

ArtPlace is inviting Letters of Inquiry for its second round of funding from partnerships involving arts organizations, artists, designers, and local and national organizations working to produce a transformative impact on community vibrancy. The initiative seeks to provide seed grants for entrepreneurial projects that already enjoy strong local buy-in, that integrate with a community’s economic development and community revitalization strategy, and that have the potential to attract additional private and public support.

Award amounts are decided on a case-by-case basis. In the grant program's first year, grants ranged from $63,100 to $1 million. The average grant was $349,784 and the median grant was $275,000.

ArtPlace Request for Letters of Inquiry

Apple-Pumpkin Picking

It's been a year since we moved to Newburgh! We went apple/pumpking picking this weekend, just like last October, except this time we had Elliot with us. Requisite baby in pumpkin patch pictures:

Rough Plumbing Finished!

I can't believe how awful these photos are, but I guess you'll get the idea. We just passed the first plumbing inspection!

I have no idea what I'm looking at, but apparently it's up to City of Newburgh plumbing code. And we received the Rehabilitation Grant from the City of Newburgh, finally. It was contingent on the boilers being installed and working, which I guess they are.



These last photos are the PVC pipes running from the second floor bathroom. The old houses have joists evenly spaced and don't leave much room to run waste pipes, etc. You'll see a lot of cut joists from previous plumbers trying to work the situation. We decided to sister up the joists, but that leaves the original problem of how to run the plumbing. Originally, we were going to build a pedestal for the toilet so that the pipe could snake over the joist and be close to the back wall, where we wanted it.

Now, instead of the toilet being on a pedestal, the pipes are placed so that the toilet is further away from the wall. Our contractor is building a knee-wall to make up for the space behind the toilet, and on the plus side we get to have some built-in shelves and recessed medicine cabinet.

DEMO!!!

We finally started doing some work. It's just the first stage, demolition, but it has made a big difference in how we see our house.

This was our yard somewhere around the spring of 2010.

Here is our yard, now, with all the crap inside the house vomited out:

The floor of the extension was crappy and rotted:

Our contractor tore out the old flooring and put in the plywood subflooring:

The master bathroom before:

The master bathroom, now:

The first parlor looking into the second parlor area, separated by a wall with french doors:

The wall is gone and the two parlors are now combined:

There's a lot more getting cleaned out, but nothing too exciting. We should have the building permits soon and be able to start doing some major work.

A few belated things...

I finally uploaded pictures from my cell phone to the computer, so some of these are months old. Above is Tracer in our old apartment, enjoying life as the only small creature in our lives.

In late April, we finally excavated the old water main and replaced it. The driveway is still a pile of dirt, but the excavator promised to return and blacktop it.



Here's a photo of the fence we put up in the back about a year ago. Before that, it was an open invitation to the neighbors to use our backyard as a dumping ground.


We're finally ALMOST there with the renovation loan from Wells Fargo. If everything goes well, and it won't, we should start work in July!

Grants Grants Grants

Home Depot is giving $5,000 to community organizations that help improve the living conditions of seniors, veterans, and/or the disabled with housing repairs, weatherization and modifications.

The shoe company, Saucony, has a Run for Good program that awards up to $10,000 in cash and in-kind donations for youth running programs to encourage active and healthy lifestyles for children under 18.

KaBoom! and the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group have a program, Playful City USA, that awards grants up to $30,000 to help local governments use best practices to ensure their children have the time and space they need to play and to be active and healthy.

Banfield Charitable Trust offers non-profit organizations support for keeping pets and their people together.

The Mental Health Foundation's "It's OK to talk about it" grant initiative awards up to $10,000 to support innovative programs that address the reduction of stigma, the promotion of public awareness, and education on mental health issues for the target population of young adults. These programs must entail a peer component of young adults who have personally lived with mental illness and can share their condition and stigmatization in a candid and positive manner with peers. The grant program's goal is to improve acceptance of and access to mental health services and supports. The deadline to apply is the end of this month.

More Grants

I'm back at work after three beautiful months of disability/bonding leave. I'm seeing a few grants that might be interesting for Newburghers:

Preserve New York program offers grants to municipalities and non-profit organizations for historic structure reports, historic landscape reports, and cultural resource surveys. Typical awards are between $3,000 and $10,000.

Scotts Miracle-Gro is giving community organizations up to $1,500 in money and in-kind support for gardening and community beautification projects.

Dollar General is offering up to $5,000 in Back-to-School literacy grants to assist school libraries and media centers. They are also awarding up to $3,000 to schools, public libraries and non-profit organizations for Youth Literacy programs.

M.A.C. AIDS Fund is awarding up to $25,000 for programs that provide food and nutrition to people living with HIV or AIDS.

Women Helping Others (W.H.O.) will support grass-roots programs serving the overlooked needs of women and children with grants up to $40,000.

JustFilms, an initiative from Ford Foundation, awards grants to film, video and digital works that show courageous people confronting difficult issues and actively pursuing a more just, secure and sustainable world.

Cinereach is also funding full-length fiction and non-fiction films, with up to $50,000 per project.

Let me know if you have a particular area for which you'd like to find funding.

Community Grant for Collaborations with Police

From the Foundation Directory RFP Alerts:

Applications Invited for MetLife Foundation Community-Police Partnership Awards Program

Deadline: February 28, 2011

The MetLife Foundation and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation are partnering for the tenth year to recognize, sustain, and share the work of innovative partnerships between community groups and police to promote neighborhood safety and revitalization.

The MetLife Foundation Community-Police Partnership Awards program invites applications from partnerships that exhibit tangible accomplishments in their efforts to advance the process, outcome, and evaluation of potent police-community collaborations. Eligible applicants must be member organizations of partnerships that include, but need not be limited to, community organizations and police.

Awardees receive a monetary grant and their work will be promoted via case studies to a wide audience of practitioners, policymakers, and academics.

The program will award grants in the following two categories:

Neighborhood Revitalization Awards (six awards of $15,000 to $25,000 each): These awards celebrate exemplary collaborations between community groups and police that yield crime reduction as well as economic development outcomes such as real estate development, business attraction, and job growth.

Special Strategy Awards (five awards of $15,000 each) will be given to community and police partners who have achieved significant accomplishments in applied technology, aesthetics and greenspace improvement, diversity inclusion and integration, drug market disruption, gang prevention and youth safety, and seniors and safety.

Program information and the full Request for Proposals are available at the LISC Web site:

http://www.lisc.org/section/ourwork/national/safety/awards

Straight from the oven

The baby is here!! He was born January 4, exactly on his due date.

He's already being outfitted in the season's hottest knitwear:

Both are courtesy of my friend, Toni. She hand dyes her own yarn and uses tooth picks (or something equally small and impossible) to knit.

We've been so preoccupied with the baby that the house has been sitting idle. Eddie is still working on the State and Federal Historic Preservation Tax Credit applications, but it might not matter. Sadly, this past week he learned that the two City of Newburgh grants he applied for kind of fell through.

He had received a letter stating that his applications were approved and had verbal confirmation that the full amount he was asking for had been set aside, but now the loan committee will only award him a small portion of what he applied for, so it looks like the house won't be fixed up anytime soon and he'll be one of those vacant property landlords that we have been railing against. It's sad, but part of the reality of Newburgh, I guess. I just wish he hadn't wasted so much time on it (since April, 2010).

In the meantime, we're learning a lot about local politics and trying to enjoy Newburgh. One of the best things we've come across is this bbq restaurant, Christine's, on Broadway. The smoked ribs, fried chicken, brisket and smoked chicken are AMAZING, as well as the collard greens, baked mac 'n cheese, coleslaw, potato salad, and sweet potato fries. We've ordered take out three times in the past two weeks.

Kingston Craft Fair

One Mile Gallery Craft Fair is happening this weekend, December 11 and 12, from 12pm to 5pm. I'm trying to buy local this year, and already planned on sending Christmas cards from Thornwillow Press and peanut butter brittle from Commodore Chocolatier on Broadway. The craft fair is in Kingston, so it won't be a Newburgh-area spending spree, but some items are super cute:


(Photos via One Mile Gallery website.)

Baby news

I was feeling a little sorry for myself this weekend, being 35 weeks pregnant and uncomfortable sitting, standing, and lying on my side...until I read that African elephants are pregnant for 22 MONTHS. Their calves are between 175 and 250 lbs, and nurse for 4 to 5 years, or until the next calf is born.

On the plus side, they don't have a 20% copay on their medical insurance, so they won't be in debt immediately after giving birth.

Grants for Newburgh

I came across three grant opportunities recently that I thought some organization in Newburgh would be interested in. One is for the City of Newburgh - maybe someone in the Planning and Development Office would be interested in applying?

Project Orange Thumb
Sponsored by Fiskars, 10 winners will receive $5,000 in cash and tools to support neighborhood beautification through community gardening, and one winner will receive a complete community garden makeover. The deadline to apply is December 31, 2010.

IBM Smart Cities Challenge
The application for the Smarter Cities Challenge must be signed by an executive officer of a municipality or local government, whose title varies by location – for example, s/he may be the mayor, city manager, chief administrative officer, county manager, county executive, etc. The most successful proposals will:

• Describe 1-3 potential problems or opportunities to address with the grant
  
  
• Provide clear, compelling evidence that the city is well positioned to utilize the resources offered in the Smarter Cities Challenge
  
  
• Outline how a grant of IBM talent and technology has the potential to substantially enhance the city's capacity to act on key issues
  
  
• Highlight recent efforts to develop innovative solutions to public problems, including any initiatives to implement new technologies or open data policies
  
  
• Demonstrate the city is ready to match IBM's investment with its own commitment of time and talent, including access to the city agencies and personnel relevant to the project

The deadline to apply is December 31, 2010.

JPMorgan Chase
The bank supports non-profits in communities where there is a Chase presence, and Newburgh definitely fits. You have to root around on the website a little to get the full scope of what they will support, but briefly, they support green initiatives (green building, green jobs, sustainable development), employment training, affordable housing, education, and arts and culture. I've included wording directly from their website:

Targeting Challenged Neighborhoods

The JPMorgan Chase Foundation directs the majority of its time, attention and investment toward specific neighborhoods in cities where we have major operations. These neighborhoods are typically among the most challenged areas of major urban centers, defined by unacceptably high rates of poverty and historic disinvestment. JPMorgan Chase works to lead a renaissance in the neighborhood, by engaging the most qualified non-profit organizations, neighborhood residents, and other sources of public and private advocacy and funding.

The firm's philanthropic investment in these targeted neighborhoods is predominantly focused in three centers of excellence:

Community Development

Our strategic focus is to work with community-based partners to address issues related to poverty and social exclusion by building economic infrastructure, promoting self-sufficiency, and supporting efforts to narrow social inequities.

What we support:

1. Resident-focused programming that addresses: workforce development; asset building, and financial literacy:
   • Continuing Education Courses
   • Adult Literacy Outreach
   • Job Training
   • Money Management Basics
   • Credit Repair
   • EITC Workshops
   • Homeownership / Homebuyer Workshops
   • Foreclosure Prevention
2. Community-focused programming that addresses: economic development and affordable housing:
   • Economic Planning
   • Small Business Technical Assistance & Financing
   • Job Creation
   • Affordable Housing Development & Preservation

Education

Our strategic focus is to ensure that all children, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, have access to high quality educational opportunities with a particular focus on K-12 public schools that help them acquire the knowledge and skills needed to be productive, engaged students.

What we support:

1. Development of instructional leaders
2. Implementation of innovative curricula
3. Deepen teacher content knowledge
4. Strengthening of instructional strategies
5. Strengthening district capacity to support innovation
6. Extending learning opportunities
7. College access initiatives
8. Dissemination of best practices

Arts & Culture

Our strategic focus is to increase community access to rich cultural resources that foster creativity, promote self-expression, celebrate diversity, and strengthen our environment.

What we support:

1. Arts programs in schools and after school
2. Build capacity of community-based arts institutions
3. Broaden access to artistic excellence and diversity by partnering with major arts and culture groups

Working Weekend

Fall! The scenery is gorgeous right now, and we enjoyed it on a leisurely drive through Cornwall-on-Hudson/Storm King/West Point following Route 218. It was so hard to motivate ourselves to work on the house, but we finally did.

First, we scraped a paint sample from the side of the house, and matched it at Home Depot. Then we set to work covering the graffiti on the three sides of the house.

Before:



After:



The last square:


Then we decided to plant some shrubs in the front yard. We planted two limelight hydrangeas, two asters, and two...shrubs.

Before:


Mid-way:


After:


Admittedly, I didn't do much since gardening is backbreaking work! ...and the whole congenital toxoplasmosis thing. Sometime soon, we'll get a grinder and remove the iron fence. We'd love to save it, but it's too far gone.

And finally, Halloween! We didn't get ANY trick-or-treaters, so the only person Eddie could scare was me.

Community Revitalization Funding Opportunities III

And two last opportunities:

M&T Bank makes community improvement grants through their regional offices.

Local Initiatives Support Corporation and MetLife Foundation give an annual award to recognize, sustain and share the work of innovative partnerships between community groups and police to promote neighborhood safety and revitalization. Through the MetLife Foundation Community-Police Partnership Awards, MetLife Foundation and LISC identify and honor partnerships that exhibit tangible accomplishments in their efforts to advance the process, outcome, and evaluation of potent police-community collaborations.

Eligible applicants must be member organizations of partnerships that include, but need not be limited to, community organizations and police. Awardees receive a monetary grant and their work is promoted via case studies to a wide audience of practitioners, policymakers, and academics. For questions or for those interested in being notified of future funding opportunities, please email us at csi@lisc.org.

The website if very informative and relevant to Newburgh, so I suggest checking it out even if you're not interested in the award opportunity.

Community Revitalization Funding Opportunities II

More Funding Opportunities:

The Dyson Foundation has a Management Assistance Program (MAP) to help nonprofits in the Mid-Hudson Valley strengthen their organizations and find greater efficiencies in administration, operations, resource development and programming. Nonprofits can better focus on their core missions and serve their community when they are well managed and fiscally sound, have engaged boards and good governance, and rely on sound planning for strategic results.

Mid-Hudson Valley-based nonprofits can apply for these grants to improve operations, administration, and management. There are two major funding areas: the Mini-Grant Program and the Strategic Restructuring Initiative.

The Lander Street community center that the Newburgh Heights Association is interested in saving would be a prime candidate!

Community Revitalization Funding Opportunities

I've been coming across a lot of grant opportunities that organizations in Newburgh might be interested in. Since I don't know a lot of people, yet, I'm going to post the links here in the hopes that people will apply to them.

The Norman Foundation support efforts that strengthen the ability of communities to determine their own economic, environmental and social well-being, and that help people control those forces that affect their lives. These efforts may:

• promote economic justice and development through community organizing, coalition building and policy reform efforts;
• work to prevent the disposal of toxics in communities, and to link environmental issues with economic and social justice;
• link community-based economic and environmental justice organizing to national and international reform efforts.

They will consider the following in evaluating grant proposals:

• Does the project arise from the hopes and efforts of those whose survival, well-being and liberation are directly at stake?
• Does it further ethnic, gender and other forms of equity?
• Is it rooted in organized, practical undertakings?
• Is it likely to achieve systemic change?

In pursuing systemic change, they would hope that:

• the proposed action may serve as a model;
• the spread of the model may create institutions that can survive on their own;
• their establishment and success may generate beneficial adaptations by other political, social and economic institutions and structures.

The Foundation provides grants for general support, projects, and collaborative efforts. They also welcome innovative proposals designed to build the capacity of social change organizations working in our areas of interest. Priority is given to organizations with annual budgets of under $1 million.

City of Newburgh Grants and Loans

A quick update on the Facade Grant and Renovation Grant/Loans: there's a stipulation to the programs that the building cannot have any code violations, meaning it must be habitable and up to code in order to qualify for the grants. Unfortunately, Eddie's house doesn't have windows or plumbing/heating, therefore it is not up to code and not habitable.

Eddie's trying to make the argument that the combination of his own money, his own efforts and the city grants would allow him to fix the building and make it habitable. It's an uphill battle, though, and although the city officials seemed to be helpful at first, they have not returned his subsequent phone calls or emails. Sigh.

Anyway, it's a shame because the house is on a crucial corner and its occupancy could change the whole outlook of the neighborhood it's in. We attended the Newburgh Heights Association meeting last week, even though we don't live in the Heights, and they echoed the same sentiment that Eddie voiced to the City of Newburgh in an appeal letter - that every house makes a difference. Each abandoned or boarded-up property devalues the surrounding area and only perpetuates the cycle of crime, lowered neighborhood pride, and lower rates of owner-occupied housing.

It would be great to start up a Montgomery-Grand-Liberty Association, where there are lots of beautiful historic homes that need to be remembered and advocated for. And there are a lot of people already in the neighborhood who take care of their own properties, who I imagine wouldn't be opposed to expending energy on making sure other properties are taken care of.

Since we haven't done anything with the house in a while, we were shamed into taking some action...so, maybe this weekend we'll do some landscaping in the front yard.