archive for May, 2012

• All Our Kin

  By Christina Acampora | posted on May 31st, 2012

  It’s a two birds with one stone kind of thing—and these are two serious birds! From their post over in Fair Haven, Jessica Sager, Janna Wagner and a team of community-loving, kid-caring advocates support low-income, unemployed women by training them to provide a much needed service in Connecticut’s underserved neighborhoods: quality child care. All Our Kin has developed a most efficient response to a nagging problem so many parents, particularly single mothers, face—a lack of quality, affordable child care. About eight years ago, Jessica Sager and Janna Wagner put on their thinking caps and sorted out a pretty brilliant solution: MORE

• Billings Forge Community Works

  By Christina Acampora | posted on May 31st, 2012

  Frog Hollow is one of the poorest neighborhoods, in the poorest cities (Hartford), in one of the wealthiest states in the country (yeah, you got it. Connecticut). Enter Billings Forge Community Works: a non-profit, housed in set of rehabbed industrial buildings in the center of the city, runs an impressive collection of integrated businesses, services and programs aimed at revitalizing a struggling community through culture, arts, food and of course—jobs! Jobs are all the buzz at Billings Forge—the avenue being healthy, local, sustainable and seriously good food. Onsite restaurants Firebox and The Kitchen at Billings Forge and a massive weekly MORE

• Common Ground

  By Christina Acampora | posted on May 31st, 2012

  Common Ground is a three-for-one: an experiment in urban farming, an environmental education center and a high school. The 20-acre on-campus laboratory houses that urban demonstration farm and gets students working with the earth, learning about sustainability, community building and environmental issues. As Connecticut’s only environmentally focused charter school, Common Ground is open to the larger community—from elementary and middle-school children to other nonprofits. More than 8,000 people took advantage of the New Haven gem last year. Common Ground throws birthday parties, provides after school programming and hosts field trips and a summer ecology camp. And they grew—count ‘em—7,000 pounds MORE

• Gaylord Specialty Healthcare

  By Christina Acampora | posted on May 30th, 2012

  It’s a beautiful mission: to preserve and enhance a person’s health and function. One way they achieve this is through The Sports Association which supports people with disabilities across the state; encouraging them to play, explore, develop and grow within the wonderful world of sports. The staff atworks hard to organize, manage and train disabled sports teams. They put together tournaments and “Discovery Nights,” for sports of all kinds and players of all levels—introducing people with disabilities to new sports with demonstrations, training and equipment. And once they get their hands on that specialized equipment, these guys don’t mess around! MORE

• Banking on trees and loans

  By Christina Acampora | posted on May 22nd, 2012

  In an effort to put young people back to work, the Nutmeg State’s planning to use—wait for it—trees. Connecticut’s Labor officials are going straight up Franklin Roosevelt on us this summer (remember his Civilian Conservation Corps? You learned all about it in 10th grade American History). They launched the Connecticut Conservation Corps Tuesday in an effort to create a whole bunch of summer jobs for unemployed young people of the 18-25 year persuasion. They’ll be building roads, improving outdoor state-owned areas like parks, trails and medians and you got it: tree planting. The Corps will start out with 60 members, MORE

• Stratton Faxon ‘Cal Ripken Rebels’ Take Home 2nd Place

  By Christina Acampora | posted on May 21st, 2012

  Stratton Faxon Cal Ripken Rebels recently nabbed second place overall and took home the runner up hardware in Newtown’s Babe Ruth Baseball tournament.  Congratulations to Christopher Faxon and the rest of his team  for the great sportsmanship they demonstrated — and of course, the skills — and an overall fun and exciting season!

• Yale’s recycling “Magic Man” bids farewell

  By Christina Acampora | posted on May 20th, 2012

  With a few (magic) tricks up his sleeve, CJ May has been recycling Yale’s tons (and tons) of waste and castoffs — mattresses, furniture, clothes and the like — since 1989. Sadly, as described in a swan song profile in the New Haven Independent, his reign as the salvage king is coming to an end. With budget cuts and staff reductions hitting hard and campus-wide, May’s been laid off and will be out the door come July. May’s a familiar face around New Haven—known to leap tall buildings and disappear 133 mattresses in a single bound (check out the article MORE