From rowing on Christina River to growing on Pepper Creek
1. 359 Do-It-Yourselfers and Counting
Barrel of Makers has been operating a maker space in Wilmington since 2012 – a volunteer-run community center where anyone can learn soldering, integrated circuits, fiber arts, woodworking, glass-bead making, 3-D printing, computer programming and other useful skills. If it’s art, craft or tech, they’ll help you learn it.
Different generations collaborate and create things with tools they wouldn’t normally have access to.
As volunteer Jessi Glassco puts it, “Anybody can make stuff with us. No experience necessary.”
They operate out of a suite at 1313 Innovation and a converted garage at 2003 W. 17th St. and on www.meetup.com/barrelofmakers.
2. Scouting Outreach
Boy Scouts of America has removed all the barriers for almost 500 low-income city children who want to become Cub Scouts or Boy Scouts. Now the organization provides free uniforms and free transportation, pays all registration fees, lends camping equipment and provides staff who do the jobs parents do in many packs. The goal is to give all boys ages 7 to 18 a chance to experience the outdoors and learn the skills scouting teaches – even when their parents are working too many jobs to volunteer.
“Scouting provides positive adult role models and gives them experiences outside of their block,” Delmarva Council CEO Jason Pierce said. “By taking kids camping or to the Franklin Institute, it gives them opportunities to grow and learn.”
It all began in 1992 with a 12-year-old local Boy Scout who started the nation’s first Cub Scout pack exclusively for exclusively for homeless boys living on the street or at Ministry of Caring shelters.
Now there are two Boy Scout troops and 15 Cub Scout packs operating in schools and at community groups – Hicks Anderson, Ministry of Caring, Walnut Street YMCA, Kingswood Community Center, the Latin American Community Center, West End Neighborhood House and Stop the Violence Prayer Chain.
Many of the newbie cubs and scouts never left their own four-block grid before they joined scouting. They learn scout skills at weekly meetings and get introduced to archery and fishing and boating at Rodney Scout Reservation.
“It’s the same program happening in Middletown,” Pierce said. “It’s just delivered in a way that works for low-income families.”
3. Bringing a preppy sport to poor children
It’s not unusual to spot a du Pont in a coxed eight at a Wilmington Youth Rowing Association regatta, but you’ll also see children from Southbridge.
WYRA, operating since 1989, brings the clubby sport of crew to Wilmington’s poorest and wealthiest children. “The beauty of our program is that kids from Southbridge and Greenville row together every day and learn that a boat can’t move successfully down the course unless everyone pulls together,” said Executive Director Faith Pizor.
Rower wannabes begin with Row-For-It, WYRA’s intro to crew. The three-week program is open to all children 10 and older, and 75 percent of campers pay nothing, based on family income.
Kids who want to take up crew as their sport can sign up to row year-round. WYRA currently has 75 crew members. About 25 percent are on full or partial scholarships.
Many rowers from the city of Wilming-ton who might never have thought of going to college were introduced to rowing and rowing scholarships at WYRA’s blue-awninged boathouse on the Christina River, where the staff has set up a college application program to help crew members in their college searches.
“Colleges like rowers,” Pizor said. “WYRA graduates have rowed for more than 80 colleges.”
4. A botanic garden for Sussex County
The Delaware Botanic Gardens at Pepper Creek aims to be a world-class public garden begun by just 10 citizens with a big assist from an advisory board headed by First Lady Carla Markell. So far, they have nearly $2 million to build and a $1-a-year lease on 37.5 acres that lie along Delaware’s Inland Bays, a lease renewable for 300 years.
The gardens will be a living classroom – a sustainable coastal-plain habitat for nature study. Work is expected to begin next year on the waterfront parcel on Piney Neck Road near Dagsboro.
The 10 board members work with no staff but plenty of help from advisory board members such as National Wildlife Federation Director Collin O’Mara and landscape architect Rodney Robinson, who led the restoration of the Nemours and Woodburn gardens. Sheryl Swed is executive director.
As Raymond J. Sander, vice president of the board, put it, “We’re a dedicated group of local citizens who felt we wanted to do something to give back to the community and create something that doesn’t exist here in Delmarva, and that’s a public garden.”
5. Bilingual Trauma Care
Most of the 294 people served at The Family Counseling Center of St. Paul’s in the first 10 months of 2016 needed trauma care after witnesses armed robberies, physical assaults or domestic violence.
St. Paul’s offers Spanish and English counseling with a sliding-scale fee that ranges from $5 to $50 an hour, far less than the market cost of $80 to $120 an hour. The center expects to serve 330 people by the year’s end – almost 100 more than last year.
Most clients are Hispanics and African-Americans from the area surrounding the office at 1010 W. Fourth St. Many learn about the center from the Wilmington Police Department’s Victim Services Unit.
Executive Director Rob McCreary said Hispanic clients face several barriers to finding culturally responsible bilingual counseling. “Almost two-thirds are uninsured, and they are afraid to come to us for a variety of reasons. One, they may be immigrants who are not legal, and they’re afraid they might be exposed. Two, it’s difficult to find bilingual counselors they trust. And, then, there’s the financial barrier – sometimes they don’t know that we can offer a sliding scale. And, then, of course, there’s the stigma counseling carries in the Spanish community, so they have to find someone they can trust.”
6. Grace for Dover
Grace for Dover Executive Director Paige Baione believes support and information can change the course of people’s lives. Many individuals, businesses and churches in Kent County have supported that mission.
Grace for Dover is a Christian community development and advocacy group in Dover that unites five faith-based programs serve about 422 individuals each year – Jobs for Life, Faith and Finances, Wellspring, Embrace and Christmas Store.
The programs provide long-term, relationship-based development programs – job training, finance classes, health and nutrition classes, sport physicals, flu vaccines, respite nights for families with disabled members, a reduced-price Christmas store for those who can’t afford market prices.
“All of our programs are based upon building relationships,” Baione said. “We laugh, cry and work together with those we serve to make Kent County a better place for all and help people find their place within its workplaces, churches and communities. To us, every person has a purpose and an identity and no one is a number.”
7. Paws for People has 500 therapy teams
Therapy bunnies? While 99 percent of Paws for People’s therapy animals are dogs, there are a few select cats and bunnies.
More than 12,000 times a year, Paws teams visit places like A.I. du Pont Hospital for Children and Helen F. Graham Cancer Center to lighten moods and give people someone to hug.
Lynne Robinson, a retired English teacher, started it with her own dog 11 years ago, and, now, Paws for People has certified therapy teams in four states.
Both the animals and their owners are trained to show care and compassion. “There is a group of dogs and cats and bunny rabbits that just get it – that it’s good to cuddle up with somebody,” Robinson said.
“Every time you go on a visit, something magical happens,” she said. “Someone who never speaks speaks. A child who won’t read aloud starts reading to the dog. People with dementia are very, very responsive to the dogs. Somehow, the person makes a connection with the animal, or the animal makes a connection with the person, and a lot can happen.”
