If You Build It...

It sure as hell wasn’t pretty but it was a success. People showed up in mighty numbers last night to register for our Community Center. On paper I have 53 children signed up for our K-8 program; our goal is to serve 50. My high school program is lacking in possible candidates but there is still time to remedy that. The ESL classes fetched 40 adults which is a typical number for registration, so I’m told.

It wasn’t all roses, though. I was not nearly as ready with something as simple as a registration packet when they started arriving an hour before we were ready to open the doors. The beginning was such a mess, our consultant really stepped in and helped iron things out while I carried out our prescribed plan of gathering all the kids and getting putting them in the watchful care of my staff who occupied them with arts and crafts, games and face painting.

Once the little ones were busy, it was easy to help their parents with the task of filling out their paperwork and enjoying the rest of the evening. If it weren’t for my co-workers who jumped in to help, I would have been utterly, completely and undeniably lost. It would have gone a thousand times worse than it did but they were magnificent and I am deeply indebted to them.

Of course my natural tendency is to focus on where my planning and work fell short and forget the fact that I have a box full of applications to sort through, teachers ready to start and a successful Open House under my belt. All that is left now is to take all of these puzzle pieces and shift them around for a successful opening -- which is less than a month away. My struggle with anxiety and pressure might get a little reprieve now that a slight Christmas break is here. But don’t count on it.

Wanna Lose Weight?...

Wanna lose weight? Take on a task in a field in which you have no experience. And make sure it is a monstrous bitch of a task too. This Open House has me losing so much sleep, and working so hard, I have easily dropped five to eight pounds in the last month. I am freaking out every night before I go to sleep and every morning when I wake up that this whole thing will be a huge flop. No one will show up or those that do will be so disappointed in what they see, this program won’t get two inches off the ground – at least that’s the gremlin in my head driving me bonkers.

There is so much to do and I feel a tremendous amount of pressure as I try to tackle a list of a million little tasks. And each time a task is accomplished, a hundred more appear. It’s never ending and I am drowning in a quagmire of details. I would like to think that having a small army to help with this would be beneficial, but right now it’s pretty much me.

What is most frustrating is the constant message from my boss who is freaking out that people will not show up. “You need to (insert whatever directive here),” is her battle cry and it is making things decidedly unpleasant. I am trying to cover every base here which has included waking up for a 5:30 A.M. Mass on December 5^th for the feast of the Virgin of Guadalupe; a day the Mexican community holds very dear. I was handing out flyers to everyone telling them of this Open House in the hopes of drumming up participation. But apparently, it’s not enough.

Tomorrow is the big day. Do I have everything done? Hell no. Is it enough? We’ll soon find out.

Scarcity Mentality Redux...

Yesterday I mentioned how I am surprised to find Scarcity Mentality even in the school system. I found it again today in yet another school but it makes more sense to me.

For those of you who don’t know, the Northwest Neighborhood Federation is generously being hosted by a parish that happened to have a mostly vacant building for us to rent. This parish has its own school serving kids in grades Pre-K through eighth. On top of that, they already have a program wherein parents of the students and drop off their kids before school starts and have them watched after school is over so as not to disrupt their work schedules. This program has a cost associated with it and the income is a supplement for some of the school staff (i.e. it is part of their livelihood.)

Recently an inside source informed me that many of the teachers have been gossiping and spreading rumors about our agenda when they had not met with us even once to find out what was true and what was false. Word on the street is that we are here to run their program out of business since the one we are offering will be held at a similar time and in the same building, and is free. They fear we will “steal” their kids.

I had a meeting with the entire staff of this school today to introduce myself and the federation (I find the fact that our Executive Director had not yet made an intro for the federation a little strange but no matter) and to field their questions and shoot down any rumors that were flying about. I really had no idea if I was walking into a hostile den of seething freaks or a cordial collective of reasonable adults. Neither would have surprised me, really, and I was surprised to find the truth more towards the latter than the former.

After a brief introduction and some joking, I began to answer their questions about the specifics of our program, the age of kids we are serving, what we are doing about security especially since the high school kids we are inviting are apt to be involved in gang activity, etc. The majority of my time was spent talking about what we are going to do to ensure a clear separation of our program from theirs and how I was planning on handling any parents who might want to yank their kids out of St. Bart’s program and put them in ours. It was in this moment how I began to understand more clearly how a scarcity mentality could be so prevalent – we’re talking about the income of some of these folks who don’t make a lot to begin with. What I offered them in response was to look at the program through a lens which is the opposite of scarcity – abundance. The Abundance Mentality says life doesn’t have to be such a polarizing state of either/or; that there are plenty of solutions to choose from and ways to work around issues and having two programs in the same location can actually be a blessing rather than a problem.

When I first mentioned it they looked at me as if I had lobster crawling out of my ears. I couldn’t tell if they were utterly confused or if they thought I was insulting them – probably a little of both. But as I explained to them the potential that exists in having two programs side by side and how they could be involved so long as it posed no conflict of interest with the existing program, they began to open up and the slight edge of defense that I first felt when I walked in the room had dissipated.

Some will say that I am simply using optimist jargon, looking for a silver lining where there is only tin or ignoring reality. They are the ones ignoring reality. Scarcity Mentality straightjackets potential and has helped create the world in which we now live. If what I say about abundance makes you uncomfortable, that probably means I’ve hit upon a nugget of truth that deep down you know is right and whose power is so great, it is easier to attack it than to embrace it.

A Month In...

Remember that Open House thing I was telling you about? It’s looming closer and closer. Thank God I have a consultant helping with this project. She has been in the business for over ten years and has planned events like this time and again. She is very clear about what needs to be done and in what order. I am eternally grateful for all that she is doing to help make this a success.

At the same time, this job is a veritable whirlwind of meetings, interviews, random tasks, and leg work. As I look over my schedule the past two weeks I have been involved in advisory board meetings, reference checking, meetings with principals, phone calls to all corners of Chicago, background checks, etc. There are few moments when I am not working on something pressing or preparing for my next meeting.

A piece of the overall experience is adjusting to this non-corporate life. The pace of things out here is different, not to mention the daily schedule. The other aspect that is taking some getting used to is working with schools. They are much more political and closed than I thought they would be; especially when it comes to the fact that we are offering a program for their students. I really am surprised to find how resistant they are to working with us for fear that our program will make it look as if they are not doing the job themselves. We call that Scarcity Mentality and it seems to have perverted all aspects of this world.