Collective Action on Savannah’s East Side

By Alex Pappalardo

Foundational to SCAD’s graduate Design for Sustainability program is the nurturing of cross-disciplinary relationships to leverage talents and skills of others to reach ever higher common goals. It’s about creating conversations that add oxygen to those little sparks of inspiration usually tucked away, hidden by our own fears or misconceptions. It’s also these personal connections that add fuel to the flame, allowing it to grow higher and brighter. It was with this fire in mind that an ambitious group met in Savannah this past May in conjunction with the East Savannah Gateway Project under the guidance of the Housing Authority of Savannah.

Inspired by the recent pilot of the Collective Action Toolkit developed by frog between Savannah High Schools, SCAD graduate students and frog, a diverse group comprised of government employees, community leaders, and SCAD students and professors met to learn new methods for making change in their communities. David Sherwin, Interactive Design Director at frog, lead the train the trainer workshop on the facilitation of the Collective Action Toolkit (CAT), a “package of resources and activities that enable groups of people anywhere to organize, build trust, and collaboratively create solutions for problems impacting their community.”

As one of the eight graduate students who had the opportunity to facilitate the CAT at local high schools over the course of 8 weeks, and attend the train the trainer workshop, it was interesting to see how such different groups approached and used the toolkit. Neither the high school students, the professionals, or us for that matter, had experienced working in a group in the unique way the CAT instructs. In my experience, the process called for a drastic rearrangement of how I believed problem solving is best done and, at first it felt  uncomfortable, like wearing clothes a size too small.

I initially felt a bit exposed and fidgety. But, as we worked through the activities, I realized the clothes were not too tight, they were just an unfamiliar style and actually fit more precisely than my old one-size-fits-all. In that way, it seemed as though the high schoolers benefited from their inexperience. Unencumbered by a professional history that often inures one to a specific point-of-view, they felt free to dream big and plan nationally and their enthusiasm has enabled their successes. The professional group, on the other hand, has the benefits drawn from years of personal emotional growth, community leadership and a deep seated love for the citizens they help flourish.

Working through the CAT activities at the workshop, I was astounded by the amount of knowledge and accomplishment seated around the tables. Regardless of the age and personal background of those involved, however, I believe the CAT allows for people to better understand each other, and simply attempting to understand one another can provide that transformative spark that burns down barriers to the changes we want to see.

NOTE: The above CAT workshop brought together staff from various municipal organizations throughout Savannah, including Housing Authority of Savannah, Savannah-Chatham County Public Schools, Savannah-Chatham County Metropolitan Planning Commission and the City of Savannah together with SCAD students and faculty. The gathering was a direct result of the CAT pilot that was executed earlier in the year by SCAD’ Sustainable Practice in Design class in direct collaboration with frog’s David Sherwin.

What if the World is Not Broken?

Ten months ago, Hannah du Plessis wrote an introduction to a series of articles that reflected on the nature of co-design and SCAD’s Design Ethos DO-ference. The below essay was written by Hannah as a way to bring that series full circle. A year after the DO-ference, ideas and projects continue to flourish.

By Hannah du Plessis

From the distance of a year since the Do-ference, after many insightful blog posts from others and my own engagement in the field of social innovation,
I am wondering about a few things.

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Youth Power!

By Scott Boylston

At the Leaders Meeting Leaders event (the culminating event for the SCAD/frog/Gatorball/High Schools of Savannah collaboration) the word student was turned inside out: Principals learned from students; high school students taught college students; professors learned from students of all ages, and school principals taught principal designers. Each conversation was held between equals, and learning flowed in energetic cycles of increasing understanding.

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One by One, Groups Make Change

By Scott Boylston / photos by David Sherwin

One by one, fingers excitedly point at the image-covered walls. “I was surprised how quickly we were able to reach agreement once we were able to share our differences of opinion,” says one. “We talked about healthy food, too, but after a lot of discussion, we thought violence prevention was a better topic for our team to focus on,” says another. “It can’t be fixed without everyone coming together,” says still another.

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Finding True North at Savannah High

By Katie Mansell // photos by Robynn Butler

Three SCAD graduate students walk into a class… well, two classes actually. When Carol, Robynn, and I arrived at Savannah High School we weren’t expecting to be explaining what we’d be doing with frog’s Collective Action Toolkit to two different classes, but it turned out to be the happiest surprise. As a result, our CAT group at Savannah High is a compilation of 20 students, most of whom are volunteers, from two separate marketing classes. We are excited each Friday to go in and interact with this group of engaged, energetic students, and use frog’s CAT to enable them to reach goals they define.

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Pizza, and other Slices of Life at Beach High

By Alex Pappalardo

Nate, Naz and I walk into class number twenty-three with our bright white visitor stickers proudly displayed above our rapidly beating hearts (well, Nate and Naz can speak for themselves but mine was moving pretty quickly) to introduce a group of energetic teenagers to the Collective Action Toolkit.

The CAT is frog’s “package of resources and activities that enable groups of people anywhere to organize, build trust, and collaboratively create solutions for problems impacting their community.”  Us three SCAD graduate students would be working with eleven high school students for ten class periods to help empower them to effect change in their community. To see the toolkit in action, our SCAD class hosted frog Principal David Sherwin for a week at SCAD, and watched frog’s Girl Effect video. We were inspired by the seemingly infinite potential for a small group of determined individuals to improve their lives in a life-affirming, tangible way.  So, what could the students at Beach High School achieve?  The possibilities were limitless.

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Go Future Minded Dreamers!

By Marina Petrova + Eric Green

We start the day as visitors. Every Tuesday and Thursday we enter Robert W. Groves High School, we sign our names, we get a visitor tag, and we head for room 600 to spend 55 min with 11 students in Ms. Dawson’s 9^th-12^th grade class.  Then we leave … as something more than just visitors.

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Time Flies When You’re Having Fun

By Scott Boylston

Well, well. It’s been nearly 3 weeks since our last post. The truth is the journey’s been too much fun to call home and talk about it! The collaboration between Gatorball Academy, SCAD Design for Sustainability, and frog has expanded, and it’s the richer for it. We’ve been so immersed that we barely noticed the passing of time: look forward to at least 3 updates in the next week.

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frog + SCAD Design for Sustainability pilot frog’s new Community Action Toolkit

By Scott Boylston
photos: T. Lindeborn, S. Boylston, D. Sherwin, N. Sundberg

“All you have to do is be balanced…and understand your strength.”

Gator Rivers, of Harlem Globetrotters’ fame, tells this to an elementary school kid. He’s helping the child hold a rapidly spinning basketball on the tip of his finger, and his words of encouragement constitute a message, not only about the child’s ball handling skills, but about life in general.

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You’ve Come a Long Way, (400 lb) Baby

By Marina Petrova

The 400lb Baby team presented the planter project at the Eastside Concerned Citizens (ECCI) neighborhood association’s monthly meeting on December 8^th. The purpose of the presentation was to inform the Waters Avenue community at large about the project, and to invite people to participate by sharing stories about people, places, and events that relate to life along Waters Avenue that the team can incorporate into the artwork for the planters.

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