WorkReady

Storytelling Narrative Project

​ My interviewee has been working for Educators4Education for the past 3 years and has been a member of her West Philadelphia community for the past 26 years. She spends majority of her time working for the WorkReady summer program, E4E’s youth-focused, professional development initiative. She has served as one of my mentors throughout my Bridging the Gaps experience and was excited to share her story with me and others within BTG to see and learn from.

​My interviewee identifies heavily with both her WorkReady and Philadelphia community, as she feels as though they are intertwined; the youth she serves at WorkReady are united with both youth that she grew up and the youth she takes care of in her community today. In fact, that is something that she wanted everyone from Bridging the Gaps to know and understand about her community: its unity. Ever since she was a kid, she has felt like the members of her community stick and work together for a common cause of bettering themselves, each other, and their community. This is seen through some of her favorite activities, such as communal church services, food drives, and recreational centers, all of which help her community stay busy and out of trouble. She also is grateful for her generational unity, found within relationships between people of all ages that create mutual learning. This unity has created a sense of belonging that my interviewee states is her favorite part of her community. She says this allows her to connect to others, build relationships, and learn from others.

The themes of unity and belonging are seen through her favorite community memory. Spending her whole life in West Philadelphia, she recalled vivid memories of hot summer days spent playing outside with children from her community. On days where the temperature was too hot to bare, and the pavement was too hot to play on, an older gentlemen would release water from the fire hydrant for the kids on the block to play in. It allowed all the children to have access to cool water, since many of them did not have access to a pool or a hose. The man would do this every hot day, allowing all the children to come outside, play, and unify without a care in the world.

Her community has resources that further strengthen their interconnectedness. Members of the community provide educational opportunities, community services such as early childhood daycares, libraries, and employment opportunities, like the WorkReady summer program. As she grew older, she has been particularly grateful to have the opportunity to work for WorkReady. Her work has allowed her to give back to youth within her community in a way that she thought they deserved, and in a way like others have taken care of her while she was growing up.

While she will never deny her community’s sense of unity, belonging, and resource development, there have been several factors occurring within the past few years that have negatively impacted her community. For one, the COVID-19 outbreak increased stress and anxiety. Many of her loved ones lost their jobs, and many local businesses faced rough times. This time also prevented the community from coming together, which made her lose a sense of self and communal identity.

She also feels as though the recent violence and rising crime rates over the past month have negatively impacted herself, family, and community. Between this fact and lingering fears of the pandemic, she finds that her community is facing never-before-seen fear, making it hard to enjoy local events and time outside. These factors also have made it significantly harder for her to get back to tasks within her everyday life. While she normally loved staying home and spending time in her community, being forced to do so among the rising COVID-19 and crime rates has made it seem a lot more negative than it ever has. She often feels confined to her home out of fear rather than choice. This also impacts her children, as they stay with her, preventing them from building the same relationship with her community as she once had as a child.

However, her community has made significant strides to improve heart health and stress during this time. Specifically, her community has sought heart health resources from the American Health Association and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The community also perseveres above fear, holding group walks, runs, meal preparation practice, all of which help oneself keep a healthy heart.

To my interviewee, cardiovascular health refers to heart health, and making sure that you are maintaining a clean diet and active lifestyle. While she believes that cardiovascular health can be improved by eating healthy and exercising often, she also looks thinks that rekindling a sense of belonging and unity within the community can improve CV health as well. She hopes that falling crime and COVID-19 rates will make cardiovascular health promotion and regulation come effortless, as being a member of a community is her favorite way to destress, eat well, be active, and be together.