The Walk for Dudley (or run, if you like!) 

Sat, Sept 22nd at 9am  

Dudley Street Neighborhood Charter School yard

6 Shirley St., Roxbury  

For a pledge sheet, call DSNI or email Alicia Mooltrey, amooltrey@dsni.org  

Opening Day at the Dudley Street Neighborhood Charter School Wed, September 5th, 7:30am Coffee and 8-9am Program

6 Shirley St., Roxbury  

Please wear college gear to welcome the students and families!

Interested in tutoring or reading with students?  

Join the Dearborn or Burke Saturday School tutors or become a reading buddy.  Click here for additional information! 

Hope to see you soon!  

The Annual Meeting on June 27 was a great example of community engagement, DSNI-style!. Residents, business owners, supporters and elected officials came together in the St. Patrick's church hall for a super-sized version of a community visioning meeting, designed and facilitated by Studio G  on a pro bono basis.

Staff members offered a State of the Village report and DSNI Board President Glenn Knowles led the voting on a proposed by-laws change, adding a fourth youth seat to the Board and eliminating the distinction between the core and secondary DSNI areas in Board representation.

After, participants enjoyed a dinner buffet.  Nine tables, marked by balloons and colorful posters, brought attendees together to brainstorm on 9 threads that must be woven together into a vision for our community: Education; Local Economy and Jobs; Housing; Health, Wellness and Safety; Environment & Energy; Transportation; Arts and Culture; Community Technology; and Land Use. Three additional facilitated roundtables were conducted in Spanish and Cape Verdean Creole.

The atmosphere in the room was electric as these 12 conversations began to hum and participants began to record their ideas on large sheets of plexiglass, maps and posters. According to Director of Leadership and Capacity Building, May Louie, "it was maximum mobilization," and that was exactly what she and the other architects of the meeting had hoped for. "We wanted to get the community to think with us. It really worked."

Don't miss the next exciting community event!   Be sure to join the DSNI email list by clicking  here. Please share this email with your neighbors!

Multicultural Festival Shines Despite the Weather

DSNI's annual Multicultural Festival (MCF) is a fun day for neighborhood families, with activities celebrating the rich diversity of the Dudley neighborhood, food, music, games and several bouncy houses, but it is also the culmination of a summer of hard work on the part of DSNI's youth. Four youth teams worked on issues related to Food (building raised beds in collaboration with The Food Project), Education (putting on the Pop-Up Museum), Land (upkeep of the Dudley Neighbors Inc. land trust properties) and People (organizing for the Festival) in our neighborhood.

Nancy Baiza, 17, was on the People Team and says of the MCF, "We knew what we wanted it to be like, but the process of getting it was hard." A big part of their work was raising money to cover the costs associated with the festival. After participating in a fundraising training with DSNI's resource development consultant, Liz O'Connor, the youth put on a series of fundraisers in preparation for the MCF. Running two car washes, and a bake sale, and soliciting neighborhood businesses to buy space in an adbook was a lot of work, but it paid off - youth raised $10,000 through the Multicultural Festival and upcoming Walk for Dudley combined.

Twenty year-old Sam Taveres, who is a Penn State student and the  youth's supervisor this summer, said "It was challenging to motivate the youth." "I'm torn between wanting to do it again next year, because I know I'll do it so much better, and never wanting to do it again," he laughed.

Sam's efforts and those of the youth paid off, however, in more ways than one. Despite tornado and flood watches that caused postponement from the original date and some light rain on the tents and bouncy houses the day of the festival, a good time was had by all. And the youth undoubtedly gained skills and perspective as a result of their summer experiences. Said Isaiah Wilkerson, 17, of the Education Team, "Whatever comes to my plate, I'm ready for it."

See more great pictures on Facebook!  

Proving that words can be fun--especially in the summer and especially when you're less than 6-- Dudley Children Thrive (DCT) and its partners, Boston Children's Museum (BCM), and The Food Project (TFP), held a Pop-Up Museum at the Farmer's Market on the Dudley Town Common every Tuesday and Thursday. 

Part of DCT's WordBuild program, the goal of the Pop-Up Museum has been to encourage parents to make talking and doing language-rich activities part of their regular interaction with their children at home too. Youth from DSNI working along with BCM, as museum educators, offered parents, and children up to age 5, alphabet blocks or chalk boards to build or write words describing the sights, sounds, smells, tastes and feelings they experienced at the Farmer's Market, talking together all the while. The Aug. 2 kick-off event, organized by DSNI youth, was a potluck picnic. Families brought dishes and TFP provided dishes made from their urban farm-grown vegetables. BCM provided a different giveaway each week, including books and CD sets. 

With a goal of signing up 300 additional families this summer, DCT Family Outreach Organizers were on hand at each market day to enroll interested families and share information about upcoming activities. The Farmer's Market and Pop-Up Museum took place every Tuesday & Thursday throughout the summer from 3 - 7pm. The final date was Aug. 23.

Parents of young children, interested in getting involved, can attend the next DCT Round Table, which will meet on Sept. 17 from 6 - 8 pm or contact Ayesha Rodriquez at 617.442.9670 or arodriguez@dsni.org for more information on how to access neighborhood resources for families with young children.

DSNI is looking for tutors and reading buddies.  Consider giving of your time to help promising students achieve their full potential! 

Saturday School Schedule: 

Burke High School: Sat, Sept 29 - Sat, Nov 3 9-12pm @DSNI

Dearborn Middle School: Sat, Oct 13 - Sat, Nov 17 9-12:30pm @ DSNI

New tutor training: Sat, Sept 22, 9am-1pm, @Roxbury Presbyterian Church (328 Warren St.)

Returning tutor training: Tues, Sept 25th 5:30-7:30pm @DSNI

Volunteer Reading Buddies also needed for Dudley Street Neighborhood Charter School Kindergarten and and 1st grade students, morning or afternoon!  

If you think you might be interested, contact Alicia Mooltrey at 617.442.9670 or amooltrey@dsni.org.   

Thank you! 

About DSNI

Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative is a resident-led, community change collaborative in the Dudley area of the Roxbury and North Dorchester neighborhoods of Boston.

Our mission is to empower Dudley residents to organize, plan for, create, and control a vibrant, diverse, and high-quality neighborhood in collaboration with community partners.     

DSNI Leads Boston Promise Initiative

As the lead agency for the Boston Promise Initiative, DSNI is working to align the efforts and resources of families, community and faith-based organizations, schools and universities, businesses, government agencies, and private funders to create a Dudley Village Campus--a community that supports students as whole people, preparing them to attain excellent educations. Currently we are making use of a Promise Neighborhoods planning grant.  We submitted our application for an implementation grant in July.