Tree Street Youth has become a vibrant and active community partner of the Harward Center. Tree Street Youth supports the youth of Lewiston-Auburn, Maine through academics, the arts, and athletics by providing youth with a safe space that encourages healthy physical, social, emotional, and academic development while building unity across lines of difference.

Over 300 Bates students have worked in partnership with the organization through community-engaged learning classes, thesis research, summer internships, community work-study positions, sports team outreach, and as volunteers. Students help support over 600 diverse youth from the "Tree Street" neighborhood in downtown Lewiston who have attended programming at Tree Street since it was founded in July 2011 by alumni Julia Sleeper '08 and current Bates senior Kim Sullivan'13.

There are currently three Bates seniors writing theses in partnership with Tree Street. Shabrina Guerrier and Kelly Coyne are focusing their research on providing and developing programming for at-risk adolescent females from cross-cultural backgrounds while analyzing how society and media impact their peer-to-peer relationships and self-perceptions. Kim Sullivan, Tree Street's co-founder and developer of the college prep program, is focusing her thesis on graduates of Lewiston High School-analyzing their experience with the college process, including the challenges they faced, and making recommendations for enhanced efficiency, expansion, and improvement.

Each of these three women is contributing over fifty hours of service, in addition to their research time, in order to build quality relationships and programming for the youth of Tree Street. In the process, they are building competencies like cross-cultural communication that should be useful no matter where their post-Bates journey takes them.

For more information on Tree Street Youth, check them out on facebook or visit their website: tree-street-youth.org.

As part of the Harward Center's Civic Forum series, six well-attended public programs were held during fall of 2012. Among them was a workshop entitled, "The Path from Activism to Leadership: Through the Alumni Lens of Engagement," which was co-sponsored by the Harward Center, the Bates Alumni Council, and the Office of Alumni and Parent Engagement. Ben Chin '07, Political Engagement Director of the Maine People's Alliance; Jessica Parsons '93, Project Manager of Circle the City at the Emerald Necklace Conservancy; and Melanie Mala Ghosh '93, India Program Manager at MIT, served as the panelists who shared their own journey as activists.

After the panel presentation, workshop participants broke into smaller groups over lunch so students had the chance to talk to each panelist in greater depth. Some students sought advice on how to become more effective activists on the Bates campus and in the wider world; some asked for practical help as they try to enter certain career fields; others asked for advice on community organizing.

Students were so engaged by the panelists and their stories of activism that a lively group remained for several hours after the formal program to talk with alumni, staff, and faculty about how they can go about changing Bates to create a better social environment for all students. A robust discussion about student leadership, campus student activism, and coalition-building ensued. This group of students has continued to meet and plan over the past several weeks, reaching out to others on campus.    

The Harward Center is excited to be working with students who are actively engaged in trying to make the Bates community more inclusive. We are also excited to be partnering with Bates alumni.

This fall, an extraordinary new group of student leaders was welcomed at the Harward Center as part of the Bonner Leader and Student Volunteer Fellows (SVF) programs. While we miss our graduates, many of whom were with us at the inception of the Bates Bonner program, we are extremely fortunate now to be able to count them among our most engaged community partners.  

Three of our Bonner alums have come back this fall to offer workshops to our Bonners and SVFs, as well as to many other civically-engaged students.  In early October, Sarah Davis, '10, offered a highly interactive workshop on ethical considerations involved in working with new Mainers. Sarah did extraordinary community-engaged work while at Bates, including the founding of a student club, Refugee Volunteers, which matches Bates students with local Somali families. Operating on the principle of reciprocity, everyone involved shares resources and knowledge so that Bates students might offer tutoring services and at the same time learn how to cook traditional Somali food. After graduation, Sarah took a job with Catholic Charities, working with Somali elders and other refugees on issues related to community integration. She is currently starting a non-profit, Welcoming Maine, in which students from a course taught by sociology professor Emily Kane are currently involved.  

A week later, Danielle Scherer, '11, offered a workshop for students about food security and access to local, healthy food. Dani became deeply involved while at Bates in issues related to sustainable agriculture and food access. She worked with Lots to Gardens, taught classes at the Nutrition Center, and was hired by the New Americans Sustainable Agriculture Project (NASAP) to help run the summer farmer's market. Since graduation, Dani has worked with Cultivating Community, helping low-income Mainers gain access to healthy food at farmer's markets throughout southern Maine. She has been deeply involved in running a program that not only allows people to use food stamps at farmer's markets but that actually incentivizes them to do so by offering to double their food stamp allotments. Last year, Dani taught a class for NASAP farmers, and she fell in love with the field of adult education and teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). She is planning to get her master's degree and teaching certification next fall and then to return to Maine.  You can read a recent story about Dani's work with the Portland Farmers Market here . 

In mid-November, Catherine Elliott, '12, will offer a workshop to our students that aims to dispel myths about what kinds of services poor residents do-and do not-receive. While at Bates, Catherine did wide-ranging work, from collecting yogurt lids as part of a contest that led to a $50,000 award for an organization of Catherine's choice (Boys and Girls Club), to organizing contra dances, to writing a community-engaged thesis that helped a local advocacy organization study the use of narratives as an organizing tool. Catherine was also deeply involved in issues related to access to legal services for low-income Mainers. Since graduation, Catherine has continued to work with organizations providing free legal services to local residents.  

Finally, Alyse Bigger, '12, will come back early next semester to offer a workshop to students on financial literacy. She served as an informal financial adviser to her friends while at Bates and is currently working to provide financial support services as a financial coach for Work, Inc., a Boston-based organization that offers programs for low-income people with disabilities. Alyse came to Bates interested in working in federal law enforcement after college. However, through a range of community-based experiences, she became increasingly interested in working with people in disadvantaged communities before they become entangled with the legal system. She is currently studying for the LSAT and hopes to attend law school in the fall.

Bates is actively seeking funds to support its Bonner Leader Program.  If you have questions, or would like to support the Bonner Leader Program, please contact Ellen Alcorn at the Harward Center at 207-786-8235.

For more information about the Bonner Leader Program at Bates, please click here to view a short video (note that you will be redirected to the Bates College channel on Vimeo).