Madisonville

Offering an eclectic array of businesses, Madisonville is home to deeply rooted residents and newcomers attracted by unique homes in a reasonable price range. This family-friendly neighborhood offers hike/bike trails, an emerging arts scene and a burdgeoning CBD that's just months away from a complete overhaul, thanks to the Madisonville Community Urban Redevelopment Corporation.

Connections takes stand, provides community support

By Newsroom

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For Good

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March 12, 2013

At Connections: A Safe Place, women form a community of support for one another as they work toward restoration. “Our belief is that if you clean off the lies, the misbeliefs, the things that you have told yourself as a result of experiencing sex abuse—you can clean all that off and shift them, and you can really reconnect to who you’re capable of being,” says Connections’ co-founder Rebecca Born. One in four women and one in six boys, according to Born, “will be touched by sex abuse before the age of 18,”—a statistic that she says most people think is impossible because they don’t know anyone who has been victimized in the past. “The reason you don’t know anybody is because our culture’s in a place where we don’t want to know, we don’t want to speak about it,” she says. “So victims of sex abuse remain silent—they remain isolated.” So Born works to give victims a voice and an outlet for the shame, anger or pain they might be feeling by providing things like therapy and weekly art sessions where women can paint or make pottery in the studio. “So often victims live in their heads and don’t really have a full sense of their bodies, and when you’re learning how to do art and make a pot, it requires your full attention—it requires body use and it really helps them to focus,” Born says. “And then the painting and drawing are a wonderful outlet for expressing some of the pain and some of the things you don’t often know how to say, but you can through art.” Connections isn’t about just meeting once or twice a week for therapy, though—it’s about forming a genuine community for women, with the understanding that the ability to overcome abuse is a long-term effort that requires support. “So we provide sleepovers, family cookouts; we go bowling, we just do all kinds of things,” Born says. The mission at Connections isn’t just to support victims, however. It’s also to challenge community members to take a stand against sex abuse and move beyond prevention to a zero-tolerance policy; and on April 14, as part of The Innocence Revolution: A Global Day to End Sex Abuse, the nonprofit will partner with A Voice for the Innocent to host Stand Up Ohio!. “It’s a family fun festival," Born says. "There’s going to be nothing threatening about it. Nobody’s going to have to worry that they’re going to be taught about sex abuse. Our goal is this: we’re going to celebrate children, and with our presence, make a statement.” Born says that if people don’t take a stand, the issue is going to continue; and nothing is accomplished as a result of denial. “Until we begin to speak about it and begin to create an atmosphere so children and adults can say this happened to me, it’s going to be a silent predator in our communities.” Do Good: • Donate to support the work of Connections. • Attend Stand Up Ohio! at Sharon Woods April 14 from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. • Like and share Connections' Facebook page, and contact the organization if you are a woman seeking support. By Brittany York Brittany York is a professor of English composition at the University of Cincinnati and a teacher at the Regional Institute of Torah and Secular Studies. She also edits the For Good section of SoapboxMedia.

Kenzie’s CLOSET empowers teenage girls, makes prom special

By Newsroom

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For Good

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March 5, 2013

Sabrina Peelman says she loves her city and helping others. She’s a junior at Reading High School and has lived in Cincinnati her whole life, and she serves as a prime example of the ways in which community giving comes full circle. “I like how close everybody in my town is, how everybody knows each other,” Peelman says. “It’s really nice being able to have familiar faces around you at all times.” One way Peelman helps to give back to her community is through the work she does with the Interfaith Hospitality Network. “It’s a program that gives homeless families a place to stay until they can get back on their feet and find a job," says Peelman. "It helps them reestablish their lives again. Normally I serve the families dinner, and I normally am in charge of playing games with the children.” Peelman says she loves to give back, but she’s also experienced the other side of things. With prom season coming up, Peelman knew she would need a dress, but she also knew that formal dresses are expensive and that purchasing one would be a financial strain on her family. “I’m adopted by my aunt and my uncle, and my aunt, she’s an accountant, but she raised three kids that weren’t really hers, so it’s always been kind of hard on her, and my uncle is a service manager, and he doesn’t really make as much money as he should,” Peelman says. So Peelman went to Kenzie’s CLOSET, a nonprofit that provides free prom dresses, shoes and accessories to girls in need who deserve a special night at their prom. “When you first walk in, you see a lot of pink—the couches are pink—and there’s a little waiting room,” Peelman says. “Then when you go back into the area with the dresses, there are dressing rooms and a bunch of shoes on the left, and to your right there are just bunches of dress racks and all these colorful dresses—short ones, poofy ones, some on mannequins—it’s very pretty and organized.” Peelman says she’s excited for prom this year because the theme is “Hollywood,” and the students will get to cruise down the Ohio River on a boat, complete with a red carpet and even “Academy Awards.” What will make Peelman’s prom even better is that she found a dress she says she fell in love with. “It was the second dress I tried on," she says. "It’s strapless and has a sweetheart neckline, and it’s long and it’s a teal color, and it has a few beads going down it. It’s like a mermaid dress, so it’s very slender." Since Peelman was able to find a dress at Kenzie’s CLOSET, she won’t have to wear the old dress that belonged to her sister, which she says is outdated and would have had to be taped down because it would have been "a little big.” Instead, she’ll attend prom with her boyfriend of six months who’s been her good friend since the age of 3. Peelman says her favorite part of finding a dress was the overall shopping experience. “The lady I had, she took me and asked me what kind of dresses I liked and what was my favorite color, and she was very friendly and she’d ask what type of dresses I didn’t like, and then we’d try to move away from that type, and it really made it a lot more fun,” she says. “It was very simple, and they were very understanding—you could ask them anything about the dress, and they would know how to answer it.” According to Peelman, a lot of high-school girls, and even some of her friends, wouldn’t want to accept a used dress. “They feel like they’re privileged or something—I don’t know how to describe it,” she says. But it was important for Peelman to do what she could to help her family. “Anytime they see me happy, they’re ecstatic, so when they found out I found a dress at Kenzie’s CLOSET that I really liked and they didn’t have to pay for all the expenses of prom, it made them so happy,” Peelman says. “They’re really proud of me.” Do Good: • Donate a gently used dress or apparel to Kenzie's CLOSET. • Volunteer to help Kenzie's CLOSET operate during shopping hours, or consider coordinating a dress drive. • If you are a student in need of a dress, or know of a student in need of a dress, contact the school's principal to see if she qualifies to shop at Kenzie's CLOSET. By Brittany York Brittany York is a professor of English composition at the University of Cincinnati and a teacher at the Regional Institute of Torah and Secular Studies. She also edits the For Good section of SoapboxMedia.

City Hall launches app as a community-organizing tool

By Newsroom

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Development News

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February 26, 2013

The City of Cincinnati has taken out the back-and-forth that can occur when residents try to reach them to report issues in their neighborhoods. At the Neighborhood Summit on Feb. 16, Vice Mayor Roxanne Qualls announced that the Cincinnati City Hall mobile app is available to the public. With the app, residents can look up trash, recycling and street sweeping days, and set reminders; locate and report problems by address; bookmark locations for quick reporting; and track the status of reports. City Hall mobile also has GPS, so users can report issues, even without an address. There’s even a searchable map with property owner information, which enables residents to see if a property is occupied or vacant. A few years ago, residents had to use the Yellow Pages to look up the number for city departments to file complaints, says Kevin Wright, executive director of Walnut Hills Redevelopment Foundation. The city then implemented a hotline for all complaints, but residents never knew the status of their reports. “It’s amazing how comprehensive the app is,” Wright says. “If you see a broken window, pothole, graffiti, hanging gutter or anything else that is physically wrong with your neighborhood, street or community, you can report it in an instant. It’s a great tool for neighborhood redevelopment.” The app can also be used as a community-organizing tool, Wright says. For example, if there is a property owner who historically hasn’t taken care of his or her property, social media can help organize a community and target the property to enforce codes until the property is fixed, which is what neighborhood councils and organizations like WHRF do. “We’re really putting power in the hands of the citizens of the neighborhoods,” he says. As with most tech programs, the app has room to grow, too. In the future, it could be linked with Facebook or Twitter, so your friends and followers will know who reported problems and where they are. Cincinnati residents can download the app in the Apple App Store or download it through Google Play. By Caitlin Koenig Follow Caitlin on Twitter

Library adds downloadable magazines to collection

By Newsroom

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Arts + Culture

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February 26, 2013

Utilizing the Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County’s resources just got easier. At the beginning of February, the library released its latest service: Zinio. It enables anyone with a library card to download free magazines as soon as they hit the newsstands. “It’s really wonderful to be able to download magazines from the comfort of home,” says Sandy Bolek, Internet site coordinator for PLCHC. “We’re trying to meet the changing interests and needs of our customers, and there’s a tremendous interest in downloading everything out there.” With more than 650 titles, users will now be able to download as many magazines at a time as they wish. Plus they never have to return them. “I think there will be people who download maybe 20 magazines at a time, because how often can you walk into a library and have every single issue available for the taking that you can hang on to?” Bolek says. “So I expect that our interest and usage in magazines will go up significantly.” In the past month alone, PLCHC users have downloaded 16,396 magazines through the new service. Magazines aren’t the only downloadable materials the library offers, however. Free e-books, audio books and even music are all available to patrons as well. “You’re able to sit at home in your jammies at 11 at night and download music, e-books, an audio book or a magazine,” Bolek says. “We talk about being able to use the library any time, anywhere now, and I think people are increasingly expecting that in just about every service area.” According to Bolek, the library is on track to reach one million downloaded items by October, which is a huge accomplishment in terms of achieving its mission of “connecting people with the world of ideas and information.” “The nature of information has of course changed over the years and the decades," Bolek says. "Our collection has significantly expanded, but it’s still information. We’re supporting people’s reading interests, connecting them with books, connecting them with information, and the variety of ways we’ve been able to do that has really expanded.” Do Good: • Learn about Zinio, download the app for your smartphone or tablet and show your friends and family how to start downloading free magazines. • Sign up for a free library card so you can take advantage of the many resources the library has to offer. • Promote literacy by joining a book club, reading to children or taking them to library events. By Brittany York Brittany York is a professor of English composition at the University of Cincinnati and a teacher at the Regional Institute of Torah and Secular Studies. She also edits the For Good section of SoapboxMedia.

Thinking outside the box: Home bakery turns Gail Yisreal into cake boss

By Newsroom

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Entrepreneurship

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February 19, 2013

Going on maternity leave changed Gail Yisreal’s life in more ways than having a new baby to take care of. When she returned to work, Yisreal says she learned her position was no longer there, so she began to look for a different job. As wife and mother to a blended family of nine children, she might bake up to 11 birthday cakes in a year. But she hadn’t considered turning her knack for kneading dough into earning dough until she baked a wedding cake for a couple from her family’s place of worship. Not only did they like the cake, they suggested she start selling them. Listening to her fans, Yisreal founded A “Mother’s Touch” Cakes with the nurturing tagline, “Making fresh homemade cakes when you don’t have the time.” Celebrating her two-year anniversary as a registered business in August 2012, A “Mother’s Touch” features signature and custom made flavors of fresh, savory gourmet, organic and vegan cakes and cupcakes that are good—and good for you. “I didn’t know anything about decorating, so I took a class to learn more decorating skills," Yisreal says. "And I was shocked to find out that 95 percent of the cakes you buy are box cakes—because everybody wants the decoration. I started doing some research about the trans-fats and artificial ingredients, and I vowed that everything I baked would always be natural and from scratch.” After working as a waitress for two years and in management at Starbucks for six years, Yisreal developed a love for coffee. She jokes that most ex-Starbucks managers feel they know enough about coffee to create their own line, which she actually did for A “Mother’s Touch.” Having tried organic coffees with weak flavor profiles, she researched and found Dean’s Beans, a fair-trade pioneer that allowed her to design her own custom blends. Her signature A “Mother’s Touch” blend is made with Mexican and Indonesian beans and pairs with her carrot cake as an after-dinner coffee. “I’m really proud of my coffee and the fact that it really was custom blended for what I wanted to complement my desserts,” Yisreal says. And, true to her mission to serve natural, sustainable goods, she says that her blends are 100 percent organic, fair-trade certified and are shade grown. Being on the scene without a storefront hasn’t stopped Yisreal. Instead, she’s building her brand as the “cupcake lady” who networks everywhere and invites people to taste samples of her creations. Yisreal also tapped into hidden markets by hosting deals through social media. “I did a Living Social promotion last year, which was huge,” Yisreal says. “That first day, I think I got 1,500 hits on my website, and probably about 85 deals, which I thought was really good for people who didn’t know who I was.” And even though she sells more cakes today, the ease of transporting cupcakes built her clientele. “When I first came out, because of my financial situation, literally, cupcakes were paying my rent,” she says. After she and her husband separated, she remembers what it was like to go from making an annual salary of $60,000 to less than $20,000 a year. But she doesn’t do it all alone. “I have three almost-teenage girls; 12, soon to be 15 and 17, so they are my preppers,” Yisreal explains. “It’s hilarious because we’ll be in the kitchen and everybody has their big bonnets on, and they’re scraping carrots, mashing fruit, lining the liners. I have a girlfriend who I’ll sometimes sub-contract out to do deliveries. And if it’s a huge event—like for the Autism Foundation, I had to knock out 40 dozen cupcakes—I have two sisters, and at the time I had just split up with my husband so we were in literally an 800-square-foot apartment. The kitchen was all of maybe 150-square-feet, we put out six-foot tables and we were like an assembly line! It was hilarious, but we got it done. It was like an I Love Lucy episode!” By Mildred Fallen

ESCC helps nonprofits maximize output

By Newsroom

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Architecture + Design

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January 15, 2013

In 1995, a small group of retired business executives came together with the intent of giving back to their community by investing their time and talents in work that would assist nonprofits. Now, nearly 18 years later, Executive Service Corps of Cincinnati is the recipient of an $85,000 award that will help more than 130 volunteers provide low-cost, high-quality strategic thinking, planning, training and coaching to other nonprofits in need. The recent funding will help the ESCC implement its Community Benefit Business Model, which, according to Andy McCreanor, executive director and CEO of the organization, is a model that has essentially always existed within the nonprofit, but has now been refined and strengthened. The model helps nonprofits maximize results so that they may receive additional funding to better fulfill their missions, which ultimately works to improve the communities they serve. “It enables investors to get more out of the nonprofits that they’re investing in, and secondly, it helps the nonprofits because we’re affordable," says McCreanor. "We’re merely a vehicle so that the community gets the benefit that they’re trying to get." The ESCC has worked on long-term projects with more than 500 nonprofits in Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky and Southeast Indiana since 1995, including most recently the Jewish Federation of Cincinnati. ESCC also offers a 10-month program at its Nonprofit Leadership Institute each year; and at its culmination in June, more than 100 nonprofit leaders from Cincinnati will have graduated. McCreanor says that because of the recent economic downturn, nonprofits have suffered and organizations are reevaluating and assessing their goals and missions. “We’re here to help,” he says. “If you’re struggling out there, it really doesn’t cost anything to talk about what you’re dealing with, and if in fact there is a way for us to help, it’s going to be done at a very low cost, so it’s kind of the best of all worlds.” Do Good: • Sign up to attend classes at the Nonprofit Leadership Institute. • Volunteer your business skills and experience to serve other nonprofits. • Reach out to the ESCC if you are a nonprofit that could benefit from its services. By Brittany York Brittany York is a professor of English composition at the University of Cincinnati and a teacher at the Regional Institute of Torah and Secular Studies. She also edits the For Good section of SoapboxMedia.

Shield gives back to those who give daily

By Newsroom

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Diversity

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January 8, 2013

The Shield started in September 2000 during a crisis. A Cincinnati police officer was killed in the line of duty, and his family, which was from out of town, couldn't afford to fly in on short notice. Tom Streicher, who was Cincinnati’s police chief at the time, knew something had to be done; he offered up his credit card to ensure the officer’s family was where they were needed—by the fallen officer’s side. “It was a leadership issue,” says Satch Coletta, a retired officer and trustee for the nonprofit that was soon to launch. “What are the odds, should something happen? Something should be there.” In that moment of need, police chiefs came together to make contributions and began to fund a new nonprofit. The organization has continued to operate ever since, thanks to community donations, and in large part, to the willingness of officers who take payroll deductions to contribute. The organization’s board, which is composed of 10 officers—current and retired—works entirely on a volunteer basis. They meet monthly during lunch breaks to fulfill The Shield’s mission: to assist the families of officers killed or critically injured in the line of duty. Policing is a dangerous job, and according to Coletta, “It’s not a matter of if we’re going to pay money out, it’s a matter of when and how much.” The funds are available to families immediately—prior to workers’ compensation or life insurance, says Coletta. “If it happens at one in the afternoon, at 1:01 p.m., there’s a benefit committee that’s ready to spring into action to aid an officer or his family.” Coletta knows the circumstances surrounding the loss of an officer all too well. In 1978, Officer John Bechtol, next-door neighbor and friend whom Coletta trained with, died after a vehicle struck his police cruiser. There was no immediate support available for the family . “Back then, policemen, not that they make a great fortune now, made even less; and to be able to set funeral arrangements and getting people in and situated—things along that line…” were very difficult, he says. The funds are not just meant for funeral arrangements and families’ transportation, however. “Say he would have survived the crash,” Coletta says, “he would have been in very serious condition, say in ICU for a long time. You would expect the spouse to be there in ICU. If their job doesn’t pay, The Shield would entertain paying the spouse’s wages because they’re already down one. We don’t want them to suffer additionally.” In times of need, Coletta says people always want to help, but the organization’s goal is to create an emergency fund that can create interest, so that there is enough money available to families, prior to the moment when the unthinkable occurs. “The family knows what’s needed, and we work on the things to try to aid them,” Coletta says. “But it’s one of those things where at the time, that’s one less thing they have to worry about.” Do Good: • Provide corporate or community support by donating to The Shield. • Contact The Shield about volunteer opportunities and upcoming events. • Connect with The Shield and share the organization's page on Facebook. By Brittany York Brittany York is a professor of English Composition at the University of Cincinnati and a teacher at the Regional Institute of Torah and Secular Studies. She also edits the For Good section of SoapboxMedia.

GLAD House expands, moves to O’Bryonville

By Newsroom

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Diversity

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January 8, 2013

As GLAD House celebrates its 15th year of dedication and success in February, they will also be moving to a facility in O’Bryonville that is larger, on a bus line and situated next to Owl’s Nest Park. The idea for GLAD House, which stands for “Giving Life A Dream,” began in 1993. After five years of careful planning, Beatrice Lampkin, founder of the nonprofit, with the help of church members, other nonprofits and an expert committee of psychiatrists, social workers and educators, opened its doors to children and families who were struggling with addiction and related issues in their homes. Lampkin, who spent years on the campus of Cincinniat Children’s Hospital and Medical Center as director of hematology and oncology, had seen pervasive drug use in the area around the hospital. That prompted her to do something meaningful in an effort to “make an impact in breaking the cycle of addiction.” “As far as substance abuse, a lot of the programs are for treatment, but the children were totally ill bystanders,” Lampkin says. “And you have the children living in the conditions of a home impacted by addictions, and they’d have to fend for themselves.” So Lampkin developed a program—the GLAD Champs—to provide support to children, particularly between the ages of 5 and 12. As an after-school program, children receive transportation to the GLAD House; they’re given a snack, in addition to dinner; and they receive treatment from licensed therapists to help them cope with their situation and prevent drug use in the future. “We don’t just toss them out after a period of time,” says Lampkin, in reference to children who have met individual therapy goals or who are older than 12. “We promote them to the GLAD Hands Club, where they come back to us less frequently; and these children come back until they’re 18 years of age, so that’s a long period of time that we’re following them.” It is both necessary and beneficial, according to Lampkin, “because if you just treat them for a matter of say, six months for them to meet their individual goals, they lose what they have learned because they go back and live in the same area; but with continued support and reinforcement until they graduate from high school, they have a much better chance of becoming very successful in their lives.” And participants have become successful. The GLAD House works with approximately 115 children every year, some starting as young as 5 years of age. To date, 29 of those youth have graduated from high school—23 of them entered college and the other six secured employment. “So it works,” Lampkin says. “And we are very proud.” GLAD House also provides support to other family members. From classes on understanding attention deficit hyperactivity disorder to curriculums celebrating families, the nonprofit supports family unity and wellbeing. With the organization’s continued growth and success, Lampkin says the new facility is ideal. “It’s going to be wonderful, and we’re very happy because certainly our program has been very successful for the children and their parents, and we want to continue, and we want to expand.” Do Good: • Make a charitable donation to GLAD House. • Volunteer to help children with homework, to cook, to garden, to shop for supplies or to help in the office. • Donate school supplies or recreational materials for GLAD House activities. By Brittany York Brittany is a professor of English composition at the University of Cincinnati and a teacher at the Regional Institute of Torah and Secular Studies.

Moving for Love fuels those who move for passion, not profession

By Newsroom

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Diversity

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January 8, 2013

Moving for Love harnesses a trend that arose from the recession’s rising unemployment and job dissatisfaction: people moving to follow their passions, rather than their professions. Owner Robin Sheakley, a third-generation member of the Sibcy family (her dad is Rob Sibcy, president of Sibcy Cline Realtors), created the company. She built on her own 15-year career in real estate and relocation, offering relocation assistance to people moving to follow a partner, a passion or favorite place. “When you deal with a family business, it’s fun to try to put your mark on it,” Sheakley says, citing the growth of super-specialized online dating sites (think dating websites for farmers, for example). “I started thinking there are all these people dating online who may say, ‘You know what, I haven’t found anyone here, but I’ve always wanted to live in Chicago or Miami.’ But what happens if they find someone?” She created Moving for Love to answer that question. The web-based service connects people ready to move with Personal Move Assistant and provides a secure online portal where both parties can upload documents and information from service providers, such as a moving company. The company’s services range from short-term rental assistance and realtor recommendations to moving estimates, cost-of-living comparisons and even personalized reminders, such as suggesting that it’s time to find a local physician to manage a medical condition in the new location. The company is separate from its parent, Sibcy Cline, but shares some resources. However, the marketing budget has been scant since the website launched last July, Sheakley says. “I always like to walk before I run, so we have done no paid advertising. We are strictly organically getting our message out there. It’s been a slow start that we’re going to kick in from the beginning of the [2013].” Moving for Love charges a flat fee, then provides services for up to 12 months, giving passion-prompted movers a chance to compare several potential locations before making their transitions. By Robin Donovan

Moving for Love fuels those who move for passion, not profession

By Robin Donovan

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Entrepreneurship

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January 8, 2013