StellaGoldbergHawkenProjects2022

 While Lillian Kuri’s primary job is with the Cleveland Foundation, she also plays a role for the Cleveland Planning Commission. While she has served on the commission for 17 years, she was recently appointed to be the chair. This promotion was granted by major, Justin Bibb, and holds an important significance. Kuri is the first woman to serve as the Chair in the 226 years the Commission has been established. The Commission consists of seven members. Six of the seven are appointed by the mayor of Cleveland and one comes from the City Council. They oversee and approve projects in the city of Cleveland ranging from new neighborhood, district and downtown plans, to zoning rules, streetscapes, and even transportation planning. I was able to sit in on one of their meetings. These meetings are open to the public. Various people pitched various projects ranging from everything from making new crosswalks to completely new buildings requiring rezoning. Some projects were approved with eas...

   The second half of my discussion with Katrice Williams allowed me to draw a lot of connections to my second semester English class, philosophy, and justice. In this class, we talked a lot about the philosophy and rightfulness behind crime and subsequent criminalization. In both my conversation and the class, one of my biggest takeaways is how widespread and pervasive the justice system is. I learned that a majority of mental illness patients are treated in prisons. The cross-section between mental illness and the justice system is so wide. For the people that are sentenced to prison and also deal with mental health issues, criminality is not entirely their fault. Their mental issues need to be dealt with first, and then perhaps they would not commit crimes. Some symptoms of mental illness put inmates into isolation. This often intensifies the symptoms. Inmates are not getting help in prison, however, judges do not want to release a person unless they are “stable.” An alte...

 Recently, I was able to meet with Katrice Williams. Williams is the Senior Criminal Justice Fellow at the Cleveland Foundation. In this role, she leads the Foundation's criminal justice reform strategy in efforts to positively affect the criminal legal systems in Northeast Ohio. I learned the Foundation has a long history of working on criminal justice reform. Over 100 years ago the Foundation commissioned the city to write a nearly 800-page report on the justice system. Additionally, the Foundation has the first criminal justice grant-making strategy. Unlike many people in the non-profit field, Williams started her professional career on a similar route to the one she ended upon. She received degrees in social work and non-profit and went on to work for the ACLU of Ohio. Her knowledge of the justice system was fairly surface-level until that point. When working at the ACLU, she worked on bail reform and had the opportunity to go into jails across the state and talk to individuals...

  Today I was able to see The site and building ground of the new headquarters for the Cleveland Foundation. Cleveland Foundation headquarters is going to be in Midtown. The analogy that many people at the foundation used to describe the city of Cleveland as a barbell. University Circle in Case Western on one end and downtown at the other end. The area between has underdeveloped potential to make one fluid, connected city. Many companies are establishing themselves in Midtown, in an effort to build a community of trust with the people that live in the neighborhood of Hough. These companies, like the Cleveland Foundation, want to incorporate the community into their organizations. The new Cleveland Foundation headquarters overlooks a site that will soon be the home of retail, community togetherhood, and an overall fun destination. specifically, the headquarters is located right next to the Dunham Tavern Museum which contains the oldest house in Cleveland. It is a perfect way to unit...

Today I was able to sit down and speak with Ronn Richard who is the CEO of the Cleveland Foundation. One of the first questions I asked him was what his job entails. His answer was fairly straightforward. He has financial oversight for the funds, in charge of hiring and firing, and oversee grant making and fundraising. However, the most interesting aspect is how he must be an ambassador and maintain great relationships with various government entities and organizations. He continued on to share how his day isn’t just meetings that directly relate to the Foundation. For example, today he met with the head of the Red Cross in the morning and the director of the Cleveland police department and FBI gang task force in the afternoon. These important people in our community were not coming to him for the hopes of receiving grant money, but rather to bounce ideas off. This may lead to grants given down the road, but that is the next step. Richard acts as a liaison, hearing the problems and com...

While there are many different forms a Hawken Project can take, I always looked at the Senior Project as an opportunity to do an internship. I was excited to shadow a field or job that I was interested to see operate. I was originally interested in the criminal justice field when I began binging Criminal Minds as many other teens; however, my interest persisted beyond this. I began have true crime podcasts on repeat and exploring options for the summer to pursue my interest. I was able to participate in a student shadow program at the US Marshals office where my favorite parts were seeing the different parts of the job and agencies interact and collaborate. During my project, I will be able to see the way multiple groups of people in the community work together to accomplish a common goal. One thing I will have to do during this project is conduct interviews to gather information about my interests. I prefer to be an observer and listen rather than an initiator and for these interviews...