Our approach to collaborative urban community reform is to work alongside residents and other community partners to address the needs of the community. This past year, Urban Bridge Builders collaborated with residents of the Hopkins Apartments project in southeast D.C. and various community groups to build a new playground for the kids at Hopkins as well as to help improve after school programming in the community.

Hopkins Playground Build

During a Housing Advocacy Committee meeting in November 2008, we learned that one of the playground areas at Hopkins was vandalized and had to be bulldozed. Without this playground, the recreational resources for the kids at Hopkins would become even more limited.

Immediately after this meeting, Urban Bridge Builders and other members of the Housing Advocacy Committee decided to form a Playground Build Team with the goal of building a new playground for the Hopkins children. The steering committee of the Playground Build Team consisted of Hopkins residents, D.C. government staff, and members of local churches and other nonprofit organizations.

• We organized a Design Day and kids in various age ranges came to tell the team what they would like to have in their playground and how they wanted it to look like.
• We organized two fundraisers – a car wash/cookout and a yard sale – to raise funds for the playground. We also solicited donations from local businesses and organizations.
• After months of planning, organizing, and raising funds, the Build Day finally came and took place on July 11, 2009. It was a huge success with over 50 people from Hopkins Apartments, local businesses, organizations, and churches, and D.C. government staff coming together to build a playground for the kids at Hopkins.

Hopkins Apartments:
Afterschool Services Market Study

In April 2009, the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Washington announced that it would close four of its branches, one of which would be the Hopkins Boys and Girls Club. Laurie Putscher from the D.C. Housing Authority (DCHA) inquired members of the Housing Advocacy Committee if a market study to assess whether a reconfiguration of services could lead to higher attendance at Hopkins, which would encourage the Club to keep the Hopkins branch open.

Urban Bridge Builders volunteered to lead the effort and worked alongside the Hopkins Resident Council and DCHA to conduct the study. We met with the staff of the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Washington as well as that of the Hopkins branch, conducted door-to-door surveying and focus groups to get the residents’ (both parents and kids) input, and interviewed other afterschool programs in the area to assess the usefulness of the Boys and Girls Club’s presence at Hopkins and to provide recommendations on how the Boys and Girls Club could help address the unmet after school needs of the Hopkins' residents.

We presented our findings to the Boys and Girls Club, DCHA, and community members. With the help of the study, the Boys and Girls Club decided to keep the Hopkins branch open. You can read about the study here.