First I am so proud and excited about the completion of the Marc Steiner Show Today is the day I worked on and I am going to make sure it is on in my classroom.

What’s left for me to do is finish gathering the supplies for the children’s area of the Garden Gala. I am so excited and will continue to promote it to everyone I see until the event. This will include not only through the Internet but I will be calling friends and family to remind them to come. I feel as though I have been a great contribution to this class and almost every aspect. I do feel I may be a little behind in my help with the planning committee but I feel I will make up for this some by handling the children’s table. I also will be bringing all of the fabric that I have to class to help with the decorations. I am making dirt desert to be served as a dessert at the event. Will be at the event to set up, work it and clean up. I do still have to pick up the picture from Ralph for the silent auction.  I am going to be available to help whenever needed this weekend.

This week I continued to work on Tuesday for the Marc Steiner radio broadcast. Tuesday is almost complete. I also wrote the opening and closing for Tuesdays show. I also had the opportunity to go to the event at the 2640 space for the United Workers Media Team Celebration. This group was using the smaller side of the 2640 space. Everyone was super nice and would come up to use to talk. I went and talked to Audrey and Leah from Double Impact about possibly having them at the Garden Gala. They wrote a song about the incinerator that was great. The Media team shared many videos that they had worked on. The focus of this was to give the people a voice to tell their stories. I am planning to promote the Garden Gala to the Early Childhood Education program Tuesday at 3:00 before heading to work on Tuesdays radio show.

This week has been a little crazy with work on the Marc Steiner Show, Asking for donations and the Filbert Street Garden Work day. Although my schedule has been very busy the hard work will pay off.

So let’s talk radio, earlier this week a group of students including myself met with Dr. King to collaborate as a group. This was super helpful because we could help each other by sharing clips that we felt were good but just not on the right day. This gave me the encouragement to start to really pick and choose and to begin to see the flow for Tuesday. It was also helpful to see the opening that Conner wrote it gave me a format that I could adjust for my day. Also by collaborating we were able to lead into the next day. So after the meeting I began to continue to pull and move clips around. I struggle a bit trying to contact by partner from another class but continued on and resent the email to my group so we could be prepared for Fridays meeting with Marc. On Friday none of the clips that I had picked were available for listening. Although I was frustrated that’s ok I have worked it out and can’t wait to begin collaborating in the studio on Tuesday.

“ASKING” business for donations is harder then it looks. I continue to call, call back and e-mail business that JJ and me visited on April 12.  I guess just keep pounding away at that.

The Filbert Street Garden is a wonderful place to work and also enjoy. I am so glad for this opportunity to help such a wonderful community place. The garden workday was that hard work but that was ok I had brought my youngest son to help. He was also very passionate about working and getting things done. He kept asking Jason Reed what could we do next. I was in the group that begun to build the frame to cover the blueberries to protect them from the birds. I though when we had run out of supplies we had to stop. I was wrong; Carter (my son) and Jason began to search every junk pile until we had found more supplies to finish. Carter was so proud! I said since he had worked so hard I would finish so he could hunt for eggs. So as Carter enjoyed the garden with the children from the community I continued to mulch with my classmates. This community is very lucky to have a garden space like this to share and enjoy.

Trying to get donations for our event is easer said then done. My partner JJ and I decided to work as a team she would start by sending out emails and we would hit the streets together for the first time Saturday. JJ emailed 17 businesses out on April 7th and 9^th and we received no responses. So Saturday April 12 we headed out to visit the Annapolis businesses in hopes of some support for our Garden Gala. We started out with businesses that we had emailed but also stopped by any local business.  Successes were that we were able to get to donations our first was from ARMADILLO"S the owner was super cool and enjoyed talking with us about the Filbert Street Garden.We were super excited to get our first donation that we took a picture in front of Armadillo’s unfortunately when I went to send the picture to JJ there was no picture on my phone. The second donation was from Crush Kitchen and Winehouse. Almost everyone we spoke with was super nice and even gave me a name to follow up on Monday or Tuesday. There were a couple of bumps in the road one was when an owner wanted to donate to use and we did not have the address on the ASK. This left me feeling a bit dumb but a problem we could solve. Thank goodness D’Arcy was able to text me the address so we could hand write in on the bottom of the ASK.  Another question that was asked that I was lacking the answer to what was the last day we would take donations. After a few stops I became a fast talker sharing the importance of the Garden Gala with anyone who would listen. Some wanted my e-mail so I added it to the flyer. When we go back out to more businesses I would add our UMBC e-mails to the form so they could contact use. We handed out 38 ASK in a day of hard work and determination.

The other project I am working on is the Marc Steiner Radio Broadcast. I am working on Tuesday hard work, struggle and sacrifice. I am working on pulling powerful quotes from not only Baybrook but also from the sparrows point to create a flow between the too topics. I have looked over the suggestions from my fellow classmates for the Baybrook portion I am still missing a time stamp and interview from an oral history that I had read so I am continuing to look for that. I am going to correspond with Sander who is also working on Tuesday to see what he has found and we can collaborate on the rough cut to be presented to Marc Steiner at the meeting Friday.

This week has been very exciting as the class collaboration between mine and the arts students are about to send our design to the printer for the Garden Gala save the date. Last Friday I was able to attend the meeting with Marc Steiner on the weeklong radio broadcast featuring a collaboration of UMBC classes. This program will hopefully raise awareness of the boom and bust of industry has affected two different communities in similar ways.  This can be observed in their shared histories, struggles, family and friendships. Somehow during the meeting with Marc Steiner I in a way found my voice as I truly was sharing thoughts and ideas of how I saw this radio broadcast happening. I feel as though I have a lot to offer because of being in the two classes and being able to listen to the voices of the members of both communities to find many similarities. If any one is interested please come to the event Remembering Sparrows Point this Thursday at 7:30. The event is free to all and is being held at the Creative Alliance at Patterson 3134 Eastern Ave., Baltimore, MD 21224. To keep its memory alive, Creative Alliance will screen Mill Stories and Life After Steel, present a reading by Deborah Rudacille, author of Roots of Steel: Boom and Bust in an American Mill Town, and engage the audience in a discussion with former Sparrows Point workers.