ENCOMPASS Staff Blog

Great news everyone! This week, we received word that the Dwight Stuart Youth Foundation has granted ENCOMPASS $10,000 for our Compassion Plays program. The Dwight Stuart Youth Foundation strives to support organizations that provide youth with the opportunities and resources to reach their potential. This is something to be excited about-here are a few reasons why:

1) The obvious reason: Its $10,000 that we didn’t have before and the funds will better equip us to continue accomplishing the ENCOMPASS mission. The support will help us reach more schools and community organizations that are enthusiastic about the Compassion Plays program, but lack the resources to book the program.

2) The personal reason: This is one of the first grant proposals that I worked on upon joining the ENCOMPASS staff and it’s the first grant I personally helped secure for the organization. Most of my energy goes toward continuing to strengthen the excellence of ENCOMPASS programs, so it’s nice to contribute to our strengthening our financial capacity as well.

3) The future reason: The Dwight Stuart Youth Foundation is a well-known and well-respected foundation, particularly regarding those that focus on youth services. So in addition to their support to ENCOMPASS in dollars, moving forward, their name strengthens our reputation in the youth development field and reflects positively as we approach similar foundations in the future.

Lets hope Dwight Stuart Youth Foundation is a sign of what’s to come as ENCOMPASS prepares to hear from other grant applications in the coming months. In the meantime, we’ll keep applying to foundations and corporations, so we can continue to report great news like this.

Got any grant writing tips, resources, or horror stories? Send them to skylerjackson@encompass.org If I get enough responses, I’ll post them on this blog sometime in April.

One of the greatest joys of being a youth director for so many years is getting to watch so many people grow up and take what they learned into the world. I stay in touch with quite a few of them - and I am always running into them unexpectedly.

I haven’t bumped into anyone today but as I write this (from Zona Rosa coffee house in Pasadena) I hear the sounds of Ozomatli playing through the overhead speakers.

I listen for the bass, then the vocals, Ah, there he is. People call him Wil-Dog now but I knew him first as Willy Abers.

I met Willy in 1989 when he attended Brotherhood Sisterhood camp. I was directing the camp then and Willy was a memorable participant. After the camp, he stayed involved in the program and I had the privilege of spending a lot of time with him and watching him grow.

Willy was incredibly sensitive and insightful. He took a lot of risks in group dialogues about issues like racism, sexism and homophobia and became a uniquely powerful leader. But like many teenagers, he as dealing with multiple challenges, both internal and external. He couldn’t always see his gifts- he was intelligent and compassionate and utterly charming. But he was also headed for trouble.

I worried about him a lot.

I was always grateful that he had some true friends (David and Karla come to mind) and a passion for music that was life-saving.

Long before the internet gave youth access to every kind of music, Willy knew music from every era, every genre. He fervently loved all kinds of music; he loved to hear it, play it, dance to it and talk about it. When he was in the 11th grade, he told me was planning to drop out of high school and pursue a career in music. I tried to talk him out off it.

He did it anyway.

But don’t worry; this story has a happy ending.

Today, Wil-Dog is a successful musician whose band has toured around the world, won Grammys and created a kind of music that reflects the beautiful diversity of Los Angeles. Wil-Dog has found a way to use his talent to bring people together and to create a better world. And he eventually did go back to finish high school!

Ozomatli is about to release their fourth full-length album, Don’t Mess With the Dragon. I have the feeling it will be the best one yet.
Wil-Dog says , “There is more of a sense of personal responsibility on this one. All of us are on this road of being more responsible in our own lives, becoming happier human beings, healthier in our lives outside of the band. In the process of making the record, people were really deep in the process of getting their lives together. It made a big difference. People growing up, people taking care of their own lives. The healthier people get, the better the music gets.

Ozomatli is scheduled to perform May 11 at the Glasshouse in Pomona and ENCOMPASS will have an information table there. Come to the show and see one of my favorite bands play in a one of the most intimate venues in our area!

You can get tickets by visiting: http://www.ticketmaster.com

After the show, stop by the ENCOMPASS table and say hello. I’ll introduce to Wil-Dog and you can see for yourself why I have always been proud to know him.

Have you ever wondered how we develop the plays for the Compassion Plays program? Well, we are about to produce a new one, so I thought this was a good time to share the creative process.

The plays actually take a long long time to develop. The first step is really just paying attention to which human relations issues are particularly relevant for high school age youth. As you might imagine, there are many relevant and important youth issues we could engage - but we simply can’t write a play for each of them. So we try to tune into the ones that don’t always get talked about and pay attention to topics that seem to endanger youth the most. Again, several issues meet this criteria. So, we just keep listening.

The purpose of each play is to give audiences some insight into the attitudes and experiences of others; to encourage compassion and understanding of those affected by the issues in the play. The plays are intended to spark heartfelt conversation about the characters, their views, their experiences, their choices. Of course talking about the characters is what leads people to talking about themselves. That’s where change begins.

When we develop a new play, we start by thinking about the outcomes. What do we want audience/participants to talk about? What do we want them to discover about the topic, about themselves, about each other? If the play and discussion can spark change, what would we want that change to be?

You can probably imagine how long and involved these conversations can be. In fact, we’ve been talking about this new one for several years. But we have finally decided that we want the 4th play to help people talk about the impact of school-based homophobia. This is the request we get most frequently from schools - a need for students and for teachers.

The next step is to commission a playwright. That’s the easy part! Well, not really it’s only easy this time because I have hired Peter Howard, the playwright of Wheels, KICK and Horizon Line. Peter is brilliant and a joy to work with!

So while the listening and thinking and the discussing are going on we are also doing the FUNDRAISING! We need to raise $67,000, so please let us know if you would like to help make this happen. If you want stay informed as the fourth play unfolds, be sure to check our blog from time to time.

I find it sometimes difficult to explain to people I meet what I do for a living and what ENCOMPASS does for and with teens. Heck - I wonder if my close family and friends completely understand what I do!

All too often I meet people who DON’T work in the non-profit sector or work with youth. As I share with these various types of artists, corporate business men and women, and entertainment industry folk, etc., the mission and philosophy of ENCOMPASS, I occasionally get a brief blank look on their face followed by a quick statement like “Wow. YOU must sleep well at night.” I then realize they don’t get it.

An old college friend of mine who is graphic designer was recently doing me and ENCOMPASS a favor by doing a redesign of our business cards. When asked by her colleague what she was currently working on she found herself in a position where she had to explain to another person what ENCOMPASS does. My friend told me she experienced a brief moment of panic. Would she be able to give our mission statement justice? Well, after she shared with me what she told her colleague (in that, did I do right by you? tone), I was thrilled to discover she was able to, in her own way, clearly express the work of ENCOMPASS to another person!

I failed to give my friend enough credit and she also failed to giver herself enough credit. It just goes to show that sometimes that we and the people around us ARE really listening and absorbing more information than we might think.

A challenge to all of you reading: Can you talk about ENCOMPASS in your own words?

Today is my (and Percy’s) daughter’s 3 year birthday! It has gone by pretty fast (at times, slow at others). It’s making me reflect on the many, many ways Brotherhood-Sisterhood Camp changed my life for the better. I do it often, but especially today. I met my partner through the camp when we were 17 years old (yeah, it was AWHILE ago). Who knows where I would be in life if not for that experience. Pretty much everything around me is connected to it in some way - be it work, friends or family.

I know many of us who’ve experienced the process (and even those who have been close to those who have) know the long lasting effect. As some of you may know, ENCOMPASS is hoping to one day bring back the camp program and we need your help. We are collecting letters of support to help bring the program back. You can help by sending us a letter describing the impact of the camp experience in your own life.

Please include some information on yourself: when you were involved with the program; what high school you attended; how the experience affects your life today. For a sample letter click here.

Let me know if you need some encouragement (or a friendly nudge) to get the words flowing!Ben - (benwright@encompass.org)

My mother always taught me that it was in my interest to always be presentable on any given day. So, growing up I watched my mother put on high heels and apply her lipstick - just to go to the grocery store. “You never know who you are going to run into” she would say.

She could not have been more correct. On countless occasions in my life I have, very randomly, bumped into people at moments when it was the last thing expected. Oh yes, old classmates at restaurants, former co-workers at the mall, and ex-boyfriends at concerts. It is startling that the world is so large yet so small at moments - that you could be in a large crowd of people and then find yourself next to someone you know. This happened to me just last summer. I was at a huge concert festival, enjoying one of my favorite bands when I turned next to me and found a friend from college whom I had not seen in four years! As such, I swear I don’t even dare make my way to my mailbox without my lip-gloss on. I am always surprised by who walks the streets in Silverlake.

Well, this Monday the universe did its magic once again only this time, I couldn’t care less about what shoes I was wearing. At the 4 PM Monday preview show of Horizon Line in South Pasadena, I found my favorite middle school teacher idling around the foyer of the Fremont Centre Theatre. I could not believe it. I had not seen or spoken to her in 14 years!!! Throughout the years I heard brief updates about how she was, and she had heard some updates about me too. However, were it not for Lori’s hairdresser (who has become of good friend of ENCOMPASS) who also does my former teacher’s hair - it might have been another 14 years until I saw her again. Knowing about the work that we do at ENCOMPASS, Lori’s hairdresser invited my former teacher to attend the preview show so that she could experience a Compassion Play, “hands on.” Though she is now retired after working in education for 39 years, she didn’t miss an opportunity to see a valuable program that impacts the lives of teens. So, there she was, and I was thrilled. What was even better was hearing her enthusiasm about our program after the performance and discussion and her willingness to help us get Compassion Plays into schools through her friends and colleagues.

Besides having the pleasure of running into someone that I am fond of, our Compassion Plays preview performances of Horizon Line on Monday were a total success. Numerous individuals from all over the Los Angeles and San Gabriel area attended both performances and are excited about our dynamic theatre and discussion program.

On Monday, March 19 we will be offering two preview performances (4 PM and 7 PM) of Wheels at the Fremont Centre Theatre. More information is here. You should come and bring friends too! You never know who you are going to run into.

DeLanna Studi (Compassion Plays - Kick), is starring in “Berlin Blues” now playing at the Autry National Center in the Wells Fargo Theater (located at 4700 Western Heritage Way in Los Angeles.) “Berlin Blues” is a new comedy by Drew Hayden Taylor, a Governor General’s Award Finalist. The play runs March 1-25, 2007.

The storyline: A German conglomerate descends upon a quiet Canadian reserve with visions of building the world’s largest Native theme park, “OJIBWAY WORLD.” The zany plan comes complete with bumper canoes, a laser-beam dream catcher, and Dances With Wolves: The Musical! Juliana Serrano (fellow ENCOMPASS staffer) was at the final dress rehearsal performance and highly recommends the play (”I was laughing the whole way through!”)

Show times are Thursday (8pm), Fridays (8pm), and Saturdays (2pm matinee and 8pm) and Sundays (2pm) from March 1st through March 25th. Please note there is no 2 p.m. performance on Saturday March 24th. For ticket information please call (323) 667-2000, ext. 354, or contact TicketWeb at 1-866-468-3399 or go to www.ticketweb.com. Tickets are $25 or $15 for members.

ABC 7 ran a story on the play and the status of Native American’s in Hollywood (click on the video pic of DeLanna to watch the report.) ABC7.com