October 2021 STAY Chat: Invest in Shared Spaces

Posted October 12, 2021

We are super excited to be kicking off the school year with a STAY Chat on Thursday, October 14th at 8 pm ET to talk about what it means to invest in shared spaces. We’ll discuss why shared spaces are critical to building equity, we’ll hear about the investments happening in our city, and highlight ways people can get involved. We hope everyone’s school year is off to a good start and we are really looking forward to being on a Chat with everyone!

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A Case of Disappearing Hoops in Gentrifying Neighborhoods

Overseeing 8,800 acres of park space, the Chicago Park District is the largest municipal park manager in the United States. Between 2010 and 2020, the park district decommissioned 260 sports amenities across city parks, according to data received through a FOIA request. Basketball courts, along with tennis courts, made up the largest numbers of decommissions, and the neighborhoods from which both were removed seem to have significance in a city where virtually every aspect of public policy and daily life is infused with a legacy of segregation and inequality.

LISTEN

Ezra Klein Show: What ‘Drained-Pool’ Politics Costs America

“The American landscape was once graced with resplendent public swimming pools, some big enough to hold thousands of swimmers at a time,” writes Heather McGhee in her new book, “The Sum of Us: What Racism Costs Everyone and How We Can Prosper Together.” These pools were the pride of their communities, monuments to what public investment could do. But they were, in many places, whites-only. Then came the desegregation orders. The pools would need to be open to everyone. But these communities found a loophole. They could close them for everyone. Drain them. Fill them with concrete. Shutter their parks departments entirely. And so they did.

STAY RVA

Supporting Together Area Youth RVA (STAY RVA) is a movement comprised of parents and neighbors who want to help Richmond’s local public schools thrive. We are a positive-minded, solution-oriented, action-based organization. We want you to be a part of STAY… STAY in the city, STAY committed, STAY open-minded. We want to build communities of support around every school and engage in honest conversations about why schools have not had the resources they need. We want to BECOME genuine community members who work to form relationships with all people.

Richmond is a dynamic city loved by many who call it home. We want to encourage people to STAY, put down roots, and get involved in their community by coming together in support of local schools. In order to be a first-class city, we must provide a first-class education for ALL students.

At the heart of who we are as a movement is a LOVE for humanity. There is a foundational belief that TOGETHER we can and should create a better way forward by supporting our local public schools.

What We Believe

We believe in the power of education and the limitless possibilities and potential for ALL children.
We know that the expertise and resources necessary to build a world-class school system exist in our community.
We recognize that racism plays a powerful part in the historic failure of our system to offer opportunity to children of color and that through building relationships in our communities and in our schools we can begin to dismantle the structural racism that continues to plague our community’s school system.
If a school is not “good enough” for my child then it is not good enough for anyone’s child and we are going to work to make sure that ALL schools are great for ALL of our kids.