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Home Melinda Spencer High Tech Work Scientific Work Community Work
Elementary students participating in Roosevelt's Walk & Roll to School Day
 NENA Web site
 
Centennial Time Garden,
Roosevelt Elementary School
Planting pocket gardens along San Francisco
with a 2007 Neighborhood Sustainability Grant
Ecologically friendly house I worked on with
Voluntary Service International in
Berne, Switzerland
Community Mobility
As a professional, a mom, and a volunteer, I'm interested in making Olympia's neighborhoods safer and more attractive for walking and other active forms of transportation. This work includes:
 
Preparing a resident-led sidewalk- and trail-building proposal for the City of Olympia called Closing the Gaps: Building Places for People on Olympia's Neighborhood Streets. I've also prepared a summary of this proposal and a presentation, which I gave to the Coalition of Neighborhood Associations in October 2008.
 
Writing the Walking Routes through Northeast Olympia guide, with support from a Healthy Steps grant awarded to the Northeast Neighborhood Association by the Thurston County Department of Health and Human Services. 

Creating and implementing Roosevelt Elementary School's Walk & Roll to School days.

Donating significant time to assist Intercity Transit's Youth Education Specialist and Marketing & Communication Manager define the scope and goals of a successful Bicycle and Pedestrian Safety grant from WA Dept. of Transportation. This grant is based on school walking route research I performed as a volunteer.

Participating in the Commute Trip Reduction Strategies for Schools advisory group, sponsored by WA Dept. of Transportation.

Developing a school traffic survey for Roosevelt Elementary and sharing the results with the Olympia School Board and City staff to start a community conversation about the need to reduce car traffic to schools by improving and publicizing school walking routes.

Developing Olympia's first School Walking Route Survey since 1989, focusing on Roosevelt Elementary School. I hope this survey can serve as a prototype for conducting comprehensive school walk route surveys at all schools in local school districts.

Co-organizing and conducting a comprehensive neighborhood Walkability Assessment for the Thurston County Healthy STEPS program. The NENA president and I were invited to present our strategy and findings at the WISEWOMAN Conference sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, November 2005 in Newport Beach, CA.

Northeast Neighborhood Association news article~April 29, 2006
As Vice President of the Northeast Neighborhood Association from 2001 to October 2006 and as a non-titled NENA member ever since, I've focused on:

Preparing successful grant applications for the Thurston County Department of Health and Human Services that garnered $20,000 that our neighborhood is using to:

  • Spearhead Safe Routes to School efforts at Roosevelt Elementary.
  • Conduct a neighborhood-wide Walkable Places assessment.
  • Organize an intersection repair with the Village Improvement Project.
  • Identify and prioritize where sidewalks should be built to reach neighborhood schools and parks.

Preparing successful grant applications that won $16,000 so our neighborhood could:

  • Plan public outreach activities with neighbors to envision how to make our neighborhood a safe and attractive place to get active and get connected.
  • Build a Centennial Time Garden, a preschool garden, and a native plant garden at Roosevelt Elementary.
  • Build and enhance other gardens at our neighborhood hub.

Designing and maintaining the NENA website (since December 2005), maintaining the NENA mailing lists, designing the NENA logo, and producing all publicity materials (pro bono).

Roosevelt Elementary School Site Council 
Volunteer from 2002-2007 as a neighborhood and parent representative to provide input about curricula and enrichment programs, co-organize the Roosevelt Foundation Coat Exchange, spearhead the Time Garden project, and envision and carry out the engraved brick fundraiser, which raised over $4,000 that was used to pay for Roosevelt's Centennial mural and community celebration.
 
Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee, City of Olympia
Volunteer from 2002 through 2005 to inventory, rank, and prioritize locations where sidewalks will be built throughout Olympia, as documented in the City of Olympia Sidewalk Program. Also provide input about bicycle facilities throughout the city and improving walkability in the downtown core.
Voluntary Service International
Voluntary Service International (VSI) is the Irish division of Service Civil International, which was started in the aftermath of the First World War on the premise that if we know, respect, and care for people from other cultures, we’re less likely to want to go to war against them. Through VSI I got to:
  • Help Turkish Radio and Television produce a documentary about secular life in this Islamic nation as the Turks took their first steps toward being admitted into the European Union. The documentary was translated into the primary European languages and shown throughout Europe in the mid-1990s.
  • Help build an ecologically friendly house in Berne, Switzerland that incorporated innovative technologies to minimize its footprint on the delicate Alpine foothill ecosystem, such as a garden on the roof and a pyramidal greenhouse where the rainwater was filtered and warmed for the occupants' use.
Davis Community Mediation Service
Worked as a volunteer mediator to help community members resolve personal and community disputes. Developed and produced public service announcements about these services for local cable TV.
 
Miscellaneous
  • Completed training in the Systematic Development of Informed Consent through the Institute for Participatory Management & Planning. July 2004.
  • Completed training as a disaster responder with the American Red Cross, Seattle WA. April 1996.
  • Met with the U.S. Ambassador to the Republic of Ireland, Mrs. Jean Kennedy Smith, while a graduate student in the Peace Studies Program at Trinity College to discuss perspectives on the Irish conflict. August 1993.
  • Invited to be an observer at the United Nations World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, Austria. June 1993.
  • Certified as a Teacher of English as a Second Language in Dublin, Ireland. March 1993.

Updated 10/13/2008                                                                                                                                                           ©Copyright 2004-2008, Melinda T. Spencer, Owner
Return On Investment Technical Communication