NEIGHBORHOOD DEVELOPMENT
GREATER COMMUNITY PARTNERS
Our Partnering Schools and Neighborhood Development Projects
Transformative Climate Communities Partnerships
(TCC)
Get to Know Us
Better Neighborhoods Same Neighbors is a project of California’s environmental transformation efforts. The TCC collaborative project is a part of a 28.2 million-dollar investment in environmental health projects in East Oakland. Together with the Better Neighbors Partners and many other community-based organizations we work to advance Oakland’s efforts to build community-led infa-structure projects. Our partners in this neighborhood development work are, The City of Oakland, Acts Community Development, Black Culture Zone, East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative, East Bay Regional Parks District, Climate Action Corp. Bay Area Community Resources, The Scrapper Bike Program, and Planting Justice.
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Higher Ground works with the Scrapper Bike program to implement a Bike enrichment program at Higher GroundNDC after school programs across six schools in East Oakland. Our goal is to help create young people who are environmentally aware and responsible. By introducing young people to biking as an alternative means of transportation we are contributing to clean air efforts and improving health and wellness outcomes. We serve over 500 youth across several East Oakland elementary and middle school expanded learning programs.
Get to Know Us
This community engagement project works to advance our commitment to environmental health and wellness within the communities we serve. Higher Ground partners with East Oakland residents within the Brookfield Village/Columbia Gardens neighborhoods to help plan and implement community outreach workshops around creating projects that are designed and lead by residents. Working with Oakland Unified School District, Ira Jenkins Recreation Center, Brookfield’s Senior center, the neighborhood library, the Sobrante Park and Brookfield Resident Action Councils, Planting Justice, and East Oakland Neighborhood Initiative (EONI).
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Together we conduct outreach and share questionnaire finds with community members through workshops and events sponsored by Higher Ground and its neighborhood partners. Facilitating community meetings, training residents to lead.
Bay Area Air Quality Management District
Roots Sobrante Park Project
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This workforce development and referral projects is a collaboration between Roots Health Clinic, Sobrante Park Residents Council, and Planting Justice. This program provides stipend work experience opportunities for East Oakland twelfth graders. Career readiness and awareness, exposure to health and wellness outreach, and career exploration in the areas of health and social service administration are the outcomes of this project. Higher Ground also partners with Roots to provide referrals for families that may have barriers to optimal functioning within our community eco-systems. We serve 24 high school juniors and seniors annual.
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Roots is also a sponsor for Higher Ground’s annual MLK day of service, one of Oakland’s largest and Higher Ground is a sponsor of its Health Fair and Time banking program.
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This project utilizes paid workforce training opportunities to increase attendance. Students who are a part of this project need additional support in meeting Oakland Unified School Districts attendance goals. Together with our community-based partners and fellow nonprofits we provide work experience to students whose attendance meets the bi-weekly goals. The better a young person’s attendance the more access they have to hours and permanent placements.
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This project utilizes paid workforce training opportunities to increase attendance. Students who are a part of this project need additional support in meeting Oakland Unified School Districts attendance goals. Together with our community-based partners and fellow nonprofits we provide work experience to students whose attendance meets the bi-weekly goals. The better a young person’s attendance the more access they have to hours and permanent placements.
CUES Attendance Project
AmeriCorps
Fellow Project
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This partnership with Bay Area Community Resources and AmeriCorps fellowship project
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We recruit, train, and support residents as they plan and host community workshops around environmental awareness projects. Working within the Deep East Oakland communities of Brookfield Village and Sobrante Park neighborhoods we work side by side community to build capacity. Helping residents create meaningful questionnaires that allow us to collect qualitative and quantitative data is how we support the sustainability of programs. Surveys and door to door outreach also contribute to the AmeriCorps advocacy fellows experience with community development and urban planning.
Get to Know Us
This partnership helps Higher Ground provide stipend workforce development opportunities for 30 youth across Oakland and they remain a part of program until they graduate college or enter the workforce. Where much of our work is done in East Oakland, Higher Ground is rooted in all parts of the city and Clorox’s annual support helps us meet our mission of providing youth with real live experiences and job skills that can keep them in our city
Clorox Partnerships
Outdoor Adventure Program
What is Time Banking?
Time Banking is a national effort to create a money-less/barter economy. Instead of paying for something you need with money, or earning money from work that you do, or something that you produce, you earn and spend time. It is a throwback to ancient forms of trade when money in its current form did not exist and what you produces and contributed was the “money.” In that system as long as you have something to offer you can exist, survive and thrive. Participants exchange time, skills, and talents within the network of banking partners. For example, an hour of gardening equals an hour of child-care equals or an hour of dentistry equals an hour of home repair equals an hour of teaching someone to play chess. The possibilities are endless. And no one person's time is worth more than anyone else's. All of our time is valuable, so all time is equal. One hour service provided = one hour of service gained for your needs.  Sobrante Park Time Banking started in 2006 as a part of a larger "Community Capacity Building Strategy" with Alameda County Public Health Department in partnership with the City of Oakland, community- based organizations, religious and neighborhood improvement organizations. The program has been consistently operating since its inception, and is going on its 8th year. Every member is respected and valued for their time and talents. And that mutual respect fosters a stronger, safer and healthier community that is built on a sense of interdependency that focuses on building community relationships and bridging cultural, social and intergenerational divides, one transaction at a time.
How does it work?
Let's say you earn a time credit by doing something for a bank member. It doesn't matter what that "something" is and we also provide a list of things and/or services the bank is in need of. Participants then provide the service earning “money/time” credit in the bank for doing something for someone else. You can then draw down on your time within your TimeBank Community. For example, an hour of gardening equals an hour of child-care equals or an hour of dentistry equals an hour of home repair
equals an hour of teaching someone to play chess. At this point, there is not a value system placed on the service just the time that is spent in compassion to another job that may or may not take up the same amount of time. The possibilities are endless. And no one person's
time is worth more than anyone else's. All of our time is valuable, so all time is equal. One hour of service provided = one hour of service gained for your needs.
A Little History on Time Banking
Sobrante Park Time Banking started in 2006 as a part of a larger "Community Capacity Building Strategy" with Alameda County Public Health Department in partnership with the City of Oakland, community- based organizations, religious and neighborhood improvement organizations. The program was originally conceived as the Time Dollar Exchange (TOE), the "Neighbor to Neighbor" program, and was one of 6 core components of an intervention strategy to help rebuild a once thriving community. The program has been consistently operating since its inception, and is going on its 8th year. Every member is respected and valued for their time and talents. In turn we hope the work fosters is a stronger, safer and healthier community that is built on a sense of interdependency that focuses on building community relationships and bridging cultural, social and intergenerational divides, one transaction at a time.
How does HG participate?
HG’s philosophy on neighborhood development is aligned with most "place matters" initiatives. Our "place" is the schools that we serve. Our neighborhood development work starts within the walls of the schools and builds outward into the community. Higher Ground works with school site staff, community-based organizations, neighbors, and officials to make sure a site is a welcoming place for all parents, guardians, and larger school community members and partners. Higher Ground also makes certain that all stakeholder members of the community know that the school is not just a place where they are welcomed but that they are a necessary and integral part of the transformation that is happening in their school community. Higher Ground does this through our integrated service model which promotes a 5-prong approach to health and wellness. This approach focuses on collaborative management and facilitation that addresses the emotional, intellectual, and social health of all stakeholders. This will result in healthier, safer, and thriving school communities. Through this approach, human development can thrive. Higher Ground also offers specific neighborhood development services by facilitating community service and beautification days, intergenerational projects that focus on seniors, community-wide sporting events, as well as game and movie nights in partnership with other community-based organizations. We also work in partnership with the larger school district, Juvenile Hall, and County and City health and cultural enrichment agencies.
Community School Development
Higher Ground works with the school, families, communities, and school districts to do several things to bring about the transformation to a full service community school: assessment of school and neighborhood current status on the full service community school continuum; conduct a needs assessment and asset mapping of the families, the school, the neighborhood, and community partners; facilitate vision work to help all stakeholders define what they want their full service community school to look and feel like. Higher Ground’s team will assist in restructuring or creating a collective body that can manage the community school’s process for the site; identify programs and resources that can support the site’s plan; hire, supervise and manage staff to implement the design process. We help the school community meet its outcomes and benchmarks towards transformation to a full service community school.
Intergenerational Projects
Sharing The Torch is Higher Grounds intergenerational project that works on bridging the pathways across the generations. In communities of Color intergenerational relationships are integrals part of our culture. To include and maintain relationships with the age ranges is how community was formed and maintained. Our goal is to restore that natural order to our neighborhoods through providing opportunities for different generations to come together to analyze, celebrate, and plan for the future together.