External Affairs 2008-2009

The SGA led trash pick-up was a huge success. Sara worked very hard coordinating with the Fan community to gather us together. We worked for 2 hrs and had a pizza party after wards.

The next target is the Carver area. Leah has contacted Ron Brown to see about a joint effort with the community.

Sara has been coordinating with the FDA about the Trash pick-up for the 28th. They will be bringing a lot of people and will also help donate for the pizza party. Leah and Sara will be meeting with their liason on the 25th to finalize the details


Leah will be addressing the Carver lighting issue at the Safety Committee meeting on Monday the 23rd.

Leah and Sara will be purchasing supplies for the trash pick-up.

Sara has been working hard to coordinate the trash pick-up for the 28th of Feb. She has gotten emails out, made a facebook group, and contacted the FDA (who can bring 40-50 ppl).

Leah has been emailing with people in the Carver area about the lighting. The city still needs more information about the dark sites.

Sara and Leah will be looking into doing a food drive next month.

The “Paint the town Green” initiative kicked off on Saturday afternoon, 1/31 with about 30 VCU students volunteering to clean up trash in the neighborhood of Oregon Hill. The initiative was blogged about on a local Oregon Hill website: which alerted the media and led Channel 8 News to interview Leah during the clean-up! Leah explained to the reporter that we plan to conduct monthly clean-ups in different neighborhoods to ease town/gown relations and to show VCU’s support for our community. The segment is set to air Saturday evening at 6:00 and 11:00pm. The students mobilized in different areas of Oregon Hill, managing to hit every street and even recycling all appropriate materials.
The next clean up is being tentatively scheduled for the last Saturday in February.
Leah and Sara are also planning to conduct a food drive in partnership with the Virginia Food Bank sometime in February – details to follow shortly.
Leah and Sara are meeting to brainstorm ideas to celebrate and recognize Black History Month and Women’s History month (February and March).

Leah has recruited a new Deputy. Her name is Sara Cox, she is a grad student int he MPA program.

Leah has spoken with Melissa Phillips about organizing a trash pick-up for Jan 31st. They will be gettign together soon finalize the details

Leah has been in contact with the Carver neighborhood. They are still working on getting lights from the city. SGA has offered any support of help it can provide.

Leah will follow up with the FDA this next week.

Leah attended a community meeting with reps from Oregon Hill. They have a lot of concerns surrounding the parties that happen frequently in the neighborhood. There is a risk that the zoning laws will be enforced and this could evict some of our students. We are going to canvas the neighborhood and hopeful reach our students before they are at risk for this consequence.

In the mean time Leah meet with Kristian at The Well. They are interested in helping with our efforts and will provide door hangers, and other media for our canvas.

Janel from the Student Life committee has been in communication with Leah about street lights for Carver. She was able to get specific streets documented and Leah passed that on to Carver. Ethan attended the Safety committee about this issue. Leah will follow up w/ Ethan before break.

Winter has connected with Eddie about the scholarships and will continue to work with the group.

Leah and the Student Life Committee is working with the Carver assoc. on obtaining street lights for the dark part of the neighborhood. This issue will be addressed in the Safety Committee Monday (Ethan will attend) and in a meeting with Chief Fuller on Wednesday.

Leah meet with Kristian at The Well Thursday. She would love to pair up with SGA and work on student outreach and education on drugs and alcohol.

Leah has been in contact with the FDA. There are several projects they would like to work with the SGA on. Litter, Safety, Parking, Community relationships, and Party Patrol.

Leah and Winter have had a super busy week this week; We apologize for the late post.

Leah and Ethan met with Dr. Rodriguez Tuesday about the VCU parking situation. Discussion and plans on the parking situation are still in the making.
In reference to Community Outreach, Ethan and Stephanie Lynch attending the Fan District meeting Monday night. The Fan District Association expressed there appreciation for VCU students attending the meeting and are eager to have VCU students on board.

Winter has been in contact with Melissa, Eddie, and Jibran in reference to the Scholarship Committee and funding the scholarship. Winter was unable to meet with Melissa, Eddie, and Supreet Wednesday. However, we all plan to meet Sunday after the Cabinet meeting.

Van Pool/Walk to the Poll was a success. It was advertised Monday night on Fox 8, and NBC 12 during the six o'clock news hour, as well as broadcasted under the local radio stations as the "Poll Patrol". Thanks to all involved we were able to make this election a historical, momentous occasion!

Leah met with the Carver Association this week in reference to posting street lights in dark areas for safety. There will be mutual collaboration in working together among Carver Association, VCU Police, Richmond Police Department, as well ass Richmond Public Work in "getting the ball rolling" on posting the street lights. A three month goal of finding names of people who are interested in spear-heading this project has been established.

Winter attended the final "Poll Patrol" meeting held on Friday October 31, 2008 in the Commons. Radio One has collaborated with Evandra Thompson on this momentous event. Van pools have been established in Petersburg, Chesterfield, Northside, Southside, Westend, Henrico and with the help of Evandra's project Church Hill has now been included. Winter has forwarded the information on the Van Pool as well as the Students Walk-To-The-Poll to Kanwar to post on the SGA Website. This information has now been posted on the SGA Website!
Winter has not been contacted by or has had contact with Jibran, Supreet, or Melissa in reference to the scholarship packet.

Leah and Winter have received the numbers for rides to the polls from the Virginia Organizing Project. This information has been passed to Jibran and Jonathan Ward in hopes that an email will be sent out to the student body by Monday morning.

The map of local polling places has been posted to the SGA web site and passed along to Justin Green for additional advertising. The map was provided by Bill Pantele's campaign.

Leah, Winter, John Ward and Joe, met w/ the Virginia Organizing Project on the 16th. Kathy Woodson provided us w/ Voter's Rights Pamphlets and absentee ballots. They are in the SGA office for distribution.

Leah attended the Community Advisory Board meeting on the 17th. She made several neighborhood contacts as they are excited to have student participation.

Winter worked w/ FDA Jim Vigeant and was able to get the Fanware and tenant rights pamphlets to the Office of Off Campus Housing. They will distribute them year round.

Ethan Labowitz and Leah have a meeting Thurs the 30th w/ a representative from Carver about obtaining street lights for the dark areas on the neighborhood.

The Community Outreach Committee has been officially formed and is now in the recruiting process.

Community Outreach Committee:

Leah met with the VCU Carver Liaison, Ron Brown on Tuesday. He is eager to join forces with the Community Outreach Community.
Leah also spoke with Jim Vigeant from the Fan District Association. FDA has agreed to give us "Fanware" pamphlets and more information about Rental Rights to distribute to students. Winter plans to meet with Martha Harper from the Office of Off-Campus Housing on Monday to have those pamphlets copied and out for distribution.

Operation Pick-Up:

On Friday Winter attended the weekly meeting for Operation Pick-Up. Along with the Van Pools a Walk-To-The-Polls for students on campus has been organized for students to walk to the Landmark Theater to vote. Evandra plans to keep everyone updated on the progress of Operation Pick-Up via email.

Community Outreach Committee:

Jibran will form a "ad hoc" COC in Joint this Friday.
Leah and Ethan ( Co-Chair) will work on recruiting students for the committee.
Leah spoke with Ron Brown, the VCU Carver Liaison and will meet with him tomorrow, Tuesday the 7th. He stated that he has been working on the same type of agenda and would like to join forces.

I will update this post later this week

Winter has been in contact with the Office of Off Campus Housing. They have agreed to display the FDA pamphlets in their office year round.

Winter attended a meeting w/ Evandra about organizing rides for Nov 4th.

Leah followed up w/ the Va Organizing Project about election day. Waiting for a reply.

Leah and Winter are both trying to find all of the neighborhood meetings' dates and times...in progress

Leah has been working with Senator Ethan Labowitz about forming a special committee ( Community Outreach Committee). This committee would work w/ the neighborhood groups surrounding VCU and encourage student participation. Work in progress

Leah email FDA liaison Jim Vigeant and is waiting for a reply

Winter got in contact with the Office of Off Campus Housing on Thursday to see if FDA pamphlets could be made available year round. She followed up with the CT about election day information on Thurs.

Leah will be meeting with Ethan from Student Life to talk about a Community Outreach Committee that will recruit students to attend the neighborhood organizations.

Leah has been in contact with Evandra Thompson about organizing rides to the polls. They will be meeting soon.



Leah Fremouw
Director of External Affairs

Assignments: for the week of 9/15/08

1.) Local Community Organizations and Meeting Times
2.) Fan District- Parking Speak out
3.) Agenda Ideas


1.) Community Organizations and Meeting Times:

- Winter and Leah have located a list of the community organizations central to the VCU area and in the campus locality. The Fan District Association has a website (http://www.fandistrict.org/), and from there stems organizations that cater to the surrounding communities of Midtown (ex: West Grace Street Association and West Avenue Improvement Association).
- There will be a hard copy of the list for Morgan and the rest of the SGA Executive Board for Sunday's meeting.

2.) Fan District- Parking Speak out:

- Leah and Winter met with Ethan (Chair, Student Life Committee) on Sunday to discuss the parking speak out. Ethan has been in contact with Miriam from the VCU Department of Parking and Transportation.
- Leah and Winter plan to attend the parking advisory meeting on October 14, 2008 from 1-2pm in the Student Commons.

3.) Agenda Ideas:

- Leah and Winter are currently discussing possible agenda ideas for External Affairs. Leah and Winter will update agenda ideas as appropriate.

1.) Precinct Information

Winter has located a list of Richmond precincts, and is currently editing the list for the most local precincts to VCU.

2.) Commonwealth Times

Winter has contacted the Commonwealth Times, and is currently waiting to hear back from them.