7 minute read
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE CREATIVE EXCHANGE: SACRAMENTO MUSIC SUMMIT 2022
By Chief Editor, Pleshette Robertson
Advertisement
Individuals and families came together for The Creative Exchange: Sacramento Music Summit on Saturday, June 4th with an Education Forum at McGeorge Law School and activities at McClatchy Park from 8:30 am to 6 pm. The purpose of the event was to place a spotlight on artists, entertainers, singers, dancers, and athletes surviving the pandemic. The Education Forum at McGeorge School of Law included welcome and opening remarks by Jay King, CEO/President of the California Black Chamber of Commerce with a keynote address by Author & KBLA Talk Radio’s Tavis Smiley who spoke on COVID-19 and its effects in marginalized communities. Several panel sessions with guest speakers discussed and presented on a variety of topics that included: • Why is it important to be vaccinated? • Surviving as an Artist during COVID-19 • Experiencing Pluses & Minuses of New Entertainment
Business during COVID-19 • Importance of Team Building amidst a Pandemic • How to Turn Songwriting into a Business during a pandemic • So you want to make a film, huh, during a pandemic • How to effectively use Social Media/Website during a pandemic • Cryptocurrency, is it too late to get in during the pandemic? • Social Media Influencers and the Effects of COVID-19 • Investing in Stocks, why it’s important to start especially during a pandemic • Music Showcase – Before, During & After the
Pandemic Presentations on stage at McClatchy Park included speakers and performers with entertainment that included: MC/Host – KariJay, You Got Served dance routine by Kast Academy of Arts and speakers: Kevin Bracy (Author, Motivational Entertainer, Executive Producer & Speaking Coach), Fred Stevenson (Clinical Trials and EMR Recruitment Program Manager at UC Davis Health), and Aron King with the Capitol City Black Nurses Society. The Battle of the Barbershop Hoop Tournament included DeeJay Rip1 providing music with special announcements and teams who played represented these barbershops: World Class Faders in Sacramento; Spotlight Hair Studio in Sacramento; Barberz Dreme in Elk Grove; The Rich Barber Hair Studio in Sacramento. Children and teens participated in the Kids Zone hosted by Sojourner Truth Multicultural Heritage Museum led by Shonna McDaniels where kids had their face painted, made key chains, and was a part of sewing activities. The music showcase at McGeorge Law School included a host of individuals who displayed their original work (of songs written and recorded by themselves) in front of producers in the music industry that included: Jay King, Dwayne Simmons, Derek Allen, Reggie Calloway, Brian Morgan, and William Lee. Critiques from producers informed individuals how important it is to come up with material (beats, lyrics, etc.) that is truly original and different from what has already been done. UC Davis Health was onsite administering testing and COVID-19 Vaccines and boosters for individuals ages 5 and up (COVID-19 vaccine Pfizer 5-11 and Pfizer 12+). n
This was a special event presented in partnership by UC Davis Health Move It Up Coalition, Center for Reducing Health Disparities and the Sacramento Black Media Coalition. Visit www.creativeexchange.me and www.vaxblacksac.com.
THE NEIGHBORHOOD WELLNESS FOUNDATION: ESTABLISHING PROVISIONAL MENTAL HEALTH WITHIN THE COMMUNITY
Helping communities of color strategically disrupt intergenerational trauma
As early as 8:30 in the morning, the coffee is brewing. There is an aroma of beans and ham hocks, dirty rice, bacon, eggs and pancakes with the sounds of Aretha, Marvin, Curtis, or EWF. “The Center” at 3805 Clay Street is reminiscent of home where food is love and our folks begin to gather to soak up the experience. Located on the intersection of Grand Avenue and Clay Street in the heart of Del Paso Heights (DPH), this area was only notorious for gang violence, drug and sex trafficking with fights of pain posted on social media for entertainment. This corner is now being eclipsed by love, awareness, healing and learning. We are rising up at Neighborhood Wellness Foundation (NWF), neighbors lifting neighbors by serving our own DPH Black families disproportionately impacted by trauma and poverty, gang and domestic violence, legacies of addiction and of incarceration. We welcome everyone without criticism or judgement and help remove barriers that have been smothering their greatness. NWF operates with a clear understanding that WE are THEM.
Co-founded in 2015 by Gina Warren, Pharm.D., and Marilyn Woods, NWF started as a grassroots organization with a mission to navigate and disrupt intergenerational trauma and poverty in the community of Del Paso Heights. Built from the inside out, bottom up on a foundation of trust and NWF STARTED connectedness, our interdisciplinary AS A GRASSROOTS team, integrates clinical, academic
ORGANIZATION WITH A and financial expertise with over
MISSION TO NAVIGATE AND 60 years of DPH grassroots DISRUPT INTERGENERATIONAL lived experiences. We have TRAUMA AND POVERTY IN THE an Executive Director, Chief
COMMUNITY OF DEL PASO Finance Officer, and fourteen HEIGHTS. paid staff from Del Paso Heights who are unmatched. Our insight and perspective is multi- generational of lived and work experiences with proficiencies of intergenerational trauma, poverty, drugs, alcohol, homelessness, low educational attainment, gang and domestic violence and incarceration. NWF provides and connects our DPH neighbors to resources that empower self-efficacy with education, awareness and understanding that will disrupt the transfer of intergenerational adversity. Our four impact programs Healing Circles, Higher
Heights, Restore Legacies, Pacers Take Space open pathways through mental health support, educational and economic attainment. NWF is determined to lead a cross-collaborative effort that addresses the root causes of a different kind of violence. The violence of indifference, of silence, of inaction from agencies and institutions that afflict the poor black and brown neighborhoods. Poverty in Del Paso Heights was magnified, exacerbated and almost insurmountable when the crack-cocaine/opioid epidemic and gang violence almost decimated our “Village” neighborhood. This atrocity left devastating patterns of illiteracies, basic incompetencies, unimaginable abuse, neglect with household dysfunction and a social structure that ignores our common humanity. Economic stress looks and feels like multigenerational households with a 1:7 ratio of living spaces to people, scarcities of not just food but of healthy living and learning spaces, mental peace and tranquility. There is an abundance of abuse, abandonment, anxiety, pain and anger. Our treatment modalities become alcohol, weed, cigarettes, opioids, violence including self-mutilation and suicide. The intergenerational transfer of adversity is to our little children who are rocked to sleep at night by an orchestra of screaming, yelling, helicopters and sirens. In the worse circumstances, they fight off rodents and roaches and disassociate in drunken fists or unwanted hands. Children wake up with empty bellies to walk through a neighborhood with a blighted physical landscape of illegal dumping, liquor stores and hopelessness before they arrive at school. Without awareness to buffer, adults expect these wounded children to behave, focus and learn. And we expect the parents who were once these children to somehow now understand how to parent. This toxic stress becomes chronic and sustained by daily immersion. The impact is mental and physical health disparities of extreme anxiety, depression, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease and cancer. Chronic toxic stress also manifests as low academic engagement and performance, high truancy, violence, suspensions, and incarceration. The patterns of disparities are perpetuated
because there is no strategic disruption of the cycle. The work of NWF isn’t rocket science just intentional and strategic hard work that begins with raising expectations and addressing the root causes. When we open our eyes to the fractured reality, we will understand that lifting Del Paso Heights is an effort of basic humanity and in doing so, lifts the entire Sacramento Region. n
Neighborhood Wellness Foundation 3805 Clay Street | Sacramento, CA 95838 EIN: 47-4874487| 916-335-8818| gwarren@neighborhoodwellness.org http://neighborhoodwellness.org
