Crowdsourced Conversations 2023’s first forum topic is Our Public Schools.

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RSVP to our April 26th event here!

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How Crowdsourced Conversations flows:

Step One: The Survey!

• Students, alumni, parents, teachers, staff, and any other Heights residents/stakeholders are encouraged to fill out our survey.
• This survey was live March 1-March 31, 2023.

Step Two:  The Data!

• Once the survey closes, we will generate a report to share the results.  This report will be housed on the FutureHeights website and will be shared with community partners, elected officials, and more.
• We will also use the survey results to generate small group discussion questions for our Crowdsourced Conversations event on the topic.

Step Three: The Conversation!

• Students, alumni, parents, teachers, staff, and any other Heights residents/stakeholders are encouraged to participate in our Crowdsourced Conversations forum.
• While there will be brief opening remarks by guest speakers, this forum series emphasizes the small group discussions that are action-oriented and strengths-based.
• This event will take place on Wednesday, April 26 from 7pm-8:30pm in the cafeteria at Heights High School.
  • This event is free to attend and will be in-person only.
  • Each attendee should register separately.
  • RSVP here.

Step Four: The Followup! 

• After our forum night, all event participants will have the opportunity to stay connected to the other members of their small group discussion and will receive electronic copies of the survey report and any other resources utilized during the event.
• All event participants will also be able to help us co-create a Resource Page on the topic of Our Public Schools that will live on the FutureHeights website.

This forum series will be an opportunity to connect with other Heights residents about topics that impact us in a variety of overlapping ways. We hope you can join us for all four conversations! Any questions, connect with Sarah – swolf@futureheights.org.

THANK YOU!

This forum series is being planned in partnership with FutureHeights Community & Civic Engagement Committee, Reaching Heights, CH-UH Libraries, Home Repair Resource Center, City of Cleveland Heights Racial Justice Task Force, Racial Inequity Repair Committee of Forest Hill Church, Cleveland Heights Green Team, representatives of Cleveland Heights City Council, and more.  Thank you for the joy, wisdom, and enthusiasm you bring to the table!

MORE FORUM DETAILS HERE.

Friday, February 3, 2023

Dear FutureHeights Community,

After an extensive search process, we are pleased to announce the FutureHeights Board has named Kristine Pagsuyoin the new Executive Director of FutureHeights. Kristine’s leadership and housing background, combined with a passion for community engagement and community building, will further advance the mission of FutureHeights. Kristine brings a breadth of experience that prepares her well for leadership of FutureHeights. Her prior experience at the Village of Newburgh Heights reflects her strength as a collaborative leader to create a strong team that was able to solve problems for their constituents and work strategically to strengthen the organization. Kristine is known for engaging residents, businesses, organizations, and public officials in advancing a shared goal of social justice and economic vibrancy for the community.

Assuming the role February 6, 2023, Kristine will manage all day-to-day operations for FutureHeights, leading staff and programming, as well as marketing and fundraising efforts.

Prior to joining FutureHeights, Kristine recently served as the Housing and Building Commissioner for the Village of Newburgh Heights. Kristine is an organizational development, public administration, community engagement, and education professional with diverse expertise in leadership roles within multi-faceted local government, civic and non-profit organizations. She is skilled at conducting community outreach, base building, training, education, and leadership development with an excellent record of working alongside civic leaders and elected officials to facilitate public initiatives. Kristine obtained her Master of Education from DePaul University in Chicago and her undergraduate degree in Communication from the University of Akron.

Kristine has lived in Lakewood for over 20 years with her husband and two children. She is passionate about public service, especially as it relates to access to affordable housing and preservation, and community development and engagement, as she believes local organizations can have the greatest impact on the day-to-day lives of people and can be utilized effectively to improve a community and quality of life. Kristine is a lover of books, flea markets, the arts, hiking, travel, and of course, her 4-year old dog, Finn.

Sincerely,

Julie Sabroff

Board Chair, FutureHeights

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Contact Kristine at kpagsuyoin@futureheights.org.

Did you know that YOU could write for the award-winning Heights Observer?

The monthly Heights Observer hyper-local community newspaper is the embodiment of our mission of civic engagement. Begun in 2008, the paper tells the community’s stories from the ground up: through the eyes of volunteer citizen reporters.

Submission Policies

The Heights Observer welcomes all who want to participate in submitting community news and information. We ask that all Members (those who submit stories and photos) abide by the following terms and conditions.

Submit Your Own Work

Please submit original stories/photos. When you do use others’ sources of information please attribute that information by including a link, the source, the author, etc.  If you need help with this contact us at info@futureheights.org or call the FutureHeights office at 216.320.1423.

Keep it Local

The Heights Observer is a hyper-local publication serving Cleveland Heights and University Heights. All contributions should have a meaningful local connection to these communities – about things happening within their boundaries, or people who live and/or work within their boundaries. As rule of thumb, articles that belong in the Heights Observer may have trouble finding a home in any other publication; and articles that find a home in publications outside these communities typically aren’t a good fit in the Heights Observer.

Limit the Length of Submissions

• 120 words for the announcement of an upcoming event or a letter  to the editor
• 300-600 words for a feature story
• 400 words for a news story
• 400 words for opinions/commentary (including election issues)

Being succinct is a courtesy to readers and is the best way to minimize the changes made during the editing process.

Disclose Your Affiliation

If you have a personal or business relationship with the subject of an article you’re writing about please let your readers know. Add a small bio to the end of your contributions so we can let your readers know who you are.

Be Civil

The use of full first and last names for all submissions will, we hope, preclude us from having to police uncivil behavior. You own your posts and words. Please treat your fellow community members with respect and civility. Refrain from posting abusive, obscene, vulgar, slanderous, hateful, threatening, sexually-orientated or any other material that may violate any laws or conduct constituting on-site or offline harassment of other users of the Heights Observer.  We do, however, encourage robust discussion!

Know You’ll Be Edited

All submissions to be published go to an editor who will review your story for capitalization, spelling, punctuation, style, length and clarity. Only on rare occasion will we edit for content or substance, except for where dictated by these terms and conditions. If we have concerns, we may try to contact you for further information.

To learn more about submission guidelines click here. To send in your work, visit the Heights Observer Member Center here.

Any questions?  Reach out to info@futureheights.org.

ICYMI: Watch the 2022 Neighborhood Mini-Grant Video on our YouTube page!

Returning in 2023: Crowdsourced Conversations – A Forum Series Curated by the People for the People.

Once again, FutureHeights and Friends are bringing you a conversation-based forum series that brings Heights residents together to talk about topics that matter to us all.

We received approximately 50 suggested topics for our CC’23 and after a month-long community-wide vote, we arrived at our Top 4!

2023 SERIES TOPICS & DATES:

#1: Our Public Schools

• the topic survey will run March 1-March 31
• the forum will take place on April 26 from 7pm-8:30pm in the cafeteria at Heights High School

#2: Traveling Around Town

• the topic survey will run May 1-May 31
• the forum will take place at the end of June (details TBD)

#3: Rental Properties & Absentee/Negligent Landlords

• the topic survey will run July 1-July 31
• the forum will take place at the end of August (details TBD)

#4: Planning and Development for the Heights

• the topic survey will run September 1-September 30
• the forum will take place at the end of October (details TBD)

HOW CROWDSOURCED CONVERSATIONS FLOWS:

Pre-event: Each forum will have a pre-survey that will be widely circulated through the Heights for approximately one month.  After the survey closes, we will generate a report and we will also use the survey responses to formulate action-oriented discussion topics for forum night.  Survey reports will be posted on our website in addition to being shared with community partners and event attendees.

Event day: During each forum, participants will enjoy the company of small breakout groups where, with the assistance of facilitators and notetakers, they will engage in dialogue around the evening’s topic.  Discussion questions will be geared towards ways that participants can find something actionable they can do in regards to this topic they care so much about.  After the small group discussion, we will reconvene as a group-at-large to share what ideas were generated.

Post-event: We recognize how huge the Crowdsourced Conversations topics are and would never presume we’d cover everything in one evening.  So, with that in mind, we send each group their notes and any other handouts/resources that were presented during the forum — and we also invite the groups to stay in touch as well!  We encourage participants to stay connected post-forum and hope they will return to their group for the next in the conversation series to keep the conversation flowing, build community connections, and continue to brainstorm actionable ideas.  Additionally, each forum topic will have a resource page on our website that includes group-generated ideas, survey results, small group questions, and more!  These resource pages will be co-created by all of our community partners, event participants, and others with expertise on the topic.

Program goal: We began this series in 2022 in response to feedback that so many community events are “all talk and no action or no follow through.”  With Crowdsourced Conversations, we amplify participant voices and connect residents with one another to have action-oriented discussions.  Sometimes a participant’s follow-up actions may be seemingly small (for instance, at one of our 2022 forums, a resident learned about and then downloaded the Access Cleveland Heights app — a game-changer for that individual!) or seemingly large (one volunteer-based group used both the survey findings and what came up in in the small group discussions as a means to create their programming for the rest of the year).  While it’s true that some of the issues we want to see action on might be the responsibility of a larger entity, our hope is that participants can find something actionable that they feel empowered to do.  After all,  “everyday residents” hold immense potential to generate change in their community.  

• View our resource pages here.
• Subscribe to the Heights Observer Weekly e-news so you get all updates about Crowdsourced Conversations, including when surveys are in-progress as well as updates about the forums themselves.

This forum series will be an opportunity to connect with other Heights residents about topics that impact us in a variety of overlapping ways. We hope you can join us for all four conversations! Any questions, connect with Sarah – swolf@futureheights.org.

THANK YOU!

This forum series is being planned in partnership with FutureHeights Community & Civic Engagement Committee, Reaching Heights, CH-UH Libraries, Home Repair Resource Center, City of Cleveland Heights Racial Justice Task Force, Racial Inequity Repair Committee of Forest Hill Church, Cleveland Heights Green Team, representatives of Cleveland Heights City Council, and more.  Thank you for the joy, wisdom, and enthusiasm you bring to the table!

MORE FORUM DETAILS HERE.

We can’t believe it’s almost time for the 2022 finale of our Crowdsourced Conversations forum series!  For our fourth event, we are excited to welcome our Heights friends and neighbors to a discussion about Civic Engagement happening Wednesday, October 26th from 7pm-8:30pm at in the Fellowship Hall at Disciples Christian Church (3663 Mayfield Road). We will have opening remarks from Councilman Tony Cuda and Jen Holland (Reaching Heights, CH-UH PTA, Building Heights), but the majority of our time together will be spent in small group discussions.

Just as always in this series, we will be relying on the crowdsourced responses from our housing survey to craft small group discussion questions.  

Crowdsourced Conversations is Not Your Average Forum Series. Over the course of these four discussion-based events, our goal is to provide opportunities for community members to connect with each other and co-create actionable steps to make the changes you wish to see!

All are welcome!  It is free to attend.  Pre-registration is strongly preferred.

REGISTER HERE.

HOW THIS SERIES FLOWS

Each forum will have a pre-survey for you to fill out. We will use your answers to help formulate discussion topics for forum night. During each forum, participants will enjoy the company of small breakout groups where, with the assistance of facilitators, they will dive into the questions generated by survey respondents. After small group discussion, we will reconvene as a group-at-large to share what we talked about. And even after we say our goodbyes, we will keep in touch and keep the conversation flowing, build community connections, and continue to brainstorm actionable ideas.

2022 SERIES TOPICS & DATES:

#1: Sustainability – Wednesday, April 27th from 7pm-8:30pm at Coventry PEACE

#2: Housing & Neighborhood Preservation – Tuesday, June 28th from 7pm-8:30pm at Forest Hill Church

#3: Community Safety – Wednesday, August 31st from 7pm-8:30pm at Denison Park’s picnic pavilion

#4: Civic Engagement – Wednesday, October 26th from 7pm-8:30pm at Disciples Christian Church

This forum series will be an opportunity to connect with other Heights residents about topics that impact us in a variety of overlapping ways. We hope you can join us for all four conversations! Stay tuned for more details soon. Any questions, connect with Sarah – swolf@futureheights.org.

More info here.

THANK YOU!

This forum series is being planned in partnership with FutureHeights Community & Civic Engagement Committee, Cleveland Heights Green Team, Home Repair Resource Center, City of Cleveland Heights Racial Justice Task Force, Racial Inequity Repair Committee of Forest Hill Church, representatives of Cleveland Heights City Council, and more. Thank you for the joy, wisdom, and enthusiasm you bring to the table!

FutureHeights is proud to partner with the Cleveland Heights Green Team on their Fall 2022 Eco Fair.  CHGT on the event, in their own words:

The purpose of the Heights Eco Fair is to raise awareness about issues and solutions, find opportunities to volunteer and contribute to ongoing efforts, and to spark ideas for new collaborations.” The lineup of exhibitors and partners is extensive and organized in four categories: Sustainable Living, Healthy Living, Eco Kids, and Swap Zone.

Please support this community effort by helping us promote the event through your social media, with neighbors, family, and friends. There are also a significant number of opportunities to volunteer since the fair will be double the size from last year, with more exhibitors, activities, and partnerships.

Join the fun on Saturday, October 8 from 12pm-4pm at the Coventry PEACE Park!

Volunteers Needed!  Click here if you’re interested in helping out.

Volunteer options:

11.00 am-12.00 pm: Set up

12.00 pm-2.00 pm: Welcome Table; CHGT Table; CHGT Recycling Challenge – Art Exhibit

12.00 pm-4.00 pm: Master of Ceremony/DJ; Guest Services (ensure event is running smoothly)

4.00 pm-4.30 pm: Clean up

Visit chgreenteam.org for more info.

FutureHeights is excited to welcome Emily Saxon for her 2022-2023 academic year as our community-practice intern.  Meet her in her own words:

Hello! My name is Emily, and I’m excited to be Future Height’s new intern. I am a Master of Social Work student at CWRU, and my interests lie at the intersections of social and economic development, community empowerment, and antiracism. I’m a native of St. Louis, Missouri, where I lived until I went off to Michigan State University (MSU) for my bachelor’s degree in psychology. I then worked for a year at MSU’s Pediatric Public Health Initiative, which provides vital health and developmental resources and services to children and families affected by the Flint, Michigan water crisis. During my time as a student at MSU, I gained experience from several community-building endeavors. For two years, I worked with fellow students and staff to create a volunteering initiative, which pairs MSU students and local senior citizens together for social interaction and the fostering of intergenerational relationships. I also conducted research on youth violence prevention, on the wellbeing and health of teens of color in public high schools, and on sexual misconduct prevention at universities. I am new to Cleveland, so I am enjoying exploring the Metroparks, downtown, new restaurants and coffee shops, and meeting residents new and old. I am especially looking forward to getting to know the Cleveland Heights and University Heights communities!

For many years now, Jessica Schantz has served as the E-News Manager for the Heights Observer and we are pleased to announce her expanded role as the FutureHeights Office Manager.  In addition to her continued work on the Observer e-news, she will be working on Membership and Donations and just may be the pleasant voice you hear answering our office phone.  We are so thrilled Jessica is taking on this expanded role and are looking forward to all the magic her creative spirit will bring to the FutureHeights family.