Cleveland Leadership Center (CLC) director of engagement Earl Pike can't turn around in downtown Cleveland without seeing a crane or some other piece of construction equipment erecting a new building.

There's certainly good work happening locally, but there's also one critical question that Pike wants answered: With all the development in our region, who is being left behind, and what can we do to ensure that "all boats rise"?

This complex query will be explored through "Making Ends Meet," a series of intensive one-day "civic engagement boot camps" hosted by CLC and Ideastream. The programs, which run from April 22 to May 29, are not "easy" experiences, where participants sit in a classroom and listen to speakers, says Pike.

Instead, the boot camps live up to their name, putting attendees in small groups where they will intimately address key aspects of poverty and economic vulnerability in the region. For example, a planned housing-related boot camp includes a visit to eviction court and a trip to a housing project that supports disabled, homeless individuals.

"There is a hunger out there for an experience that is deeper and tougher than people are used to," Pike says. "We can't just be sitting in a room."

A more profound level of engagement with Cleveland's problems is more likely to create a problem-solving "action group" for further activity, the CLC director maintains. In addition, Ideastream will gather video content from each of the program days to create a documentary on Cleveland's economic vulnerability.

"Cleveland's poverty conversation has taken a back seat," says Pike. "We want to rekindle that conversation."

SOURCE: Earl Pike
WRITER: Douglas J. Guth