Dear Friends,

More and more, we talk – and worry – about social inequality, climate change, authoritarian rule – and can we make meaningful change?

Yes, in many ways, the bad ‘system is rigged.’ But can we rig a good system, too?  Yes, but it requires more than talk and worry – it requires action.

For over 38(!) years, we took our youthful energy, ideas and willingness to learn and applied them to Isles’ work.  We found better ways to strengthen challenged communities and restore the environment at the local, “isles” level.  The key is to honor family capacity for self-reliance, provide tools that they can use, create healthy places and then, to a large extent, get out of the way. 

Our staff, board, and volunteers honor the wisdom of communities, gaining new ideas. We   then share smart research and evidence-based data from across the country.  Our broad base of supporters makes innovation possible in this messy collision. The results are highlighted in this Annual Report. 

Can we teach others to do this?  Of course. Increasingly, we share our lessons and train others.  This year, Isles affected statewide policy around hazardous home lead threats, violence prevention and electric vehicle access for urban communities. I expanded my teaching of future leaders at the Keller Center at Princeton University, and we developed webinars, case studies for the classroom, op-eds, and we are compiling Isles’ history. All this occurred as we expanded Isles work on the ground. 

This doing and thinking are possible because of organized people and organized money. That includes our volunteer board, adeptly led by Michele Minter over the past 3 years. In January, Linda Revelle stepped into the role of Chair of Isles board of trustees. 

These are exciting, dynamic times at Isles. Beyond talk and worry, we act. But we need your help. Thanks for being there! Check out www.isles.org and let us know what you think.

In community,

Marty

Happy holidays!

Long ago, someone said, “Do something with your life that’s beautiful and will last.” That sentiment stuck with me, and I suspect you can relate to it too.

Is there anything more beautiful and lasting than helping others? Especially when “helping” means empowering families and communities – even tough ones – to be better, healthier, and more stable? And it goes on. Each person, each family we help offers a better chance for their children. It’s an enduring legacy and yes, research shows that helping others is both healthy and contagious.

 You can affect a family’s stability, their children’s health and IQ, their nutrition, their wealth, the health of their homes, and even climate change.

How? By supporting the work we do, and have done, for 37 years. As you can see from the attached highlights, Isles is a rare organization that finds innovative ways to strengthen families and make environments healthier.

Isles provides tools and training to foster self-reliance. Fundamentally entrepreneurial, we teach students and their parents how to grow their own healthy food in over 60 community gardens, how to convert toxic homes to healthy ones for children, and how to manage finances in ways that build wealth.

We also create healthy, energy efficient, sustainable places to live, work and play. Isles rebuilds homes, solar-powered former factories, parks, greenways, and more.  We then share that knowledge with others.

Isles saves families and taxpayers lots of money, reducing costs for energy, food, health care, education, housing, and much more.

These stories show how your support impacts families, kids, and communities.

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Junior year, Julio left high school. In his words, “I didn’t know what to do, and I was embarrassed at being at a seventh-grade level, so I stopped going…”

In six short months, after entering the “tough-love” culture of Isles Youth Institute (IYI), he completed the rigorous Mental Toughness orientation, studied hard, attained certifications in carpentry and fork-lift operation, and interned at NASCAR’s Urban Youth Racing School. Later, he earned a diploma and even won the 2018 IYI Elizabeth Gray Erickson award for optimism and courage.

“It was a feeling I can’t really explain. It’s like your life is declining and you’re doing so bad, but then you finally feel like you succeeded in something. For your life to hit a 180 – man, it’s a great feeling, I loved it.” Julio thrived at IYI, and now works there helping other students travel the same path.

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The Perez family fell behind in their mortgage after the birth of their twin boys. Isles’ Housing Counselor Elena helped them negotiate with the bank to successfully modify their mortgage. 

But the story doesn’t end there. Elena learned that one of the twins had elevated blood lead levels, so she connected them to Isles’ lead and healthy homes workers. They discovered the source of the lead: deteriorating windows. Within a few weeks, Isles repaired the house, and the child’s lead levels have come down.

As a result, several of Mr. Perez’s co-workers have come to us to buy a first home, improve their credit, get a mortgage, or test and clean lead in their home.

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You can see the difference your investment makes. This entrepreneurial work only happens when you and others get involved. 

Please mail your annual gift today or make a secure gift at isles.org/donate.

We need your help more than ever. Thank you for caring, and acting.

With gratitude and in community,

 Marty

 

Dear Friend,

The Dalai Lama once said, “The roots of all goodness lie in the soil of appreciation for goodness.”

That is both metaphor and real for us at Isles. Through community and school gardens, over 1,000 culturally diverse families and students grow tens of thousands of pounds of fresh food – and deep roots – in the soil of Trenton and beyond.

This time of year, we give thanks to you for helping us build and turn that “soil of appreciation.” Our work would not be possible without you.

In the coming days, you’ll receive a request for support from Isles, describing the impacts you made possible in 2018. We’ll also launch our online #GivingTuesday campaign just after Thanksgiving.

I hope you will help us develop meaningful pathways to family self-reliance and community health.

And I trust you agree – we can use more goodness in the country and world! We can cultivate it together.

From all of us here at Isles, have a very Happy Thanksgiving.

Marty Johnson

Why do we pay so much attention to child lead poisoning? For starters, thousands (up to half) the kids in Trenton and older suburbs can be affected by it. Research is increasingly clear – even at low levels, lead impacts IQ, behavior, and other health factors. With all the talk of and investment in education reform, nothing would be more cost effective at increasing child IQ in a region than removing lead from the environment, especially from homes, where kids spend 70% of their time.

As importantly, despite lots of complex research and policy position papers and even financial investment, a basic problem prevailed. Before Isles’ efforts, no one had characterized the source of the lead in Trenton. We tested thousands of homes, learned that 80% of the lead comes from their dust (not their water, like Flint). But we didn’t stop there. We developed low cost ways to make homes both energy efficient and healthy. We also trained local contractors to do the same, while working to gain the trust of residents and property owners, who for good reason, often don’t like folks inspecting their homes.

To a large extent, because of Isles’ experience, New Jersey’s Lead Pilot funding program was re-structured and re-funded at $10M annually. We’re successfully raising other funds to do targeted renovation of homes, making them safe, efficient, and comfortable, while creating quality jobs in the process. The long-term savings to families and taxpayers are immense – $17 – $54 saved for every $1 invested in preventing lead poisoning. With this experience and policy changes we are pursuing, we can set our sights on making Trenton homes lead safe by 2027.

Like other work that we develop at Isles, we are teaching community groups and policymakers our lessons. We are very pleased that the Federal Reserve of San Francisco recently published our paper, When Homes Are the Most Dangerous Place: How a Community Development Organization Learned to Get the Lead Out. It offers a story of perseverance, success and educational failures over 15 years. Why does the Federal Reserve care about this? Because their member banks hold over a trillion dollars in assets that are potentially poisoning children. It’s time to figure this out.

All of this occurred because social entrepreneurs decided to keep finding better ways to foster self-reliance and community health. It took over 15 years and willingness to work on the ground and learn from researchers.

It also took flexible sources of funds to pay for this learning – and action. Unrestricted funding from donors like you made it possible. Thank you.