June 30, 2020

Saraid Gonzalez:
Hello. I’m Saraid Gonzalez. Welcome to “Sullivan 180 Presents.. Take Five!” Our guest today is Denise Frangipane from Sullivan Renaissance. Welcome Denise. Thank you for joining us today.

Denise Frangipane:
Hi Saraid, thank you for inviting me!

Saraid Gonzalez:
Denise, for those of us who don’t know you, could you introduce yourself, your job title and give a brief introduction of your organization?

Denise Frangipane:
Sure. I’m Denise Frangipane, executive director at Sullivan Renaissance. Sullivan Renaissance is a community development and beautification initiative, funded and supported by the Gerry Foundation. We work with communities on a very grassroots level on a variety of projects. Many of them grant -funded through Sullivan Renaissance, but also in engaging volunteers, youth, partnering with municipalities and other community organizations for the purpose of building beautiful, active communities in Sullivan County. And this is our 20th year doing this work in the County!

Saraid Gonzalez:
How have the daily operation of your organization changed? And what accommodations have you made in order to continue operating?

Denise Frangipane:
Like many organizations, the first thing that changed almost immediately, was everyone is working remotely. And for us that’s an interesting transition because we do so much together as a team. There’s a lot of interaction between the staff day to day. So it was a big adjustment for us to first, get all the technology in place so that we could still interact on a regular basis. Zoom, I think is the new trend. And then we had to really step back and think about our program because our program does involve working with volunteers, working together, literally side by side, in many cases, and being in public spaces, that’s where we do our work, our beautification, especially. So aside from working remotely, the team made a very thoughtful recommendation and our chairwoman, Sandra Gerry supported it 100% with the Gerry Foundation: that we should continue with our grant program, despite or in spite of COVID that we should still go through the process and really do some extra outreach, even to encourage people to stay the course, that we will get through this, and that we have something to look forward to together. And so that energized us to think differently about how we do our outreach, and be a little bit, I don’t want to say ”more flexible because we are, we are very flexible as a grant-making organization, but even be more flexible as far as deadlines and timing and really supporting our volunteers through the process.

Saraid Gonzalez
What some of the challenges that you have faced?

Denise Frangipane:
So again, the remoteness has been very challenging. I know that’s a challenge for everyone, being isolated or even self isolating, but certainly when your work involves community development, and working with the community, and then you’re sort of told “everyone stay in your own space”, that’s a big challenge. And then just following the ever changing rules….what can we do? What can’t we do? But luckily, when this all happened, it was March, so we had a little bit of time to really think about how, operationally, how we would get out into the community and work, and how to be appropriately socially distanced and put together some guidelines for that. And we followed most of the guidelines that are out there, you know, six feet apart, wearing a mask, definitely making sure that all of the tools we’re using are sanitized again and again, being respectful of other people, especially when it comes to mask wearing, because you know, working outside. So technically do you don’t need to wear a mask if you’re far apart? We always arrive with our masks on and make sure people are comfortable and we have enough appropriate space to interact.

Saraid Gonzalez:
Do you have any positive experiences that have come out of this that you’d want to share?

Denise Frangipane:
Positive is again, you know, Sullivan Renaissance, over 20 years, we’ve been very responsive to a lot of changes in the community. We try to be responsive to what the community would like to do and how we can help them. So we’re very adaptive. So that is sort of part of who we are. But the fact that the volunteers…when we said “we’re, we’re still going do this program… We’re still encouraging you to apply for your grants”, the response that we got was not tempered in any way, there was still so much enthusiasm among the volunteers to want to do the work. Another positive I’ll say personally for me and some of the other staff, we created a Renaissance Field Team as a way to give extra support to the groups. So some of the staff, myself included, who are normally in meetings or behind the desk these days now have an opportunity to be out working in the field. And yesterday, I was on site visits and it was great to go back and see how far we’ve come and the projects that are still active. So I would just say the volunteer effort is very strong as I think you can see in many cases in the County right now,

Saraid Gonzalez:
What could community members do to help your organization?

Denise Frangipane:
We’re really here to work with you, with the community. So if you are interested in working with Renaissance, if you have a beautification project that you’d like to do, we have a very robust website that explains our grant programs, but we do community initiatives. We do beautification. We are always available to brainstorm a better project, even if it doesn’t seem like it fits neatly. As I said, we’re very adaptive. So, if you want to work with us, we want to work with you, and just reach out. And one of us will connect!

Saraid Gonzalez:
What’s the best way to stay up on news with Sullivan Renaissance?

Denise Frangipane:
Absolutely social media: Facebook, very active Facebook. We do have an E-newsletter that goes out probably every two weeks or so that kind of gives an update on what’s coming up. So if you emailed us at info@sullivanrenaissance.org, we could sign you up for the newsletter.

Saraid Gonzalez:
Thank you, Denise. Thanks. Thanks for joining us. And thank you and your team at Sullivan Renaissance for all of your efforts.

Denise Frangipane:
Thank you for doing this. And it’s just another nice way to keep people connected.