More Rounding Up

News and comments on Geoffrey Canada, Whatever It Takes, and the Harlem Children’s Zone from David Brooks, the Motley Fool and the student newspaper of the University of Pittsburgh.

Operation Better Block

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, a story about a community organization seeking to replicate the Harlem Children’s Zone model in the Homewood neighborhood:

Khalif Ali has knocked on doors all over Homewood for the past two months. He is standing on a porch on Inwood Street, waiting for someone behind the door to yell “Who is it?”

On a porch across the street, Ryan O’Donnell is answering that question from behind another door. His voice rings out: “I’m from Operation Better Block. We’re doing a community survey.”

Working for Operation Better Block, these two men have conducted the door-knocking part of a vehicle Homewood advocates are steering toward the goal of creating what educator Geoffrey Canada created in Harlem with the Harlem Children’s Zone.