Description: Eleven years ago, community leaders in Aurora, Ill., launched Aurora Community Study Circles to help improve race relations in their increasingly diverse city. More than 4,000 adults took part in ACSC's "Circles of Understanding," a study circle program addressing issues such as racism, student achievement and community-police relations. ACSC restructured in 2000 to include two distinct projects: Circles of Understanding (for adult participants) and Many Young Voices (for youth). MYV involved youth through schools and included over 1,500 young participants. ACSC also used study circles to support elementary schools with its "Helping Every Student Succeed" program. To mark the organization's 10th anniversary, about 400 people took part in a citywide Day of Dialogue. The event was given a proclamation by the mayor. Despite making great strides and having support from many in the community, ACSC announced that it would be closing its doors in the summer of 2007 due to funding issues. However, many in Aurora are optimistic that the seeds ACSC has planted will continue to grow.

Dates active: 1996-2007

Web-site for project: http://www.auroracommunitystudycircles.org/

Issue(s): Human rights or race relations; Youth issues and youth development

Sub-issue(s): racism, youth, student achievement/parent involvement, community-police relations

Level(s): City

Initiators: Originally initiated at the YWCA, Aurora Community Study Circles became a 501c(3) organization in 1998 with strong support from the City of Aurora.

Particular goals: "We are striving to become a community whose residents can more easily work and play together. The more Circles of Understanding we have, the greater the opportunity we have of building a diverse community-wide network that can develop solutions to racial and ethnic tensions and vital social issues." Many Young Voices is designed to foster understanding among teens by creating and sustaining an ongoing teen dialogue program on racial and ethnic issues. Specific goals include:

• Help participants know each other as human beings who have their own set of experiences that need to be valued and honored.
• Help young people participate in active citizenship.
• Help young people have healthy affiliations so they are less likely to join gangs.
• Help young people understand more about each others differences and build alliances with each other across these differences.
• Help young people have greater problem solving skills.
• Help participants learn the difference between dialogue and debate

Number of participants/year: 6,000

Population of community: 157,000

Time spent by participants: Varied depending on the program they were involved. Day of Dialogue was a single day series of events, Circles of Understanding

Staffing/funding: Funding sources included the United Way, Lucent Technologies Foundation, Study Circle Fund, City of Aurora, private donors, and the annual fundraising event "Downtown Aurora Taste." From its start, ACSC was led by one full-time, paid executive director. Three paid staff members joined the program in its last few years.

Budget: The program began with an annual budget of $36,000 and ended with a budget of $240,000.

How meetings were structured: The Many Young Voices program was based in schools. There were five sessions, each led by a trained (adult) facilitator, with use of a discussion guide. In high school study circles, some sessions were led or co-led by student facilitators. Circles of Understanding usually had four sessions, each led by a trained impartial facilitator, following a discussion guide.

Sample outcomes:

• Newspaper coverage of events in Aurora's minority neighborhoods has been noticeably fairer since reporters took part in study circles on racism.
• More than 100 teens from high schools across the city celebrate diversity at the Mosaic of Youth Conference each year.
• A Posada celebration at one elementary school brings together more than 300 parents, teachers, students, and neighbors for an evening of food, fun, and fellowship.
• Aurora Taste, an annual tour of ethnic restaurants in downtown Aurora, draws hundreds of residents and raises funds to support the study circles.
• The Multicultural Club at one high school sponsors Mix It Up at Lunch Day, involving more than 2,000 students each year.
• A teen web site fosters better understanding of race and race relations through poetry, stories, and art work.
• During the 2006-07 school year, 1,300 students in four middle schools, two academies, and one high school took part in Many Young Voices. (Each circle meets for five weeks and, at the end of the last session, participants are asked to picture how their school might look in the year 2015.)
• Many would argue that, with over 6,000 participants, community dynamics have changed.

Benefits: "Aurora Community Study Circles is the conscience of the community" __Aurora Mayor Tom Weisner. "Because of the study circles, there has been much greater sensitivity and interest in reporting news from our minority community." __Executive Director Mary Jane Hollis

Challenges:

• Funding
• Developing successors to the leaders of the program was a challenge that was well managed through consistently refreshing the board membership.

Mistake one shouldn't repeat:

• Not starting action and change plans early enough in the process may have limited the measurable outcomes of the program.
• Depending too heavily on a limited source of funding can cause a quick collapse when the funding sources are no longer available.

Full story:

• Fanselow, Julie, "'Taste' Event Spotlights Study Circles," http://www.studycircles.org/en/Article.540.aspx.
• Justina Wang, "Funding shortfall forces shutdown of Study Circles". http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/beaconnews/news/516035,2_1_AU19_STUDY_S1.article
• Staff, "Study Circles planted seeds we can water." http://www.suburbanchicagonews.com/beaconnews/news/opinions/517894,2_4_AU21_EDIT_S1.article

Organizations that helped with this project: http://www.studycircles.org

This case contributed by: Matt Leighninger, 2007