Fostering self-reliant families and healthy, sustainable communities

Spring 2016

In this issue: 


 
This past week, Isles turned 35. For me, it's been a labor of love, allowing us to continually ask - and answer - one basic question, "What are the most powerful, low cost ways to develop self-reliant families and healthy, sustainable communities?" As you can see, we've settled on four key ways to do that: redevelop places and communities, build wealth, restore healthy environments, and educate and train residents. 

While this approach, by design, works with local communities or 'isles', we increasingly influence others as well. By learning from our successes and failures, we help governments and private groups impact their own communities beyond central New Jersey.

For example, we've learned how lead and other environmental hazards make homes the most dangerous places for kids, thousands of whom are permanently damaged annually in New Jersey. We've also learned to remove and seal out lead in homes that poison those kids. Over the past few years, we uniquely renovated over 170 homes for under $7,000/unit, rendering them safe and energy efficient at the same time.

The debacle in Flint, Michigan brought media exposure and attention to our work (and its cost effectiveness). The result is a recent breakthrough in New Jersey: Governor Christie just committed $10 million to get more lead out of NJ homes. Our partners, the Housing & Community Development Network, New Jersey Citizen Action, the Anti-Poverty Network of NJ, and others collaborated to make this happen.

In this case, we tested, learned, taught others, and advocated to earn this progress. But this meant we needed flexible funding, like that provided by the 300 institutions and 1,000 individuals who donated to Isles. That is why you are so important!

For more info, check out our recent newsletter/annual report here.

Join the good work, help us celebrate 35 years of impact, and tell us what you think.

In community,

signatureMJ                                                                                      
Marty Johnson                                                                                     
"The day I called, Isles changed my family's life..." reheet
When Baptista Little called Isles, she knew her home was badly in need of repair, but she couldn't afford to get it done. Prince, who supervises our lead, healthy home, and energy retrofit service, visited the home for an inspection and found a family with two small children under seven and a baby on the way, living in a house filled with dangerous  indoor health  concerns:
  • A badly leaking roof
  • Asbestos wrapped heating pipes 
  • Seven windows with dangerously peeling lead paint
  • A broken water pipe threatening to cause the upstairs bathroom floor and tub to fall into the living room
  • A 1910 vintage coal-fired heater (since converted to oil) that had quit working mid-winter of last year.  
Isles Annual Horse Plow 2016 horseplow
Isles celebrated the return of spring with our annual horse plow on April 5th at the Garden of Three Points. It was a great time with our friends from Howell Living History Farm, Mayor Jackson, and kids from local schools. Check out our photos here!
Isles Garden Support Network
We've kicked off the growing season here at Isles. Check out our full calendar of events : g ardening workshops, seed distributions, socials, and more!
9th Annual Isles' Golf O uting
Registration for Isles' golf outing is live, and we're back TPC Jasna Polana. Join us at one of Princeton's premier golf courses on June 6th. Register at  islesgolf.org .
Living with Lead - An Investigative Report (NBC 10)
L.A. Parker: Trenton students hitch learning experience to Howell Living History Farm plow