Bringing Drone Soccer to Pittsburgh Students

What is Drone Soccer?
Drone soccer is a thrilling indoor team sport played with radio-controlled quadcopters in protective
exoskeletons designed for collisions. Five-player teams face off in a netted arena where they ram and
block the opposing team to prevent them from scoring. Before pilots can compete, they must first learn
to build, code, fly, and repair high-performance drones, gaining engineering skills towards exciting
careers in aviation.

Drone soccer is the only educational robotics competition that is also an internationally sanctioned team
sport. U.S. Drone Soccer products and training services help schools adopt aerospace career pathways
with classroom enrichment programs as well as after-school teams. U.S. Drone Soccer is headquartered
in the “Olympic City, USA” of Colorado Springs, Colorado, along with more than 60 national and
international sporting agencies. Drone soccer continues to grow in the US and is now officially
recognized as a STEM.org accredited educational experience.

Our Plan
We plan to augment existing STEM programs at Pittsburgh area schools by introducing drone soccer,
which allows for additional programming for students to participate in a team-oriented sport,
potentially engaging youth who have not found traditional robotics or esports programs appealing.
Drone Soccer is an equal opportunity activity for all and can increase enrollment of underrepresented
populations, including minorities, girls, and individuals within the disability population, in aviation and

STEM.
Drone piloting requires the following skills: the ability to think in 3D, strong concentration skills, the
ability to remain calm under pressure, IT skills, math skills, the ability to make quick decisions in
emergencies, give accurate instructions, and accept considerable responsibility. The skills developed in a
program incorporating drone operation are transferable to various settings in the fast-changing future
workforce.

Drone soccer is being used as a fun way to get students involved in a STEM activity while gaining all of
the benefits and skills that come from a team sport and environment. The program includes building,
coding, and flying the drone – all aspects are covered, and when in competition, whether at a club or
league level, the students will need to troubleshoot and repair their drones to get back into the
competition.
The Future

The program will eventually provide a path of learning for students to apply and test for their FAA 107
drone piloting license. This opportunity will open many potential employment options, from
photography and videography to infrastructure inspection services, first responder drone systems, and
many other industries that could benefit from the use of drones. We have a vision to impact and change
the life trajectory of students and families within western Pennsylvania and beyond!

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Ignite Environmental Justice (EJ)

Education and mentoring workshops to help develop and communicate your community project

Do you or your community envision a project that could improve health, climate resilience, and/or economic opportunity? Nonprofits, municipal leaders, and residents in Allegheny or Beaver County are encouraged to get support by attending an Ignite EJ workshop. Participants will be better informed about how Environmental Justice relates to their community project and accessing federal Justice 40 grants, while receiving support to develop and communicate their project plan.

The Environmental Justice designation identifies communities that are considered disadvantaged due to exceeding the burden thresholds established in one or more of the following areas: climate change, energy, health, housing, legacy pollution, transportation, waste & wastewater, and workforce development, and an associated socioeconomic burden.

New Sun Rising and RiverWise invite you to receive support designing and pitching their community project. Participants will be better informed about how Justice 40 and Environmental Justice relates to their community project as well as how to prepare for government funding opportunities. Learn more about our Justice 40 Opportunity Navigator and EJ census tracts in Allegheny and Beaver County here.

SUPPORTED PROJECTS

Over 30 projects received support and three projects who won the pitch competition were given direct admission into the Launch EJ Incubator: Ginger Brooks Takahashi for General Sisters, Mary Alice Gettings for Aliquippa Food Co-op, and Ebony Lunsford Evans for Out of the End Incorporated.

DATES + TIMES

We encourage you and one additional team member to register for the workshop nearest your project location.

Allegheny Valley: Thursday, May 2 from 5 to 9 p.m. at the Millvale Food + Energy Hub, 112 E. Sherman Street, Millvale, PA 15209
Ohio Valley: Wednesday, May 22 from 5 to 9 p.m. at the Whitted Media Content House, 507 Seventh Avenue, Beaver Falls, PA 15010. Deadline to apply is May 20th at 8PM.
Monongahela Valley: Thursday, May 30 from 5 to 9 p.m. at the Clairton Family Center, 734 Miller Ave, Clairton, PA 15025. Deadline to apply is May 28th at 8PM.

***Projects who attend an Ignite EJ workshop will be given preference for the Launch EJ incubator (details to be announced June 2024)

WHAT TO EXPECT

Workshop participants will benefit through:

Education: Get knowledgeable about the concepts of environmental justice, resilience, and Justice 40 funding opportunities
Mentorship: Receive support to develop and communicate your project plan
Advocacy: Practice pitching your project benefits and needs through an optional pitch competition

The categories of investment that fall under Justice 40 include areas like: climate change, clean energy and energy efficiency, clean transit, affordable and sustainable housing, training and workforce development, remediation and reduction of legacy pollution, and the development of critical clean water and wastewater infrastructure. All participants in the pitch event will be connected with SWPA Municipal Project Hub support for developing community-serving projects.

The Justice 40 Opportunity Navigator is a partnership between New Sun Rising and RiverWise.

1-2-3 Play With Me Playgroups

Project Description: To provide free opportunities in the community for families to grow and learn together with their young children.

Our goal is to offer opportunities for families to bring young children together to learn from one another and feel supported by early childhood specialists at no cost to families. Pediatric therapists facilitate learning opportunities, both structured and unstructured, to empower families to learn and play with their children.

1, 2, 3 Play With Me provides families with opportunities to learn how to help their children grow and develop in the community. Therapists are available to answer questions and offer feedback on typical development. Together, therapists and families work to problem solve behavioral challenges, resolve conflict between peers and siblings, and discuss appropriate routines based on their child’s age and developmental level.

1, 2, 3 Play With Me aims to provide a safe space for children and parents to learn together without feeling embarrassed if children are not able to experience success on their first try. We hope that families will then gain confidence to enter into other arenas in their communities, beyond playgroups, with the skills and knowledge gained from their time in 1,2,3 Play With Me. We run several groups around the area.

Our longest running group is for children with developmental delays in the South Hills, and we expanded this year to add 2 additional groups to include typically developing children from populations often excluded from playgroup communities, including refugee and English language learners at our location at South Hills Interfaith Movement (SHIM), and inner-city families at our group located at East Liberty Library in the city of Pittsburgh. Our goal is to reach a more diverse population who might not otherwise have access to free and safe play opportunities for their children. We aim to expand further, to include single dads and caregivers from multi generational homes, if resources allow.

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The Shanga Wellness Collective

Mission Statement

The Shanga Wellness Collective will prepare and train community wellness workers for a positive motherhood entrance experience through continuous workforce development, mentoring, education and support for black families through programs which assist our clients and develop inner strength while building confident birth and motherhood outcomes to meet the community need to have one hub for maternal care.

The Journey

The four co-founders of the Shanga Wellness Collective first came together in March of 2022 through their participation in the Pittsburgh: A Safer Childbirth City project, a year-long initiative to reduce racial disparities in maternal mortality in Pittsburgh. Iyanna Bridges, Keiashia DeShawn, Amber Edmunds, and Syreeta Gordon, all Black leaders in local birth organizations, recognized a profound need for their work beyond the end of the project, and established an ongoing collaboration to strengthen the doula community and provide quality perinatal care for families. It was through many in-person and virtual zoom meetings that the framework for Shanga was formed early in 2023.

Fiscally sponsored by New Sun Rising, the Shanga Wellness Collective is a grassroots movement that addresses the lack of support for small, Black-led birth organizations and responds to the needs of Black doulas, who face burnout and trauma from one of the most physically and mentally challenging jobs. Shanga’s goal is to provide community mentorship, self-care supports, a shared doula pool, and midwifery training cohorts to support Pittsburgh’s Black doula community.

Since its launch, Shanga has produced a standard of practice, “Professional Shanga Wellness Village Scope and Standards of Practice.” It has also developed a doula mentorship and self care practice program to enhance doulas’ skills and foster their well-being, filling a professional development gap in the doula profession.

About the Shanga Wellness Collective

The Shanga Wellness Collective is a team of doulas working to bridge Black maternal healthcare gaps by supporting existing and newly trained Black doulas. By ensuring that our doulas are educated and nurtured, Shanga provides quality care for Black families throughout the Pittsburgh area and strengthens the long-term viability of the Black perinatal workforce.

Pittsburgh Let’s Go Fishing

Our Vision is to train Community mentors who will teach at-risk youth to fish at local lakes and build our community one kid, one fish, and one family at a time. Strengthening family relationships through fishing will impact the issues of today with great future benefits.

Our Mission is to restore Inner-city lakes for fishing so youth in the urban community will progress mentally, socially and physically. Fishing is a great educational tool.

Our Goal is for urban youth in Pennsylvania to have fishing opportunities.

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Ignite Creative Advocacy

A mentoring workshop + pitch competition to plan your advocacy campaign

Do you or your community have a need that could benefit from advocacy? While advocacy is often focused on changing public policy, creative advocacy includes a broader set of strategies. Maybe you need to share information to create awareness about an important issue. Or maybe your cause needs to inspire people to become better connected and engaged. Your advocacy could also be focused on mobilizing resources to take action such as fundraising.

Whatever the reason, community advocates and nonprofit leaders were encouraged to apply for the Ignite Creative Advocacy workshop: a virtual event held on March 30, 2023. Participants will receive support to develop an advocacy campaign plan that uses public forms of engagement and artistic practice to disrupt prevailing narratives and strengthen community movement toward their goals.

The workshop will include information about concepts and strategies from the Creative Advocacy Playbook, mentoring to develop your campaign plan, and an optional pitch competition where participants share their plans with a panel of judges. Three Creative Advocacy campaigns will then be selected to each receive a $5000 grant and technical assistance to support the implementation of their plan. The Creative Advocacy initiative is a partnership between New Sun Rising and RiverWise as part of their efforts to build community capacity and power across Allegheny and Beaver Counties.

The application deadline for this workshop has passed.

WORKSHOP AGENDA

1:00 – 1:30 Introduction + Learning

1:30 – 2:30 Campaign Building Breakouts with Mentors

2:30 – 3:00 Campaign Pitches

All-Abilities Media

All-Abilities Media amplifies the voices of people with intellectual disabilities and/or autism on its nationally-award winning A Valid Podcast. Hosts, guests and producers are primarily people with disabilities. The show covers disability and other issues.Please consider supporting inclusive media with your donation today.

The Pittsburgh Village Project

The Pittsburgh Village Project provides educational opportunities for students from birth to 12th grade through personalized, social justice oriented and community-inspired learning opportunities in and out of schools. We are a cooperative of students, families, community members and educators who equitably strengthen the education system through culturally responsive consulting and the development of project-based, community service oriented curricula.

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Outdoor Inclusion Coalition

In 2019 the Outdoor Inclusion Coalition was founded to progress the pressing questions of diversity in the outdoor industry. Through collaborative approaches, the Coalition is at the forefront of making quality recreation experiences more accessible while reshaping urban recreation to be a pathway for greater exploration both professionally and recreationally.
From our backstory stems our mission: to support Pennsylvanians through programs dedicated to attracting, engaging, and retaining underrepresented populations in the outdoor industry.

Core Values
Collaboration: facilitating and encouraging multi-sector engagement to elevate the industry
Connection: elevating connections to people, place, and empowerment
Accessible Experiences: mitigating barriers to quality outdoor experiences while nurturing a sense of care for the outdoors
Activation: engaging the communities love for the outdoors while supporting the interest in sustainable outdoor developments
Equity & Inclusivity: continual progress and accountability towards a more just industry and outdoor community

The Outdoor Inclusion Coalition welcomes further engagement from residents, organizations, and governmental agencies. If you would like to receive additional information on the Coalition email marcus@theoic.org.

Outdoor Inclusion Coalition aims to make parks more accessible for all

Peeling Back the Layers

Peeling Back the Layers is an immersive event series exploring the complexity and beauty of our world through cultural expression and dialogue. Events are intimate, interactive, and hosted at the Purple Onion: a new experimental performance space at New Sun Rising’s Millvale Food + Energy Hub. Attendance is by invitation and guests are encouraged to share their own stories and experiences (on) the theme for evening. This event series is produced in partnership with New Sun Rising’s Power in Numbers: data + creative advocacy initiative.

(on Land)

March 5, 2022 with special guests Ben Barson & the Peeling Back the Layers Band, Janet Zipf of Back to Earth Healing Center, and Grounded Strategies.

2020 Community Small Business Workshops

A mentoring workshop to build your business or nonprofit

Do you have an existing business or nonprofit that improves your community? Get mentoring support and connected to resources that can help you succeed during a 2 hour Small Business Workshop. Accepted applicants receive a $150 cash stipend, real time guidance from professional mentors to develop an action plan, and ongoing entrepreneurial resource navigator support. $1500 of additional financial awards will be given at each workshop.

THE WORKSHOPS

Businesses or Nonprofits who meet the eligibility criteria can apply for one of the following sessions:

Wilkinsburg – July 18: in partnership with Community Forge
Hilltop – August 8: in partnership with Fresh Fest and Work Hard Pittsburgh
Homewood – August 15: in partnership with Bible Center Church, HBBA, Neighborhood Allies

Each 2 hour workshop will be held virtually, focused on strengthening the individual needs of your organization. Mentors will assist leaders to identify immediate steps and resources in the following areas:

Defining client needs + Communicating your value
Strengthening financial preparedness + operations
Identifying program/service pivots related to COVID-19
Understanding adaptive leadership

ELIGIBILITY

The following criteria will be used to select workshop attendees, as reported on the application:

Operations primarily located in or serving the workshop’s host community
Legally incorporated and generating income
Openness to new information and mentor guidance
Committed to full participation on workshop date/times

The 2002 Community Small Business Workshops are made possible through the support of BNY Mellon Foundation of Southwestern PA.

Ignite Vibrancy: Collective Impact

A mentoring workshop + pitch competition to ignite collective action

Do you have an idea for a collaborative project to improve your community? Get support and the opportunity to pitch for $30,000 in total grants during the one-day Ignite Vibrancy workshop. Participants receive guidance from mentors and peers to further develop their project. Awardees will also receive 12 months of ongoing support from New Sun Rising’s GIT-COL initiative (Growing Impact Through Data + Collaboration). NOTE: this workshop has already occurred

THE COLLECTIVE IMPACT PROJECTS

On September 7, 2019, over 30 community leaders representing 10 collective impact projects received support from 8 mentors to develop their collective impact projects and pitches. Special congrats to our pitch winners who will receive an additional year of capacity building from NSR:

$15,000 to Coraopolis Community C.A.F.E (Coraopolis Alliance for Excellence), a central resource hub organized by Coraopolis Youth Creations, Coraopolis Community Foundation, and When She Thrives to increase access to services for community members of all ages help them move from surviving to thriving.
$10,000 to SURGE Braddock, a pilot program developed by Greater Valley Community Services (GVCS) and Paradigm Global Innovations (PGI) to work with 15 – 20 community youth members partnering with local businesses to develop analytical business and design skills acknowledged by Braddock’s small business owners as high needs.
$5,000 to C.H.A.M.P.S Northview Heights + Crafton (Change Agents Mentoring Peers in Sport), a partnership between Open Field, JFCS Pittsburgh, Somali Bantu Community Association of Pittsburgh, ARYSE, Youth Places, and the Bhutanese Community Association of Pittsburgh, which utilizes the global game of soccer to promote social cohesion, increase life skills education, and improve the health and well-being of young people in Northview Heights and Crafton Heights.

THE WORKSHOP

The facilitated activities with your mentor will focus on concept development following a Collective Impact Lean Canvas. Mentors will assist project leaders through the design and development of their idea, identifying key steps and necessary resources. Project leaders will leave more able to:

Clearly explain the purpose and value of the project to the broader community and potential funders
Develop and follow a plan to inclusively engage your community and potential funders
Create agreements on how the group will operate as a collective
Understand best practices for collective impact
Explore the role of data and storytelling in their project

THE PITCH

Each group will also have a chance to “pitch” to a panel of judges. Selected organizations will receive funds and capacity building support to further implement the project. In addition to economic impact, businesses and projects supported through the Vibrant Communities Framework prioritizes a triple bottom line, which includes people and planet. Collective Community Impact project winners will be reviewed considering these indicators:

CULTURE: Access to learning, capacity building, community development, engagement, connectivity, equality, and empowerment

SUSTAINABILITY: Responsible management and restoration of water, energy, food, air, and land resources

OPPORTUNITY: Developing equitable opportunities for entrepreneurs, employment, housing, and wealth building

At NSR, we believe that collaboration is the key to scaling up equitable social, environmental, and economic solutions. However, we understand the challenges that may arise when multiple organizations, sectors, and community stakeholders come together to design and implement strategies for change. Ignite Vibrancy is designed to be the starting point for these new ideas to form and strengthen relationships between partners.

The Ignite Vibrancy workshop is made possible in part through the support of the Henry L. Hillman Foundation, UPMC Center for Engagement and Inclusion, and Google.

About New Sun Rising

New Sun Rising (NSR) co-powers initiatives that create economic opportunity, solve social challenges, and strengthen the vibrancy of place. Through our Vibrant Communities Framework, NSR strengthens organizations, increases their impact, and helps to improve quality of life. Our focus is on under resourced communities and how regenerative growth strategies can be utilized for equitable economic and social development. The overarching goal of the Vibrant Communities Framework is equitable revitalization, by building Culture, Sustainability, and Opportunity; through Planning, Connectivity, and Resources; to develop an authentic community Identity.