Class Project Binds New Neighbors, Inspires Journal Article

ATLANTA  —  Students joining Associate Professor Fred Brooks’ class, SW 7100: Foundations of Community Partnerships, quickly learn the syllabus includes an exercise that will take most of them outside their comfort zone: They are required to knock on doors and interview their neighbors about issues that impact their communities.

His goal? Show students in a powerful way how community organizing can build social capital. He feels the exercise is so important that if a student is hesitant about knocking on doors, Brooks will join them.

“It teaches a lot about the neighborhood,” he said.

Gloria Claudio (M.S.W. ’22) had some legitimate reasons to dread the assignment. She had recently moved with her husband to a brand-new suburban development in Fairburn, Ga., where her neighbors rarely interacted. Originally from Puerto Rico, her first language is Spanish, and she wasn’t sure they would understand her accent.

However, Claudio overcame these barriers in such a unique way that she not only completed her class project, she brought her neighborhood together to form a new homeowner’s association (HOA) over which she eventually presided. She then co-authored, with Brooks, an article about the experience recently published in the Journal of Teaching in Social Work, “From Class Assignment to Organizing Your Neighborhood: One M.S.W. Student’s Journey.” Brooks has added the article to his syllabus.

“I can’t wait to use the paper in my class,” Brooks said. “I think it will set a high bar for the students, and hopefully inspire them to do a good job. Gloria shows us how a neighborhood can be improved based on personal involvement. She shows that to build social capital, you have to talk to the people in your neighborhood.”

Before she began knocking on her neighbors’ doors, Claudio carefully prepared a flyer about the project’s purpose that included her questions.

“I was concerned whether people would understand me,” she said. “I’d been living in the U.S. only three years, and my English was really bad. I thought it would help if they could read about it.”

After interviewing a half-dozen neighbors, she felt she hadn’t learned anything about the issues and challenges facing her community that she could report. But she knew there were infrastructure and other issues the subdivision’s developer had not addressed, and it had delayed turning over the HOA’s management to the community.

“My neighbors were very polite but didn’t give me all the information I needed for the project,” she said. “So, I thought about what works in Puerto Rico: bring food! If you offer food at a meeting, people will show up. I didn’t know whether it would work here because my sister had told me this culture is very different, but I decided to try it.”

Claudio planned a potluck supper at her home and invited the residents of all 28 houses in her subdivision. She made a flyer, knocked on doors again and told them, “Let’s get together to get to know each other.”

Twenty-five people showed up at the potluck.

“It was the first time we were all together,” she said. “They talked about their jobs, their families and where they’d lived before. But I still wasn’t hearing about the community’s issues, and I needed that information for the project.”

A neighbor running late called to say she was on her way. That call, finally, spurred Claudio’s guests to begin talking about their community’s issues.

“We didn’t have streetlights, and it was dark outside,” Claudio said. “Someone said the builder was supposed to fix the lights. In a few seconds, my neighbors started talking about every issue in the community. I stood there hearing what they had to say and taking notes for my project. After the conversation, I suggested we have another meeting to talk about issues and see what the next steps should be. They agreed.”

The neighbors started meeting regularly, bringing their concerns and ideas. They eventually took over management of the HOA, got help fixing things like the streetlights, and came together regularly for meetings and community events. About a year after the new HOA was formed, Claudio became its president. Claudio held that position for two years, until 2022 when she and her husband moved to Arlington, Texas.

“When I was living in Puerto Rico, I had started my master’s in community social work and I was thinking how useful it would be to have a social worker working with communities in need,” she said. “This project gave me that opportunity. We did not live in a poor community in Fairburn, but every community has needs regardless of their economic status.”

To this day, Claudio stays in touch with several of her Fairburn neighbors. None of this would have happened without the work she did to complete her class project for SW 7100.

“Dr. Brooks’ class and project are crucial for social work students,” she said. “Most students are thinking about doing clinical work. This experience gives you a very different perspective, a very different way to think about social work.”

Brooks believes Claudio’s former neighborhood was enormously improved on a variety of measures based on her involvement.

“I think that in a lot of these suburban communities, especially in Atlanta, people would like to know each other and do things together and accomplish something, but it takes somebody to kick things off,” he said. “Just bringing people together to talk about neighborhood issues is a powerful thing and can take on a life of its own. The fact that these neighbors are still working together, that’s important.”

He also notes Claudio’s long-term impact on her neighbors.

“Gloria started the ball rolling for the neighborhood to come together and do things,” he said. “People enjoy knowing their neighbors, doing things together and making their place more livable. A lot of things they’re doing in that neighborhood build social capital — camaraderie, friendships. People were hungry to get together to know each other and do things. It’s not classic community organizing, but it’s a good example of building social capital.”