As we head into the newspaper’s seventh year of serving the community, Street Sense has a new leader at the helm. I am eager to publicly welcome Abby Strunk as our new Executive Director. Abby brings years of nonprofit experience and an ardent enthusiasm for Street Sense and its mission. From the short time that I have worked with Abby, it is clear that she is a capable and competent leader who will build on the organization’s past successes.
Street Sense has accomplished great things in the six years since our former Executive Director, Laura Thompson-Osuri, and I founded it in November 2003. Our vendor corps now exceeds 50 men and women and our content is still generated in large part by people experiencing homelessness. Street Sense is an important voice in our community at a time when more and more people are living on the edge.
But Street Sense can still do more, particularly in the area of the services and training we provide to vendors. My personal goal – one I know the Board and Abby share – is to provide our vendors with more than a stream of income. Street Sense can be an important stepping stone for vendors on their journey towards stable employment, housing and getting back on their feet. As much as I enjoy seeing and getting to know the familiar faces of our vendors in the office and on street corners week after week, it would be even better to see those same faces as alumni returning to mentor new vendors or serving as Board members. Laura and I always intended for Street Sense to not be an end in itself, but rather a stepping stone on the long and difficult road towards economic self-sufficiency.
We also want to expand the distribution and reach of the paper. We need to do more to fulfill our mission of raising public awareness on the issues of homelessness and poverty in Washington, D.C. To accomplish this we need to develop creative distribution strategies and focus on quality content development. Luckily for us, we produce a paper that people believe in and have a strong editorial staff.
On a more basic level, we need to reevaluate the office culture, our outreach to the hundreds of individual donors that support the paper, and our advertising and fundraising strategies. These are all ambitious goals that will require hard work, an openness to change and, of course, funding. That’s why we are so excited about the experience, energy and creativity that Abby brings to the table.
I want to take a moment to thank Laura Thompson-Osuri for all the time, energy, talent and passion that she invested into the organization. As the first Executive Director, she worked tirelessly to build a firm foundation. Since one of our first collaborative sessions at the old Sparky’s coffee shop on 14th Street, NW, Laura has been a great partner in building the organization. She brought a tremendous amount of enthusiasm and effective leadership to the table. We are hopeful that Laura’s successes – both personal and professional – will match her successes here at Street Sense. As we head into the second generation of leadership at Street Sense, the fabled “next level” appears to be in sight. I am confident that Abby — with the support of vendors, volunteers, staff and readers like you — will grow Street Sense in ways in which we all can be proud.
