Community Partnership Gets the Lead Out with $400,000 Grant

CSC News & Reflections
Spring 2004

Can a partnership of University of Notre Dame students, faculty, community organizations and businesses succeed in getting the lead out?

Judging by a recent grant received by the Robinson Community Learning Center, the answer is a resounding yes.

In November 2003, the Robinson Community Learning Center in South Bend received a $400,000 grant from the Office of University Partnerships of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). In addition to funding lead hazard prevention, the grant provides resources to fund job training, violence prevention and mentoring within South Bend. The grant was obtained with the assistance of a University and community partnership called the Lead Alliance.

“ As far as I can recall, this is a unique partnership in its focus to address lead poisoning in South Bend’s low income communities,” said Jay Caponigro, director of the Robinson Center, an outreach effort of the University of Notre Dame. “Our work to bring together the community, students and the University has paid off with significant funding to address this problem.”
The story of the grant provides a valuable insight into how the CSC’s community engagement efforts can yield significant change.

In fall 2001, Chemistry professor Dennis Jacobs PhD, one of the Center’s faculty fellows, and Mary Beckman, PhD, associate director of academic affairs, were exploring ways to integrate the Chemistry curriculum and student community engagement. Working with a group of students, they hit upon the idea of designing a course in which students would test for lead in local homes.

The group then joined forces with the Get the Lead Out Task Force of St. Joseph County to form a new coalition named the Lead Alliance. The coalition brought together Memorial Hospital, Greentree Environmental (a for-profit environmental assessment firm), the City of South Bend’s Office of Community Development, and the Robinson Community Learning Center.
Meanwhile, Caponigro was exploring ways to obtain HUD funding for the Robinson Center’s involvement in the community, but knew that alone he didn’t have sufficient resources to bring to bear on the lead hazard problem.

“ I knew what was possible,” said Caponigro, “But, we needed to leverage all our resources to make it happen. Writing a HUD grant, designing the program assessments and requirements was time-intensive and complicated.”

The Alliance helped Caponigro formulate the strong proposal that won federal funding.

Lead poisoning prevention continues to be major health issues facing children in low-income neighborhoods.

According to Caponigro, the grant targets children who have measurable levels of lead in their systems, but at levels that are below actionable limits set by the county government.

“A lead level of 10 micrograms per deciliter of blood triggers county action, but we are seeing many children that are sevens, eights and nines,” said Caponigro.

For the Robinson Center, the first task is to educate families about the risks.

The Lead Alliance holds several Lead Paint Awareness nights at the Robinson Center. Neighborhood families are invited to learn about risks and to have children tested to determine their lead levels. Families also learn how to identify potential lead paint hazards and how to clean their houses appropriately to mitigate risks.

If the testing identifies high levels of lead, the child’s test results are forwarded to the family doctor. The families then receive more information about resources to eliminate lead hazards.
Also emerging from the efforts of the Lead Alliance was Jacobs’s class. Through his course, Chemistry in Service of the Community, students collect samples of paint chips, dust, and soil from neighborhood houses and analyze them in a Notre Dame chemistry lab to determine the amount of lead present in the home environment. Results from the students’ analyses are compared with the assessments of Greentree Environmental.

Students then go back to the selected homes with Greentree staff and other professionals to explain potential health risks to families and to suggest inexpensive strategies to minimize the children’s exposure to lead.

Lead paint can be found in over 57 million homes, some 40% of homes in this country. In South Bend’s Northeast neighborhood, the median age of a house is 56 years old. Nearly 45% of houses are rentals, which national statistics show are more likely to have lead paint. According to the State Department of Health, one out of every nine children tested in Indiana has high blood lead levels.

Children, especially those under age 6, are disproportionately susceptible to lead poisoning. This is because children’s bodies are still developing making them more likely to absorb lead.
Studies have concluded that childhood exposure to unsafe lead paint levels can cause learning disabilities, impaired growth, hyperactivity and brain damage. In pregnant women, lead exposure can pass through the body to the developing fetus and result in birth defects or miscarriages.

“ Significant efforts like this can’t happen in the community unless we form partnerships to bring together the resources and skills of our community and the University,” said Caponigro.