Jenn Peterson, the 2010 summer volunteer intern for the South Hampton Road’s Chapter of Virginia Organizing, is literally making waves and big changes to the way Brown Bay Island handles its stormwater drainage problem. Jenn is a VCU masters student studying urban planning. She spent the last semester doing research and putting a plan together to address the local storm drainage issue in an environmentally friendly way. Jenn was so successfull that her plan will now be fully implemented by local non-profit group Lynnhaven River Now.

We are so proud of Jenn and we commend her and Lynnhaven River Now for looking at common sense, environmentally friendly solutions to our problems.

We are not surprised that Jenn has decided to put her talents towards bettering our community. Jenn joined our local chapter as a volunteer intern in the summer of 2010. It was exciting and encouraging for our local leaders to see an urban planning student with a heart for the common good and most marginalized in our community. Jenn testified before the Chesapeake City Council shoulder to shoulder with Providence Mobile Home Park families that were in jeopardy of losing their homes.

Jenn was involved in many of our affordable housing issue team strategic planning sessions and city partnership meetings in working to get a protective policy for mobile home park residents and a task force up and running to work toward providing alternative housing solutions for those in need of deeply affordable housing options in our community. Jenn created a blog for our group and spread the word about popular education workshops on the issues of health care and tax and budget fairness. We are so proud of Jenn and her contributions toward making a more just Virgina.

Here is the article on Jenn’s work in the Beacon, Virginian Pilot’s Virginia Beach weekly.