Serving a Broken Community

It is hard to measure a program’s success when that program’s goal is sustained friendship.  It is easy to talk in numbers so let’s start there.

In September I partnered with Compass Community Church and Douglass Elementary School and organized a neighborhood wide block party.  It was an incredible experience as hundreds of kids and families came to participate.  We had food, positive entertainment, healthy cooking demonstrations, a dance off, two blowup inflatables, and much more.  For several hours that hot afternoon on the Douglass School campus you could see families smiling and enjoying each other.  It was a beautiful site.

This year I introduced several of the students at Douglass Elementary School to Joy Ike.  Joy is an accomplished pianist and soul singer from Pittsburgh, PA.  While at Douglass Joy lead a workshop on creativity for the entire first grade class and performed a mini concert for the 5^th-8^th grade girls.  During the concert the students were able to ask Joy anything they wanted.  Joy shared many of her life experiences and encouraged the young impressionable girls to live up to their own potential. 

In the classroom I worked with more than 50 students this year.  Some of that time was spent working one on one with about 10 students on academic work.  The majority of the time was spent redirecting kids when they became angry.  I would constantly remind kids how to deal with their anger in positive ways.  Being in the school gave me access into the student’s lives on a daily basis and it helped me build rapport with parents.

I took that hard earned rapport and built on it with home visits.  I have been inside 20 homes so far.  Currently I am visiting six families every week.  My goal is to build long term friendships with a few of these families and introduce them to the other members the Walnut Hills Fellowship, the intentional community Larita and I are part of here in the neighborhood.  Most of us moved here on purpose, so that we could share resources, support each other, and love our neighbors in proactive, practical ways.  That means that if I can draw a few of my kids' families into our group, they will have lots of people ready, willing, and able to help them along in this very hard place.  I think the technical term is "social capital", but most of us just call it genuine friendship.

I love this job and I love the people, but I simply cannot do this alone.  Will you become a part of the social capital that we rely on and share with others?  Thank you for your consideration.