Showing posts with label Bs in the D. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bs in the D. Show all posts
This is Keisa. She lives with her two older sisters and her Mother in a home that CDC built. They own it, making them a wonderful little success story. The girls were darling, as well as the home. I got to interview Keisa.
Me: If you could have anything in your room, what would it be? Go crazy. I am not promising, but say what you really want, just in case we can make it happen.
Keisa: Hello Kitty. I visited the Hello Kitty store and was there for an hour! I loved everything.
Me: Wow, that is a lot of pink.
Keisa: YEAH!
We drove the neigborhood in a big van. When we turned one corner, we saw a Mom jumping up and down on the porch, clapping and yelling. What better welcome could we have had? She lived in the house with her son, whose room we are making over. The house is a glorious old victorian that has so seen better days. The inside was quite bad and there was no heat. In the living room, she had gorgeous victorian sofas. Gorgeous. She told us she inherited the house from her Grandmother. Her Grandmother used to drive a cab. She moved on to be the bookkeeper of the cab company, and ultimately became the president of City Cab.
And, I thought, when you have the blood of that woman in your veins, you are going to survive!
Now the meet and greets have begun. It is time for the Vitamin C to flow!
48202
I don't usually go off the creativity path in this blog, but this is firmly on my mind and I am hoping that writing about it will help me process some of it.
For the next 7-8 months, I will be working on a project that will give beds and bedroom makeovers to some kids in Central Detroit. So, on Saturday, I took a tour of inner city Detroit, thinking I should find out a little about the area and the culture.
The bedroom project will take place in the 48202 zip code. That zip code is the poorest one in the United States. Not just Michigan, but all of America. It is like a third world country. Unemployment is 66%. High school graduation rate is 15%. The first grade class at the elementary school has 69 kids in it. Little kids have to walk 4 miles to school and then sit on the floor on a mat all day with 68 other kids....while being hungry, after sleeping on the floor with a blanket the night before.
Some families live without furniture, their children have never slept in a bed. Some homes have no electricity or running water. I saw several with broken windows and blankets stuffed in the holes. Think about having no electricity and trying to heat your home with the gas burners on the stove.
We did a poverty assimilation exercise. We were given $1000 for our family of 6, to last a month. We priced food, transportation, clothes, and housing. We looked for jobs. It was impossible to even take care of the basics for a family. And then we were told they gave us a cushion and most families have more like $500 a month.
Now I am thinking about our lifestyle here in the suburbs. How many times have I pulled into McDonald's for a $1 ice tea? And how much could I have to buy food for someone if I had not done that for a year? And it just goes on and on from there. Sigh.
Yes, we have been educated and worked for what we have. But, don't we have so much that is not necessary? And we are sitting over here in the burbs with our miracle cell phones and computers and closets and pantries full, driving to get more stuff in our new gas guzzling cars? And not even thinking about the people over in 48202?
See? So much to process. It puts reality to loving your neighbor as yourself.
Hoping my Vitamin C will work here.
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