Listen to thisI use the pickaxe to break away the dried and cracked, old floor tiles. The other volunteers, Public Allies, and youth, use paint scrapers to get the pieces the pickaxe can’t break loose. Some sweep and pick up the pieces and put them in large plastic bags to throw in the trash.
We are in the basement of Urban Underground for a day of service to celebrate Martin Luther King’s birthday. Urban Underground engages urban youth in civic minded projects. Like most youth programs they need more funds. We are fixing the place up. I’m in the “thick of it” on the tile removal crew, others are painting upstairs.
Dust covers our goggles and clothes. It is messy business, but fun working together. I have the easy part. The tiles that respond to the pickaxe loosen much easier than the ones stuck to the floor that I leave behind for them to scrape. It’s a good developmental activity: I can see my progress as I work side by side with them. This nasty looking instrument does good work, I chuckle to myself.
“Hey, let me use that for a moment,” a young man says, catching on.
I smile, hand him the pickaxe, get down on my knees. He hands me his scraper. I work on tile in a doorway, stamped down by years of foot traffic. “This is really stuck.”
“Tell me about it,” the young woman working next to me says.
More volunteers arrive. Too many hands for the task now, but somehow we figure it out, and make relatively “short shrift” of a big job. The floor is ready to be recovered with fresh tiles or carpet – “new ground” for youth and staff to walk on as they go to various activities.
It feels good to be doing Child and Youth Care again. On days like this I really miss it. I wipe the dust off my face and clothes, put on my coat, and say goodbye to the tile crew. A young man bumps fists with me, the latest way of connecting and parting and saying “cool.”
Upstairs several volunteers are painting. I can barely pass through the hallways. I make it without getting paint on my clothes, just a drop on the shoes. I chat for a moment with director of Public Allies, our partner, who sponsored the day of service. Public Allies is sort of an urban Peace Corp that provides a year of service for young people taking a break from their education to get some “real life” experience. I praise her for the good job she did in organizing the event.
“You really went to town with that pickaxe” she jokes.
“Yup, I’m the man,” I joke back.
“You jumped right in.”
“I learned that in Child and Youth Care,” I say and step outside into the cold winter sunshine. I grew up in this lower middle class neighborhood. It still has problems. People are even poorer now. Many of the good jobs have left town, but it is much more integrated. An elderly African American man tips his hat to me. I smile back.
Everyone in the community seems cheerful. Tomorrow we inaugurate our first African American president, Barack Obama. According to the news, he is putting in his own day of service at a youth serving organization in Washington DC to honor the man who was so instrumental in getting him and us to this point.
The last time I felt this way about the country was in 1968 when Bobby Kennedy ran for president. He had a similar sense of humanity and compassion. I was at summer camp in the Army Reserves when I heard of his death. Like many college students, I had joined the reserves to avoid the war I opposed. I cried and felt empty when I heard the news.
Later that year I went to work in a residential treatment center because I wanted to do something meaningful. My colleagues and I were going to change the world for youth, including this neighborhood. We didn’t think, however, we would ever find another leader with as much compassion as Martin Luther King or Bobby Kennedy. Those days seemed gone. Now, maybe they are back. Norman Powell the second African American President of our national Child and Youth Care association seems to think so. He is going with his boys and wife to the inauguration. I talked to him on the phone a few days ago. We liked the possibilities. Barack and Michelle Obama did youth and community work in Chicago when they were younger. Both were involved with Public Allies.
Norman and I, along with millions of others, did what we could to help him get elected. For a moment, it feels good again to be from the US. Many of us kept our yard signs up long after the election. Much work for youth and the country yet to be done. I’m trying not to get my hopes up too high. Next week I will ask my new university students what they did on their day of service. If they are like the students last semester they’ll want to change this new world and be excited about the possibilities in connections. We marched, organized, and rallied. They volunteer and use the internet.
This morning as I write this at a coffee shop in the Riverwest Neighborhood, black, brown, and white youth and adults mingle with coffee before school and work. Next weekend many of these people will attend a poetry marathon to support the independent community bookstore, Woodland Pattern, down the street. Small local businesses are supporting the event. Artists and poets are devoting their time. A youth reading kicks off the event first thing in the morning. Maybe the winds of change are picking up. I’d like to think so.
