Alternative Spring Break 2017: Day 2
An offensive mural in the streets of highly gentrified Over-the-Rhine that reads: “Ghettopia: This Mural is Dedicated to the People of Over-the-Rhine”
03/14/17
To be completely honest, I don't remember all of the events from this day (it has been over three months since the trip after all). Nevertheless, I will try to re-tell the events of this day to the best of my ability. So here goes nothing!
Day Two of my Alternative Spring Break trip was not as eventful as the first – I'll tell you that – and in a way I was grateful for that as Day One had been such an emotional rollercoaster for myself and others on the trip. The schedule for Day Two went as follows:
Help around a soup kitchen
Volunteer at an after-school program for elementary school youth
Food Stamps activity at local market
Guest Speaker, Jae
So, let us start with our first program of the day: the soup kitchen. My ASB group spent the first part of the morning helping around a local soup kitchen in Cincinnati. The soup kitchen itself was located in a house, that other than feeding the homeless and poor, gave shelter to recovering drug addicts. These "ex-druggies" lived in the upstairs portion of the house and we rarely saw them other than when they would come downstairs to discuss their cases with a social worker (I'm assuming.) Visitors of the soup kitchen had the option of either a bowl of soup or a brown paper bag of sandwiches and other snacks. The soup kitchen itself was run in the kitchen of the house. Those who opted for soup got a bowl of chicken noodle soup and either a sandwich or two donuts. Guests could seat themselves at the small tables outside of the kitchen and could stay as long as they wanted and chat with other guests (guests were never denied seconds!).
As I was serving guests their soup at the kitchen during in one of my rotations around different stations, I met and chatted with one of the guest. He was a tall, slim African-American man, who wore spectacles and a dark brown trench coat. He asked me about my area of study – Communication Sciences and Disorders – and we realized that we had a common connection there. This man, who you would assume was poorly educated and not-all-there by his demeanor was actually a teacher (or former teacher) who had experience with speech-language pathology when receiving treatment for his speech disorder (a stutter I believe, but I may be wrong). In this moment, I felt a personal connection to this man as well as guilt for having assumed that because he was poor and black, and sitting in a soup kitchen, that he was uneducated – an assumption I shouldn't have made as a person of color from a low-income neighborhood and city not much different from Cincinnati, but still made anyway. And that folks is why you should never judge a book by its cover.
I met an 11-year-old who apparently could not read! When I heard this information all I could think of is that the school system had failed him.
Next on the agenda, a small group of us visited an after-school program run by a lovely white woman. This had to be my favorite program of the day as I love working with the youth (it reminded me of the days I used to tutor a group of 4th graders at a local middle school!). All the kids seemed "normal" to the onlooker until you realized that some of these kids were on the autism spectrum, had dyslexia (the young girl I tutored confused her p's and d's) or just couldn't read. I met an 11-year-old who apparently could not read! When I heard this information all I could think of is that the school system had failed him. Even in my hometown in the South Bronx, the poorest congressional district in America (maybe not now with gentrification on the rise), most 11-year-old and 12-year-old kids that I knew are literate. And here, in highly gentrified Over-the-Rhine, Cincinnati, working-class and low-income youth were made to suffer in poor schools, while their rich, white counterparts were bussed into the neighborhood to attend an elite, private performing arts school in a building structure where the neighborhood kids’ old school used to reside.
How could a school system fail a student so badly that when they should be reading at a 6th grade reading level they can't even utter or comprehend the first sentence of a book meant for a 1st grader? How could a neighborhood and government that should be serving their community allow for their city's youth to remain uneducated and stagnant, economically and socially, while "community-invaders" who are well-educated and well off come to take over the schools that should be reserved for the local community? I just could not fathom this injustice that was taking place. And for this, I vow to work for my community and its youth.
His words, no matter how true or untrue, will stick with me forever.
The next program was an immersive food stamps activity at a local food market. In groups of 3 and 5, we were meant to purchase a meal for $1.35, as an individual on food stamps is expected to survive on $1.35 per meal per day (outrageous right?!). In my group was myself and my two site leaders, Warrick and Gaelyn. For our meal we decided to buy some egg rolls from a Thai food vendor. The vendor was an eccentric man and he decided to "read us" and tell us each about our personality traits based on what he "sensed" from us. For my reading, the vendor told me that water runs deep with me. For some background, water runs deep is an ancient proverb that means, "a person's calm exterior often conceals great depths of character, just as the deepest streams can have the smoothest surfaces" (Dictionary.com). He told me that, “although I am shy and reserved on the surface, I hide great insight and knowledge below the surface.” He told Warrick that, “when you speak, she listens, but when she speaks, you listen.” I interpreted this as I can move mountains, figuratively, with my words. In other words, I am a powerful speaker. This statement really resonated with me (although this man may have not been a legit "aura-reader", but just bonkers and making things up as he went) because I see some aspects of it to be true. Deep down, I believe that if I really spoke my mind more I could have a great impact on people and society. His words, no matter how true or untrue, will stick with me forever.
Finally, for our last program of the day, we had a guest speaker, Jae, come speak to us. I wish I had remembered more of Jae's speech as she spoke confidently about the importance and power of community, but sadly I do not. So, this marks the end of Day Two and of this blog post.
Xo, Naydeline
Like and Share the Facebook page of the organization that runs the after-school programs for the inner-city youth of Greater Cincinnati, Our Daily Bread.