building blocks, second week

sorry for the delay, here is what has been going on with building blocks. We have our first formal meeting with the residents tonight, so wish me luck :). I will write about it soon.
Since we decided to wait a week to hold our first meeting, early this week Sarah, Sam and I were back to door-knocking. We headed to Bellaire Street around 10 am on Tuesday, hoping to get in contact with several people we still had not met. Unfortunately, we did not meet anyone we hadn’t already talked with. As we were heading back to the car, Sam and I decided to try knocking on Mary’s door again. Mary, a middle-aged Hispanic, was in the middle of dinner when we knocked on her door last week and was not happy to be interrupted. We thought that since she has a young son, Javier, she would be up at 10 am. This assumption was further carried by the muted cries of a toddler emerging from the house. Although I was hesitant to interrupt Mary when she was trying to calm Javier, Sam thought that his would be one of our only times to talk with her so we knocked on the door. There was no answer. I knocked again, louder. Still no answer. As we were walking away from Mary’s home, Sam noticed a side door and knocked on it. No one answered. Confused and frustrated, we continued toward Sarah’s car, but a couple of seconds later, the side door to Mary’s home opened. Our assumptions were wrong. We had awoken Mary and again tried to talk with her at a very inopportune time. She asked us to come back another time.
As we walked up the second block on Bellaire Street, we noticed a woman sitting on her front porch. Sarah had already talked with her husband and he had sounded somewhat interested. We decided this would not only be a good opportunity to remind her about the meeting, but also for her to meet Sam and I (one of the downsides to the way we approached door-knocking is that half of Bellaire Street is very familiar with Sam and me and the other half is very familiar with Sarah). The woman, a Caucasian in her mid-50’s, introduced herself as Suzanne and to our surprise had seen the flier on the kitchen counter and was very excited about coming to our first meeting. She was watching her grandchildren for Spring Break but ushered us into her backyard to show us her ornamental grasses. The first thing that I noticed about Suzanne was how willing she was to share things with people. Not only did she immediately show complete strangers the garden she took so much pride in, but she soon started asking us if we would like some of her hostas or ebony mambo grass. If not, she suggested that she could donate some to the other neighbors participating in Building Blocks. Her garden was beautiful; the entire back yard had been transformed into a haven overflowing with last summer’s remnants of grasses, tomatoes, and flowers. Overhead, wind chimes and bird feeders crisscrossed on twine strung between her house and the trees. Stone paths wound throughout and there was a prominent strawberry patch that Suzanne was quite proud of. We continued to chat with her while her grandchildren chased each other with super-soakers and soon delved into deeper conversation.
Suzanne, like many Bellaire Street residents, works third shift and has been working at the same factory for around 25 years. She works in manufacturing and is very keen that she is working in a ‘man’s world’. She has apparently been in training for shift manager for a very long time but never actually gets promoted, to her frustration. Her husband injured his back in his previous manufacturing job and so is now unable to work. I think that Suzanne is very proud of the fact that she is now supporting her and her husband on her income. A couple of years ago, Suzanne decided to get her GED. She recounted for us how wonderful it was when she realized she “was the smart one”, not her husband and the he really couldn’t push her around anymore. It seems like Suzanne’s relationship with her husband has changed a lot over the years, from him basically supporting her and she in turn fulfilling a traditional role of housewife, to Suzanne entirely supporting him with an amazingly strong sense of self.
As we turned the conversation back to building blocks, Suzanne began to tell her who, from her perspective, would participate. She first talked about some of the homeowners. Especially those who like her had lived in the neighborhood for a long time. She stressed how they wanted to take care of their homes, although sometimes there was not enough money to do it properly. When we told her of some of the other people who had shown interest in the program, she seemed surprised. “But they’re renters”, she claimed. “They don’t care about their homes.” We gently suggested that just because they are renters doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t want to upkeep their homes and Suzanne agreed that she liked Sophie Perez, a renter across the street. Sophie is a single mom and often uses Suzanne for support and advice. I think Suzanne enjoys helping Sophie because she wants Sophie to survive as a strong, self-sufficient woman. Suzanne, however, was initially not interested in meeting the renters next door to her. “They don’t care about their home,” she said, “and they keep me up playing loud music all the time.” We told her that in fact they were interested in the program, too and that maybe this would be a good opportunity for Suzanne to talk with them, get to know them better and let them know that their music bothers her. “Yeah, I will show them the wrath of Suzanne,” Suzanne responded. Yikes! That was not quite what I had in mind. I think we will have to carefully watch how Suzanne interacts with some of the renters. She is very clear and upfront and I think could upset some of her neighbors with her preconceptions of them.
Thursday afternoon, Sam and I returned to Bellaire Street to try and catch up with some people we were unable to meet on Tuesday. To our surprise, our visit was very successful. We thought that since we got there around 6 pm everyone would be eating dinner and that we would be interrupting them. However, we met Greg’s wife, Sue’s daughter, Amy’s husband, and Chris Briggs. We had never met Greg or his wife because they were apparently on vacation in Cancun. Sally, his wife, had received our flier as well as talked with May Willie and was quite excited about the first meeting. Both Sally and Greg are African American, pTomably in their mid-40’s, and have two teenage children. When Sam first spoke with Sue (a young African American single mom), she barely opened the door; she seemed very frightened. We spoke with her teenage daughter on Thursday, who was babysitting her brothers and sisters. She seemed like a very responsible person for being so young. She often takes care of her siblings and is very involved in running her home. She and her mom had been whether or not to participate in Building Blocks over dinner. She promised us she would try and convince her mom to come to our meeting. Amy (Caucasian, mid-30’s) was initially very tentative about participating because she works 3rd shift and was concerned about the time commitment but her husband, John (Caucasian, mid-30’s), had seen the flier on the table and was very excited about coming to the meeting. Chris Briggs, an middle aged African American with two teenage children and married to a Caucasian woman, was very excited about the first meeting. He mentioned several times how he and the neighbors across the street were planning on coming together. It was exciting to see neighbors pressuring each other to get involved. He also initially said that he knew all his neighbors really well because of his kids. Chris lives on the side of Bellaire Street closest to the stream and when we mentioned Andrew and some other kids who lived on the other block, asking if his kids played with them, Chris quickly retorted, “no. We don’t really associate with the people up there. We stick to our own street and they stick to theirs.” I hadn’t really noticed before, but there did seem to be a distinct separation between the two blocks. The kids who knew each other so well and constantly played outside on one block never ventured to the next block. I hadn’t ever seen kids on Chris’s block (except Elizabeth’s). I think that one of our big tasks will be joining these two blocks together more, especially when it comes to working on houses. I think there might be a tendency for people to work only on homes on their own block; both due to this separation and that those houses will be physically closer.
Despite our successful attempts at door-knocking this week, some frustrating things happened, too. I am the coordinator of donations, so I asked several bakeries if they would be willing to donate day-old baked goods to our first meeting. I was unilaterally disappointed. The first store I went to was Kleins, since I know they donate their bagels to Kalamazoo College and have donated to Building Blocks in the past. The manager there that day said that in fact they now donate only to children’s charities and Loaves and Fishes. I think I should go back and talk with a different manager, but it was nevertheless disappointing. I felt like he wasn’t being completely honest with me. I also tried to solicit donations from Panera Bread, since I heard they were also very generous to Building Blocks in the past. There, the manager was very helpful, but said that I would need to contact their corporate headquarters and that the requests could take up to eight weeks. I was talking to my roommate, Jess Walsh, about my frustrations and she suggested that I draft a letter on Edison Neighborhood Association letterhead and get Tom and Pat and maybe ever Terry to sign it. I think that was a really good suggestion, because by myself I really have no credibility so I can see why companies would be wary of agreeing to donations without any proof that I am representing a non-profit organization.
The last rather frustration part of the week was Tom canceling our meeting where we were going to form an agenda for our first meeting. He told us he would e-mail us if he couldn’t make the meeting, but no one had received anything from him yet. About an hour before we were supposed to meet, I tried to call Sam to remind her about the meeting and set up another time to go door-knocking. I accidentally dialed Tom’s number instead and after I realized I was not in fact talking to Sam, he told me that he would have to cancel the meeting. He was very apologetic and I completely understand that he has a really busy schedule, too. I just wish he had let us know a little earlier. I don’t know when he would have told us if I hadn’t misdialed Sam’s phone number and reached him, instead.