DP Day

Yesterday I traveled to Detroit with five M1 colleagues to volunteer with the Detroit Partnership's DP Day. This is an annual day of community service in which Michigan students spend several hours drawing murals, cleaning up parks, clearing vacant lots, and working on gardening projects. Transportation and lunch are provided for free, making it an easy opportunity for students to learn more about Detroit and lend a helping hand. In the mid-20th century, Detroit was the fourth largest city in the United States, with a population over 1.5 million. In the last 10 years, Detroit's population decreased 25% to its current level of 750,000. My group was assigned to the Brightmoor neighborhood, which was once a beautiful, thriving community but is now full of abandoned homes and crumbling, vacant school buildings. There are no stores or groceries nearby, forcing residents to eat at McDonald's.

Upon arrival in Brightmoor, we ate lunch at St. Christine's Soup Kitchen, which serves hot meals every Tuesday and Saturday. There we met some children from the community and a couple of energetic community organizers. For lunch we had Shepherd's pie, salad, rolls, and an assortment of desserts. After eating we met Billie, a master gardener and community activist who had recently moved to Brightmoor with her husband to help revitalize the neighborhood. She showed us a park and community garden where they were growing fruits and vegetables for residents in this "food desert." Some things they could grow year-round in a greenhouse. Then she took us to an abandoned house that had not been lived in for a decade. We cleaned up trash in the lot, boarded up windows, raked up leaves, and leveled the front lawn, which had been disrupted by water flowing from a broken pipe. The neighbor to this abandoned house was very grateful and came out to help us. We went to two other vacant lots and cleared them of trash, of which there was plenty.

In the late afternoon we attended the DP Day Rally at Stoepel Park. This rally was unfortunately a waste of time, and I've told the DP Day organizers that it should not be part of future DP Days, or should at least be made optional. I learned a lot more while I was working than at the rally; the rally speakers were not inspiring or interesting (probably because we couldn't hear most of what they were saying). What's more, the students littered about as much trash at Stoepel Park as they cleaned up during the day--papers, pizza boxes, and Red Bull cans were all over the place, and some trash blew away into the community before it could be recovered. Our time would have been much rather spent with a couple more hours working than attending the rally.

Here are some photos:

Lunch at St. Christine's

The Team
Boarding up windows
Cleaning up trash