I’m having a great time at Focus: HOPE so far! Over the past week and a half, I’ve discovered that the organization does so many amazing things with the community. Even just within the department that I’m working in, I can barely begin to comprehend all of the projects and events that are always going on. By the way, I work in the Hope Village Initiative (HVI) department! The Hope Village Initiative works within the 100 blocks surrounding Focus: HOPE’s campus to build towards 100% of the community residents to be educationally and economically self-sustaining by 2031. Focus: HOPE’s overall mission statement is “Recognizing the dignity and beauty of every person, we pledge intelligent and practical action to overcome racism, poverty, and injustice. And to build a metropolitan community where all people may live in freedom, harmony, trust and affection…”. My summer research project is to create a homeowner resource guide that will be distributed within the community in order to help members in working to keep and improve their homes. This project has expanded a bit over the past week. Now I will also be creating a separate tenant resource guide and I came up with the idea to compile terms from all of the resources in order to create a housing terms dictionary. I’m excited to be incorporating my own ideas into the project and to hopefully leave behind an additional resource for Focus: HOPE and the community to utilize for a long time.
While I’ve been having a good time in the office, I must say that the highlight of my first week in Detroit was when I volunteered at my organization’s neighborhood meet-and-greet. It was in the Cool Cities Park down the road from our building and it was estimated that around one hundred people showed up! I had the amazingly fun task of doing face painting and I had a blast! My awesome roommate Gina came along and did face painting with me. Also, my new friends Meredith and Hoon came along to help out with kid crafts for the Neighborhood Service Organization (NSO). So far, my experience in Detroit has been a ton of fun! I’m learning something new every day and I’m meeting some great people!
Reblogged this on naldensmich and commented:
That sounds like an amazing project. I’m glad you’ve already had some time to interact with the community already! I’ve mainly been doing nose in the book type research, but I’ve had a few chances to make my way into schools. I think one of the most rewarding aspects of these placements will be with the connections we make between our work and the community our work is designed to serve! Great picture!
Hey Mac,
Your project sounds amazing and so does your org! I’m a little jealous. It seems like at your placement you always have a lot to keep you busy. I wish I had more of that at mine. The meet and greet picture is awesome!