If there is anything I’ve learned about working at Nortown CDC so far, it’s that no two days are alike in the world of community development. One day you’re having a meeting with your councilman from District 3 about the Norris House restoration project, the next you’re working with Greening of Detroit to figure out the exact supplies you need to order for a butterfly garden, and a week later you’re on your computer trying to figure out who owns all the vacant land in the neighborhood. I’ve mostly enjoyed the lack of a consistent schedule so far; it keeps things interesting.
I’ve also learned that if money permitted, there would be enough work to do to keep an entire fleet on staff. However, this isn’t the case- when there is little money to be found, only a couple people have to do the work of the entire fleet. It seems to me like it has to be exhausting, and I have a lot of respect for the people here at Nortown who volunteer so much of their time and resources all the time.
Detroit is an amazing city to me because everyone is so connected, and non-profits both utilize and work closely with so many other non-profits around the city. I’ve heard people refer to it many times before as a small-town big city, referring to the small town-feel you get when you’ve been here for a while. In my second summer here, I certainly can feel that. I often see people I know just walking down the street in Midtown or at Eastern Market or wherever, or run into the same people I’ve worked with before again in the context of a new organization. It’s always amazing to me to find out what strange connections people I know have to other people I know. It’s one of the many reasons I love it here.
On an unrelated note, I had the chance to see Pippin last night at the Fisher Theater. As the manager of a coffee shop in the building, my cousin gets a lot of free tickets to the shows there. In the wintertime, we saw the show Once, and last year we say American Idiot (the Green Day musical, I would not recommend it). Pippin was AMAZING. It combined circus acts with magic with burly men balancing on tin cans with music that won’t get out of my head with a hilarious show. I even got to meet one of the directors before hand when he came in to the shop for coffee. Five stars.
