Soooooo I’m almost done here in Detroit.It feels like we’ve only been here for a couple weeks but the program is over. That’s wild. I’ve learned a pretty good amount about how to respectfully enter a community. I’ve made a lot of new friends both at work and at home with the DCBURP fam. This summer …
Honestly I think i have achieved all of the goals/hopes that I had for the summer. I think that I am only more invested than when I wrote that letter. I have learned more about what I want to do with my life since then, when I wrote that letter to myself I had no …
This election has been a weird one for me. I’ve always followed elections very intently (Presidential and congressional) until this one. Don’t get me wrong, I watched debates and I read about the differences between the two sane candidates, but for some reason I just can’t get excited about this election. I absolutely loved Bernie but I was …
I visited home last weekend so I could celebrate my birthday with my family. It was a fun time, but I realized that I really like being in Detroit. It just seems really strange being in Grand Rapids after being in Detroit. There are just so many things going on in Detroit good and bad …
The group meetings have all shown me parts of Detroit that I would not have otherwise seen, or resulted in conversations that our groups would not have necessarily had. Though I think that some of the group meetings could have one some more dialogue based activities, because everyone probably got different interpretations of what we …
The experience that has stuck out the most to me while I’ve been in Detroit this summer has definitely been the ability to have frank and honest discussions surrounding our feelings on race, gender, and the things we observe every day. The first such talk I had while in this program was a couple weeks …
As some of us in the program have biked around the city, we have all commented on how friendly many people are, often going out of their way to say hi, wish us a good day, or ask us how we’re doing. Given that we are the ones exploring and entering communities, it seems as …
The biggest thing I’ve observed so far at my placement is that for the most part if people feel like you care then they’ll always welcome you with open arms. I’ve recently been taking the kids to and from tennis and lunch so I’ve gotten to interact with them a lot more and gotten to …
Independence day was this week. Two more black men were killed by police officers for no reason. In the aftermath there were peaceful protests around the country because of even more senseless killings. At one of these protests in Dallas a sniper shot at and killed 5 police officers and injured 7 more. The Dallas …
With all of the things happening in the world right now, I sometimes feel completely hopeless. Then there are people, people who are so utterly amazing and empowering. My boss, was talking to me just a couple minutes ago. She talked about how when she was younger and how anything that got done was done …
