Day 2!

Day 2 by Adrianna Montgomery and Angela Zheng

After settling in, we began the next day by eating breakfast and learning the routine after every meal as well as splitting up into groups and helping with general cleaning throughout the church, Kelly Hall (the YMCA partnered with the mission), and the convent for three hours until lunch. Following lunch we spent three hours getting to know each other and playing ice breakers. Then we went to our first after school program session for the first time. When we first arrived, the program director, Ken, gave us a tour of the YMCA and told us about the program's mission, the infrastructure of the building, the issue of cutting program funding. The government may cut a third of the budget, which would be devastating to the building and program and the amount of kids they serve. After Ken's introduction the kids came in and had a snack. Soon after we split into different age groups. Some groups tutored and all of them spent quality one on one time with the children. Then the kids had a hot meal prepared by the food depository. At six we left and came back and ate dinner. Then Sister Stephanie gave us a great presentation about the neighborhood and its history. Finally, we had reflection about our day.

Expanding upon Sister Stephanie's presentation, we learned a lot about the community of West Humboldt Park and of Chicago. In 1958, at Our Lady of the Angels School, where Galapagos School stands today, there was a fire that killed 92 children and 3 nuns. This event changed the community makeup, causing residents to move away and the community plunged. The real estate agencies in the area thought it would be a good idea to block bust (increasing African Americans to move into the area while raising the cost of homes to make a significant profit). Additionally, urban renewal later shifted the demographic in the area. Racism in the lead led to high unemployment. This led the community into a spiral downfall. The neighborhood became and still is very transient and the people that live here don't feel the need to take care of their environment. There's little sense of dignity in this neighborhood, some don't have enough self respect to even think about caring for where they live. This and other things lead to  bigger complexities in the neighborhood including a vicious cycle of violence, organized crime, and widespread poverty.


Image courtesy of: www.catholicnewworld.com