[1]
http://youtu.be/4_HyRP3cPewhttp://youtu.be/4_HyRP3cPew "Whoa
man, it's a very long good read." - PSJ comment from G+ With
years of skepticism under my belt about projects that were a lot
of talk but were really just marketing efforts, I made a little
project to poke at the cause and see if it was legit. [I've seen
them before through the years; but the format of documentaries;
"things are bad. Things are really bad. Things actually far
worse than you could ever possibly imagine. But there's hope.
And we're bringing the hope. And hope does these various things.
And people work together and..." and my Arms of an Angel
defenses come up; the more dire things appear and the more
marvelous and wonderful a solution looks, and the more I find
myself nodding in agreement, the more I have to hear the record
needle scratch in my brain and say, "Wait... stop... hypberbole?
or true?" The white guy helping the poor non-white skin was
another "uh oh... hyperbole-ville" Well, look them up I did. And
they're legit Took a bit of digging around, because anything
that smells "mission" I have to find the driving source behind.
And I'm ok with it. It's a small homespun Christian church. It's
actually pretty cool; 20 comfortable white families uprooted
themselves and moved into an area with ultra-cheap real estate,
buying up vacant lots and abandoned homes, fixing them up,
Thumbs up to these 20 young families. Plus, they were modest
about the religious background of the mission; to me, that's how
someone's religion should be; shown through the good stuff you
do, not put on bumperstickers. Source was here:
[2]
https://jasonandryan.wordpress.com/ [---- begin quote---]
Urban homesteaders More than 20 suburban families have moved
into Lykins, [...] These urban homesteaders are mostly white 20-
to 40-somethings. Most also are members of the Rock, a
nondenominational Christian church founded in 1999 with loosely
affiliated networks of house churches in Kansas, Missouri,
Montana, Wyoming, Texas, Ohio, Michigan and North Carolina. The
Rock*s mission is to *plant* house churches throughout the inner
city so members can live in and work with the communities they
are trying to serve. On the face of it, their tactics for
revitalizing a racially mixed, economically depressed
neighborhood are simple: walk the neighborhood streets, make eye
contact and open your heart. *The biggest problem in this
neighborhood is fear,* Jason Fields says. *There*s a spirit of
hope and community when you decide not to hide from this and own
it. * Something happens when you*re in something together. You
meet people you wouldn*t have met otherwise, and it turns into
really deep friendships.* So far, those friendships mostly have
been with other church members, but a new community garden is
turning out to be fertile ground for getting to know neighbors.
Most Rock members have bought homes in a five-block area. The
church has bought buildings once owned by the Catholic diocese,
including a handsome red brick church built in the 1920s and a
convent that has been remodeled into a home for the Rock*s
32-year-old lead pastor, Ryan Kubicina, and his family. Since
the congregation members prefer to gather in homes to worship,
the church structure at 934 Norton Ave. is a convenient
neighborhood gathering place for everything from art classes to
association meetings. Rock Solid Urban Impact, a charitable
nonprofit headed by the Rock founder Tim Johns that focuses on
the needs of urban youth, owns the dilapidated school built next
door to the church in the 1950s. The school*s restored gym is a
venue for youth wrestling matches, and there are plans to
renovate the other rooms to serve as a community center and
possibly a coffeehouse or farmers market. Next to the school,
the nonprofit bought 13 vacant lots. The heavily wooded property
had become a hang-out for drug dealers and prostitutes. But
earlier this spring, community members worked together to remove
trash, trees and other debris to open up space for 12-by-4-foot
raised garden plots. Jason Fields went door-to-door asking timid
residents * some who spoke Spanish and others who hadn*t had the
courage to answer the door to a stranger in years * if they were
interested in taking care of a free plot. A few families agreed
to join in. *Our hope is that this model becomes way bigger than
the church,* he says. [---- end quote---] And to be honest, I
expected to see members of my class in Hampshire College, where
a lot of kids take film/media classes and they learn how to put
together documentaries to be extraordinarily convincing. Most
have used this Power for Good, [Ken Burns came from that stock
of film school at my college] although some for questionable
motivations as well. They didn't just pretend to live in the
poor area, they really moved there and live and and work there,
to fix it up. What started off as an "Oh no!, not again! 90% of
proceeds go to administrative costs non-profit again!" - is the
real deal. I leave my investigation, satisfied and happy.
References
Visible links
1.
http://youtu.be/4_HyRP3cPew
2.
https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fjasonandryan.wordpress.com%2F&h=SAQFVtMhx&enc=AZOvj8RIXBSeKAHbppXqq0rwbHeeaWwkm8svRiZohaEDgwIbCWv7dZDh8wkY0e3qcDhzG2y2dIElpUxVUfAmAXLXz2ZXdEtp6G8EnzVeLTN1K26vpTYuyjQCG7V7nUwHtnd2Swj-XQnwKi7z1WlENU9L&s=1
