Community

When we think about the vision of community that Shawn and I had when we first moved to Portland and started Love City, we have seen it happen over the years in fits and starts. For example, it was always a dream of ours to have a whole economic system within love city that included hiring people from the neighborhood while at the same time providing beautiful spaces in the neighborhood and places for neighbors to come together. One of those ideas was we would have kids from what was open gym at the time work on a landscaping crew. All the members of the crew would have a job, they would landscape and maintain not only love city properties but also lawns in the neighborhood that wanted to pay for their services. Over the years we had a few kids from open gym that worked on landscaping here and there, but no one was really interested in making a commitment to any kind of job.

Now 8 years later we have a group of kids that have bought into the idea of community and want to make a commitment to a job. We have profiled the current 8th grade class here at Mighty Oak several times in the newsletter over this past school year. We’ve talked about how far they have come since the beginning of the school year, both academically and in maturity, we’ve talked about how they have gradually bought in to not only learning but also community. They volunteer around the school as well as at the Fish Fry. A couple of months ago, the first few kids from that class turned 14 years old, the age that kids can legally work with their parent’s permission. One of those kids was Kingston.

When Kingston first came to Mighty Oak, he was in the 7th grade. During his admissions interview he was very upfront about his dislike for school, and how he didn’t want to go to school and didn’t see value in it. His 7th grade year was difficult as they did not have a full-time teacher for most of the year. He was true to his word that he said in the interview, he did not take school seriously and was often disruptive in class. At the beginning of this year when he started 8th grade, his attitude had not changed. When Shawn took over the class in early August, he would tell Shawn every day how much he hated Mighty Oak, and how much he hated Shawn. We had numerous meetings with his family to talk about him withdrawing from Mighty Oak because he was so unhappy here and was refusing to do any work which was putting him on the path to fail 8th grade.

*Closing the Fish fry with our new crew of 8th graders. From left, Hayden (who just turned 14 this week) , Shawn, Sebastian, Ethan, and 8th graders, Kingston and Grace*

Then we had winter break. We’re still not sure what clicked in Kingston, but he came back from winter break different. It was like he understood the goal of the school, and what we were trying to accomplish. He started listening, doing his work (he is very smart, and capability was never the issue with Kingston, he was always fully capable of doing the work), and no longer said he hated Mighty Oak or Shawn. Gradually overtime as it became apparent his change in attitude was not a fluke, he was able to build trust with Shawn as his teacher. He came with us on the 8th grade trip to Washington DC, staying with us at my family’s house for the trip. He was truly a different person.

As his 14th birthday approached, he asked Shawn about getting a job. We had him come to the Fish Fry to volunteer a couple of Fridays as a type of interview. He proved himself to be a hard worker, eager to listen and learn the tasks and able to take direction in the kitchen well. The ability to take direction in the kitchen and respond quickly and correctly impressed us all. Restaurant kitchens are a different world. The head chef usually barks orders, and it feels like being in a war to get all the tickets out on time correctly. Kingston hung in there. Shawn was impressed with his abilities, saying after one Friday he’d go to war with Kingston any day.

The weather started to get warmer and the grass around all the Love City properties started to sprout up again. Kingston also expressed interest in being on a landscaping crew. Other 8th graders who were starting to turn 14 also said they wanted to be on the crew too. Yesterday Kingston and Sebastian did the landscaping down at what will become the new preschool campus for the first time this season. Shawn and I swung by to check on them on our way home from school yesterday. Sebastian had started out coming to open gym when we first started Love City and now works for Love City full time. Shawn pulled up to check in with Sebastian to see how Kingston was doing. “He’s doing great,” Sebastian said, “he is a hard worker.”

As we pulled off to head home, I told Shawn, “We never would have guessed it would be 8 years before that dream of a landscaping crew would come true.” Now we have a group of kids that have bought in to community, want to better their own community and have the commitment to do it. It may have taken 8 years for us to get there but it’s a beautiful thing to see.

Inga

Awareness Night March 26th…

Please join us at Lou Lou on Market on March 26th to hear about what Love City has going on now and where we are headed. We are super excited for the night and would love to see you there. To RSVP email click on this link.

Field Trips!

As the weather gets warmer we are excitedly planning learning activities outside the classroom! Our educators have lined up some amazing opportunities but we need your help to make it happen! Our goal is to visit Payton Glass Creative Center and the Louisville Zoo in the next couple of months before school lets out for the summer. If you are interested in helping support our school's field trips, please click the link below to contribute to the field trip fund!

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