AUTHENTICITY..

Early in the life of Love City around April 2016, a volunteer group showed up to help us paint the ballroom (one of many times the ballroom at the Mackin would be painted over the last seven years).  It was a group of high schoolers led by a sophomore named Ethan Essex.  Every Wednesday evening at his house out in J-Town, his family would host around 100 students for a weekly youth group.  Ethan and the other co-leader of the group, Catherine, were looking for a place to bring the group to volunteer.

MS. SHARON...

If any of you have ever been down to Love City, you have seen the house we lived in adjacent to the back parking lot.  While we lived there, we parked in the lot behind the building, instead of parking on the street in front of our house on Alford Ave.  Whenever we would go anywhere, we would come out the driveway next to the building onto 26th street.  Across the street from the driveway there lived a woman named Ms. Sharon.  She would sit out on her porch and just observe the neighborhood most days.  She was probably in her early 70s when we moved to the neighborhood.

AMIRRON'S STORY...

About the same time that we started the fish fry in 2015 after we bought the Mackin building from Bobby, we starting having open gym every day.  At the time I was still working full time in the office with Humana, so Shawn would open the gym every day at 2:30 when the school busses would drop off out from and then I would come home around 5:00 and together we would close up the gym around 8pm, walk across the parking lot to our house, have dinner, go to bed and get up and do it all again the next day.  One of the very first days that we opened the gym, a group of 10 and 11 year old boys showed up, curious about who we were, and wanting to “shoot ball at the Mackin.” 

So how do you love people as they are? As the main purpose of our mission statement we actually have a practical list of how we love people as they are.  It's a list of what love is/does and what love is/does not.  For example love is incredibly patient, it joyfully celebrates honesty and is a safe place of shelter for people to be themselves.

On the opposite side love is not jealous when blessing comes to someone else, it does not seek its own honor, it is not easily irritated or quick to take offense and finds no delight in what is wrong.  We try to keep these practical tools in mind as a blueprint for how we love people as they are, which then helps change their lives. 

CARRYING ON THE TORCH...

Over the years Shawn and I have told the story of how we came to Portland countless times.  How we felt that we should sell our house in crescent hill and move to the Portland neighborhood just to love people.  That we didn’t have any grand plans to start Love City, it all just developed that way, starting with purchasing the house we lived in.  The house came with a 20,000 square foot community center next door and when we approached the owner of the house, he said, well it’s free, but you must buy the building.  And then we usually continue with the story of how we started open gym, the fish fry, and the Love City community developed from there.  We don’t usually get into the story of the man that we bought the building from, Bobby Otis. 

FROM OPEN GYM TO COMMUNITY...

One of the first things that we did when we opened the Mackin building was host open gym for kids aged 8 – 18 every weekday from 2:30pm – 8pm.  News of a free basketball gym open every day quickly spread throughout the neighborhood and before we knew it we had 75 – 100 kids a day coming to the gym.  Two of those kids were twins Sebastian and Santana.  They were a lanky pre-teen brother and sister, in middle school at Westport Middle across town, even though they lived literally around the corner from the gym.  Sebastian loved basketball and Santana just loved hanging in the gym, talking with her friends…

A WEEK IN THE LIFE...

Even though school is out for the summer, and we had two weeks in between the time school ended and camps begin, things certainly did not slow down at Love City.  With many moving parts, below is a snapshot of how the week went for us last week.

It started Sunday night.  It was about 11:30pm and I woke up to Shawn on the phone with 911, directing them to the old Grace Lutheran parsonage house that we own.  It is located right next to the old Grace Lutheran church which is going to be the site of the new preschool.  We have been having problems with people trying to break in, so a couple weeks ago we installed a security system with cameras.  Shawn gets alerts to his phone whenever the motion detectors for any camera are triggered

I WASN'T EXPECTING THAT.. 

One week ago Thursday we finished our first full school year at Mighty Oak Academy.  One of the main things we talked about with our students and our staff throughout the school year is our goal of fostering a sense of school family.  School family infused everything we did, how we taught, how we loved the kids, how we handled melt downs and arguments, everything.  And just like in a real family we had our ups and downs throughout the year, but when it came time for the final day of school, I was unprepared for the kids’ reactions to leaving for summer break.

IT REALLY DOES ALL BEGIN WITH FOOD... 

Last Friday, after we had closed down Porkland for the last time as a restaurant, Shawn and Ethan were doing some final clean up in the kitchen and I sat by myself on the old pew from St Cecilia next to the order counter, taking in the now quiet space and remembering.  In my mind I could see neighbors, that had become friends, chatting with each other while waiting in line to order, business meetings taking place at the table in the corner during a busy lunch rush, kids playing with the pop a shot basketball game and climbing all over the half of a VW bug while their parents waited for their order to come to their table.  I thought back to how it all started and the power of food.  All the community that would take place every day at Porkland started when we unknowingly tapped into the history and tradition of food in the Portland neighborhood. 

THE LAST FULL WEEK OF PORKLAND... 

As we announced on Monday, this is the last week of Porkland as a restaurant.  Starting next week Porkland will transition to catering only.  We still hope to continue to see all our neighbors both near and far for the Love City Friday Fish Fry and BBQ on Fridays starting May 27.  While it has been a bittersweet week we are looking forward as we determine the next steps for the St Cecilia campus, and we are happy to still be able to welcome community on Fridays.  Be sure to come see us on Friday from 11am - 7pm.  

Hey friends and neighbors,

After operating Porkland BBQ for four years, it has recently come to our attention that the property where Porkland is located is not zoned to be a restaurant.  Unfortunately, this will be our last week operating as a restaurant at 2519 St Cecilia St. 
 
However, we are happy to announce that under our current zoning we can continue to love on our neighbors by hosting a fundraiser on Fridays that will include BBQ and fish. Starting Friday May 27, we will be open from 11am – 7pm continuing what we have built upon the last 6 years which started at the Mackin.

PRESCHOOL CAMPUS UPDATE! 

We had some very exciting progress on our pre-school campus this week! While we are still waiting for formal approval of our zoning permit for the parking lot and playground, we got approval to go ahead and tear down the two abandoned houses that were on the property.  The demo permits were issued this week and demo has already started. The first house is already down, and next week they start working on the second.  Check out the progress below! 

HAPPY OAKS AND DERBY FROM LOVE CITY! 

We want to wish everyone a very happy and safe Derby this weekend!  Read on below for some of the Derby fun we had at Mighty Oak Academy this week! 

What started out as a Derby parade complete with homemade derby hats turned into a horse race in the gym on Thursday.  Our Kindergarten through 3rd grade classes took part in the races with their own homemade pool noodle "horses." We had two races and two first place finishers who got to have their names written on the "trophy box" which is now proudly on display in our new trophy case at the front of the school! Congratulations to our winners and to everyone in the parade! 

A LEGACY OF COMMUNITY...

I didn’t really know that much about the history of Louisville when I moved here from Washington DC in the fall of 2007.  I had driven out to Louisville for one visit and admired the historical architecture of the highlands and old Louisville and felt at home knowing that there at least was history here.  Coming from the east coast that is so rich in layers of centuries of history, I felt like I was moving “out west” the further and further away I got from the Atlantic Ocean.  I had never lived this far inland and felt like at least I had the Ohio river if I needed the peace that only a body of water could bring over my soul. 

COMMUNITY...

Yesterday evening a good friend of Shawn’s came over to hang out on the front porch, enjoy the nice weather and catch up.  He is a pastor at a church here in the west end and he had a story he wanted to share with Shawn. 
 
He and Shawn met during the pandemic when we started putting together food boxes for the community.  While doing food relief is not normally something that Love City would be involved in, when the covid shutdowns started, we knew that it would be important to start some kind of food relief in order to not only provide for needs during a difficult time, but also to help quell some of the collective anxiety in our neighborhoods. 

PRE-SCHOOL ZONING UPDATE...

On Tuesday of this week we held the public meeting about the conditional use permit for the pre-school campus on 26th St.  Our goal is to transform the old Grace Lutheran church and 5 lots next to it into a state of the art day care/ preschool for our neighborhood.  We plan to put an outdoor play space as well as outdoor garden and a paved parking lot with landscaping and fencing to create a park like setting for the preschool campus.  

FROM AFRICA TO LOVE CITY...

Back in the early days of open gym, we had over 175 kids a night coming to the Mackin building to hang out and play ball.  It was loud, boisterous, sometimes contentious when games didn’t go their way, but there was always a lot of love in the building.  One evening an acquaintance we had met who worked for Catholic Charities Refugee program showed up with a large family that had recently arrived from a Tanzania refugee camp.  It was a mom and dad and their six children, 5 boys and one girl.  They were from Congo originally and had been living in the refugee camp in Tanzania for the past 15 years. 

UPCOMING ZONING PLANNING MEETING...

We have mentioned a few times that one of our goals is to open a preschool campus at the corner of 26th and Bank St in the old Grace Lutheran church building. We purchased the church building in the fall of 2019 and started demo to convert the old Sunday school building attached to the church into a preschool that can house 100 kids aged 1 – 5 years old.  When COVID hit all construction came to a halt, but we were able to purchase additional lots next to the church to put together plans for a whole preschool campus.  These plans included outdoor play space, and parking for staff and families.

COMMUNITY CLEAN UP DAY...

Over the years we have had many volunteers that have come through Love City.  They have come from as far away as California and as close as next door.  When we do orientation sessions for volunteers we always stress the importance of neighbors coming together to love each other and change our city.  This past week we hosted teams of volunteers again for the first time since COVID.  This is spring break season and even though our school is still in session for another week, other schools and colleges around the country are off this week and some decided to take a trip to volunteer rather than the traditional hitting the beach spring break trip. 

BACK TO WHERE IT ALL BEGAN...

I’m sure that if you’ve been around or involved in Love City in any way, you have most likely heard a little bit about how Love City started and even a little bit about how Shawn and I met.  Even though Shawn and I were both living in Louisville we didn’t actually meet each other until we were in Rome Italy, studying abroad with Bellarmine University’s MBA program in May of 2013. 
 
Shawn was in the class of 2013, and I was in the class of 2014.  MBA classes at Bellarmine are done on the cohort model, so you take all your classes with the same group of 20-30 people.