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John Quinones

Molli Spalter

ENG 3020

23 September 2018

Volunteering with Urban Neighborhood Initiatives: Making a Difference Through Literacy

Community engagement has always been beneficial to me. It makes me feel great and

accomplished to be active in the community and work together with people to achieve a common

goal.

At first, I needed to sign up for a 3000 level English class to fulfill my intermediate

composition requirement and service-learning requirement for the Irvin D. Reid Honors College

at Wayne State. After much research and comparison between ENG 3010 and ENG 3020, I

signed up for ENG 3020 because the course description for this class was not like any other

traditional English class I have taken before. I was attracted to being able to serve a community

outside of normal class time, reflect on it, and write about it afterwards. This class is different, in

a good way, and it caught my attention.

I was raised to not only focus on my own interests, but to also have focus on the interests

of others. In the article “Poor Kids and the ‘Word Gap’,” Jessica Lahey quotes Horace Mann,

“Education, is a great equalizer of the conditions of men, the balance wheel of the social

machinery” (1). I completely agree with this. I believe that each person can achieve a chance to

succeed, as long as they receive the education required to become a contribution to society. One

way I have contributed to this so far in my life is through helping and valuing the education of
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my peers in school. In high school, I was a member and officer of the National Honor Society,

which gave me a gateway to voluntarily tutor local middle school and high school students in

any subject that they needed assistance with. I tutored almost daily because I enjoyed the

engagement and bonds that I had with the students. But more importantly, I was learning from

them, most of the time without even realizing it. I was fortunate to have attended a diverse high

school. The students I instructed all have different backgrounds, and this opportunity gave me

different viewpoints on why a certain student may be struggling. After realizing what may be the

root cause of a certain student’s struggle, I adapt, tackle the issue head-on with the student, and

usually become very active and wanting to see my peers succeed. I plan to use a very similar

method while I take part in community engagement and working with kids in ENG 3020.

Volunteering through Urban Neighborhood Initiatives, or UNI, is an opportunity that I

am excited to experience for it will give me a chance to share my passion that I have for

education and development of children. ENG 3020, along with UNI, will educate and challenge

me to acquire contrasting perspectives and insights on community engagement and activism

from an unfamiliar environment, and I eagerly look forward to it. In this essay, I will articulate

my experiences and assumptions about the demographics, education, and the term “saviorism,”

that I will encounter while volunteering with UNI.

Before I started ENG 3020, I was not aware that UNI existed in Detroit. After going to a

few classes, watching a presentation from a UNI representative, and glancing at the

organization’s website, I have developed beliefs and assumptions about UNI. UNI “Works with

communities in urban neighborhoods to build safe and thriving environments where people want

to live, work, and play” in the Springwells area. (“Urban Neighborhood Initiatives”) They are

there to guide and protect the community from activity, like drug use or gang affiliation, that
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they may be susceptible to. I believe that this organization and its services have a positive impact

on the community that it serves because they target essential neighborhood needs. UNI, in

summary, works on the improvement of youth development, education, and land use &

economic development. For the purpose of this class and what we are volunteering for, youth

development and education are the main focus.

The demographics in the Springwells Village were very interesting to me. The first

characteristic that surprised me about the community that UNI serves is the dominant race in the

Springwells Village. The majority of the people that live in the village are Hispanic. This

surprised me because my initial thought was that volunteering in Detroit meant that we would

more than likely be serving the black population. Being culturally diverse in a city that has a

dominant race is a benefit to the community because this can inspire creativity and change for

the better. I hold this belief because I live in an area that is very culturally diverse and I was able

to witness the importance of this community trait. The second characteristic that surprised me

was that most of the population’s age in this community is under the age of 18. This surprised

me because this statistic is the main reason why youth development and education are critical

necessities that cannot be neglected in this community.

Education in the city of Detroit is currently experiencing a crisis. In Eliza Mills and

Lizzie O’Leary’s article, “In Detroit, a battle over the right to literacy,” Mills and O’Leary

designate attention on the Detroit Public School system’s struggles. They contend that “The

teacher vacancies, the poor [building] conditions, lack of textbooks and materials – contribute to

the issue of illiteracy in Detroit schools and violate the constitutional rights of the students who

attend public school in the city” (1). The Springwells Village is within the boundaries of the

Detroit Public Schools and are thus affected by this crisis. UNI has intrigued me that they have
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taken on the challenge in combating this tricky and difficult issue of improving education in the

community because they are a non-profit corporation that relies heavily on volunteers on the

public.

Another aspect of this course that has intrigued me was a class discussion we had about

“saviorism.” This term is rather new to me for it never came to mind while I did volunteer work

in the past. The notion that children, who do not know anything about you at all, have a high

expectation that you will come and “save the day” is thought-provoking to me because I wonder

if it is actually true. In contrast, they might “save” me more than I will “save” them, which is

very interesting to think about. Nevertheless, I look forward to experiencing what their initial

thoughts about my group and I are, and if they have any changes in their opinions about us as we

volunteer more, and the semester progresses.

I believe that the environment and the kids that I will be working with will be very

surprising to me because I truly do not know what to expect until I go out there and do it. I do

not have much experience with younger kids and this area of Detroit is a place that I have been

to yet, but I view this as a great opportunity for me to experience and serve a completely

different group of people.

In contrast, though, a main concern that I have about volunteering with UNI is the board

of the organization. The executive director is a white person who oversees an organization that

has a goal to build a safe and thriving Latino environment. This can beg the question if she is

coordinating improvements for the community that actually benefits them. Does she have the

correct judgement and firsthand experience to run this operation? Is she therefore qualified to

have this position? This is somewhat disturbing, but I do not want to disregard the positive
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initiatives that UNI has done so far, rather I have much respect UNI’s success that they have had

in the Springwells community for almost the past two decades.

I am a person that is always in search of making a difference in a community. I interpret

myself as someone who acts upon a situation rather than sit back and just let it be without

sharing my ideas and experiences with others. In contrast, I reflect on what I just experienced

and learned from others, so I have a better understanding of what I just did. Overall, I have a

great passion for helping others and I believe that researching through ENG 3020 and

volunteering with UNI will be an excellent opportunity to utilize my passion once again.

The Springwells Village is a suburb of Detroit in which I believe has high potential, but

also high vulnerability. This Hispanic community is a minority of the city of Detroit and is full of

the next generation of people that represents what it could be in the future. Springwells is a

budding culturally diverse area. From what I learned in my anthropology of business class,

cultural diversity is one of the most effective tools to have to spark innovation, originality, and

individuality. The Springwells Village can very well utilize what assets they have, but is

suffering from the exclusion of Detroit’s recent resurgence. In Bankole Thompson’s article,

“Detroit is ‘booming’ again. You have to be rich and power to notice, though,” Thompson states

that “There is a Detroit that is a priority for the rich and well connected, and then there is a

Detroit where [the] vast majority of the people lament a different existence marked by misery”

(2). Detroit has impoverished neighborhoods with no special attention to them. The Springwells

Village is one of these neighborhoods that is affected. They cannot wait for the resources needed

for their community, as well as the Detroit Public School system, to allocate correctly. They

must seek assistance from somewhere else, which is where UNI comes in to act on what they do

best.
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Through UNI, the young citizens of the Springwells community will be able to have

guidance and support that they need to become successful in life. I believe that in the early ages

of life, literacy is one of the most important factors that will influence the rest of a person’s life.

Through community engagement, one of my main goals is to make sure that the children that I

will be working with will be literate and will have the motivation to pursue higher education. My

stance towards volunteering with UNI is less susceptible to some of the concerns raised in class

about community activism because I have experience in it. I have done it many times before, and

the only difference this time is the environment, but instead of being afraid of it, I embrace the

new situation.

Having life-changing goals in mind for the kids makes me more willing to volunteer. I

remember about a decade ago when older volunteers would come to my elementary and middle

school. I was always excited when they come to read, write, and play games with me. They told

me to always work hard and do well in school, and that still sticks with me today. I looked up to

them and wanted to be just like them. I did not know exactly what they were doing for me at the

time, but I knew it was something special and always made me feel good inside. Now that I am

older and more mature, I am forever thankful for them being a reason for who I am today. The

impact that my mentors had on me is what I hope to have on the children that I will be working

with through UNI.

Through class discussions and reflecting on the presentation from UNI, the children that I

will be interacting with are different than I am, but also the same. They will most likely be

majority Latino and bilingual, speaking both English and Spanish fluently. I have high respect

for cultural diversity and I look forward to experiencing this while I volunteer. The kids may all

come from different backgrounds and have different stories, but they all, including me, share the
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same goal. That is, they come in, willing to learn, develop, and expand their knowledge about

one another with a shared focus on literacy.

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Works Cited

Lahey, Jessica. “Poor Kids and the 'Word Gap'.” The Atlantic, Atlantic Media Company, 30 Oct.

2014, www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/10/american-kids-are-starving-for-

words/381552/.

Detroit, Urban Neighborhood Initiatives. “Urban Neighborhood Initiatives.” Urban

Neighborhood Initiatives, 2018, www.unidetroit.org/.

Mills, Eliza, and Lizzie O'Leary. “In Detroit, a Battle over the Right to Literacy.” Marketplace,

Marketplace, 10 Aug. 2017, 6:00 AM, www.marketplace.org/2017/08/10/life/detroit-

battle-over-right-literacy.

Thompson, Bankole. “Detroit Is 'Booming' Again. You Have to Be Rich and Powerful to Notice,

Though | Bankole Thompson.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 9 July 2017,

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/09/detroit-economic-recovery-poverty-

mike-duggan.