You get creative when you want to try and be a good neighbor. When Hope House Montgomery started about a year and a half ago, my main focus was facilitating an after-school reading program. Reading is a vital tool for enabling our youth to have a chance at success in our world. When that didn’t happen as quickly as we had hoped, we began thinking about ways to make a difference. It didn’t need to be big, but something that indicated that we cared about our Community.
With that thinking in mind, we began picking trash up in our neighborhood. We had lots of trash, and I could either complain about it or get out and pick it up. It was a way to get out and meet a few neighbors. As we canvassed the area and did trash pick up, we became aware of our Community’s diversity.
We have many young Hispanic families where the children know English, but the parents do not. I had this idea after attempting to converse with several. Unfortunately, I am not bilingual, knowing only a few words in Spanish, but there is a young couple at the Hunter Hills church, and after talking with them, they agreed to help. They are bilingual in English and Spanish and had previously taught an English as a second language class, so we were hopeful that this endeavor might work.
Dessy and Kiara (HHM interns) and I canvassed the neighborhood with a survey in Spanish, but since we did not speak Spanish, we could not explain this free ESL class. So Alan and Nancy agreed to come on a Saturday and canvass the area. Dessy and Kiara went with Alan and Nancy, and I stayed and kept their children company.
It’s been a couple of months, but we have around five adults coming each Monday at 6 pm. I am fascinated by language and enjoy watching Alan teach vowels and verb conjugation. I am sure they wonder why I am there since I don’t teach or fully understand, but I am learning. I plan to start learning Spanish as well. This opportunity to converse in English will be helpful to our neighbors and move us closer to working together in our Community.
I have avoided Community in the past because it can be messy, and it seems someone always gets hurt or disappointed. I have learned that it’s okay for the work of Community to be a struggle and for us not to agree or have uniformity. We are here to find commonalities, to help connect despite our differences, and to learn to help heal our broken and selfish world. The only way we can move forward is to lift one another to the potential gifted to each of us, which may include some growing pains and failures. Going through the pains of living and growing in Community will make us stronger and better people.