Summer in the City

• Enlarge

Category: All Saints Neighborhood Centers

Summer in the City is great!

Hi. I'm Angela Maue. I learned about Summer in the City through my mom. She saw a write up in the newspaper about it and thought I would enjoy it. Boy was she right! I really enjoy going to Summer in the City during the week. It gives me something worthwhile to do. I have had so much fun!

Today my buddies and I had a lot of fun. I went on the tire swing first and then did some chalk. I saw some girls double dutching and I tried to do it. I am actually pretty good at it. The kids were well behaved. I made some lily pads and a rainbow with chalk.

Summer in the City is a great place to be! Thanks for creating this group to help others.

• More Images

Category: All Saints Neighborhood Centers

All Saints enriches volunteers and children

Countless games of tag, an All Saints original game of Princess and the Castle (La princesa y el castillo), and friendly bantering at the shaded benches while regaining our strength in the sweltering summer sun all are notable components of the typical Summer in the City experience. I have volunteered with this program on and off throughout my high school summers, and this summer has definitely been one of the most fun and enriching experiences of volunteer work I have ever participated in. Getting to spend the beautiful summer days in the largest and one of the most vibrant cities in Michigan with a variety of kids that all possess different personalities truly makes each day worthwhile.

From participating in the program regularly, I get to know that 7-year-old Karen loves to play tag and has professional hiding capabilities, Melody enjoys modeling and posing for pictures and Gabriela is the fastest runner and is rarely "It" during our routine games of tag.

The moment the cars have parked along the streets and we eagerly approach the All Saints Center to find a buddy, I cannot help but anticipate what the day will bring, though I am can be pretty sure it will include hanging out with my favorite group of girls. Getting to know the multitude of children in the program is a truly unique experience everyday. Besides, who doesn't want to soak up the sun and simultaneously improve their Spanish conversational skills during summer's dry-spell of not practicing verb conjugations each week?

• More Images

Category: All Saints Neighborhood Centers

New opportunities at All Saints

So we are a little more than half way past the SITC summer and things are a changing. Last week was our final week of the Arts and Smarts program at Glazer Elementary and our tutoring/paint the lockers program at Dixon.

Over the past four-five weeks the volunteers from SITC had gotten to know some of the kids very well, and it was tough for some of us to leave them and move on to other projects.

Last Friday we took the kids from Glazer to Clark Park and for some of us the goodbye at the end of the day was tough. We will meet some of these same kids next year, and the bonds that were built between the volunteers and their buddies will last the test of time.

As sad as we all were at the end of last week, everyone was really excited on Tuesday and it showed. We had 42 volunteers at the Andover carpool site, one of the highest numbers I can remember. A lot of us headed over to All Saints Community Center; some of us nervous, most of us excited. The children at All Saints are just awesome. Even the most zealous SITC volunteer can't come close to matching their enthusiasm and energy. We could also tell how appreciative they were of us. Tuesday was our first day there and when we went back on Wednesday, the kids already had memorized many of our names!

The change of sites is one of the things I love most about Summer in the City. It gives the volunteers a chance to really explore Detroit. We have done projects all over Detroit: north, south, east, west, Belle Isle, everywhere. I venture to say that most of these volunteers had never been to Mexican Village before our field trip to Clark Park last Friday. Although they didn't get a chance to see everything this slice of Detroit had to offer, they at least got some initial impressions that may make them want to come back.

Unfortunately, we have only three weeks left for SITC this summer, but I'm sure that in no time we'll be once again forming friendships with the All Saints children just as we had done at Dixon and Glazer elementary schools.

Category: All Saints Neighborhood Centers

One day can change a lot

Hi, I'm Emily Gordy, and this is my first year at Summer in the City. In the past, community service was a necessity I never looked forward to doing. As a Birmingham resident, Detroit has never been a big part of my life, and I didn't have much interest in spending time there. This all changed after one day with Summer in the City.

I chose to spend my first day with the children at the All Saints Neighborhood Center. When we arrived there, we were led into a room with many children in it and we were told to pick a buddy. I met a 5-year-old boy named Jose, and he became my buddy.

At first, Jose was very quiet. Then we went across the street to the playground where he grew more comfortable with me and we ended up having a great time. One of the highlights was when he saw a few people playing soccer in the grass. He became very excited and told me he wanted to play, so we went over and joined the game. I was surprised to see how good he was, especially at such a young age. He scored lots of goals and was pretty much fearless when it came to going after the ball. I could tell he really enjoyed playing soccer, which was something I could identify with, because I used to play soccer when I was his age.

We also had a lot of fun having small little competitions like tic-tac-toe and rock-paper-scissors. He told me that whoever won 10 games first would be the winner and was a good sport when I would win a round.

After we finished our game, we went over to a picnic table where people were making houses and other things with popsicle sticks. I helped Jose to build a popsicle stick house, although I think more glue ended up on us than on the paper!

When it was time for me to leave, I was sad to go. I gave Jose a big hug and he came to the gate and waved as we left. My first day at Summer in the City was a really good experience because it allowed me to bond with Jose, a boy who wasn't that different than I.

I learned that even though we come from different places, we're still just kids who enjoy having fun.