Blogs

ArtWorks945 at the Charlotte Art League

Jewel Reavis, president and gallery rental chair of the Charlotte Art League, has generously donated ArtWorks 945 wall space at CAL's upcoming exhibit. The theme for the exhibit is METAMORPHOSIS. CAL is located in SouthEnd, at 1517 Camden Road. The exhibit will open this Friday March 5 from 6-9pm, during the South End Gallery Crawl. Come join us in celebrating our artists' work, as well as the work of other community artists. We're hoping to get some of our artists to the opening, too! See you there.

Thanks to CAL for their new partnership with us! For more information on the Charlotte Art League, visit their website at www.charlotteartleague.org.

Troop 162 Collaborates with Street Soccer 945

Street Soccer Blog

Saturday, Kevin Gassaway and Troop 162 spearheaded an effort to build walls for the outdoor Street Soccer court at the Urban Ministry Center. Thanks for all your hard work! Below, Kevin shares his experience.

Today I spent the morning at the Urban Ministry Center with the Street Soccer 945 team and with several members of my Boy Scout Troop 162. We were there building a new wall for the street soccer court since the old one was run down and not in good condition. We cut 2x8's, painted plywood, drilled nails, and put the wall together. Craig(Swagger), Jose, Justin, Osman, Fransisco, Pete, Brittany, and other members of the team helped us out with the project.

After we finished building the wall, Swagger, Pete, and Brittany talked to us about the Street Soccer program. Swagger talked about the confidence that it brought him to play soccer and how it helped him not only on the court, but off it as well. When we finished hearing about his experience in the program, we got to test the walls out with a 3 on 3 Street Soccer Tournament, while we ate lunch with the players. Each team had 2 Boy Scouts and a member of the Street Soccer team. The Czech Republic (Jose, Anthony Dellamea, and Conor Renaghan) beat Mexico (Osman, Fransisco, and Brittany) in a shootout to win the tournament. The wall passed our test and worked out very well. Hopefully it will be helpful in the future as well.

The players were all really fun to play with and taught me a lot. They would help me if I did anything wrong and encouraged me and the rest of the group to do well. My team didn't get to win the tournament, but it was still a lot of fun to get to play with Swagger and all of the other players. Today was a really fun experience and I would love to play with them again, and even help out on the team.

Check out this video to see more.

To learn more about Street Soccer 945 and to get involved, contact Brittany at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

Street Soccer Wins Season Opener

Street Soccer Blog

Wednesday night Street Soccer started off the season with a bang, defeating the Little Kickers 4-2. Passing effectively, keeping possession and finishing opportunities, the team notched their first victory. Check out this video if you missed the action. Next Wednesday Street Soccer plays at 7pm at Sports Connection off Westinghouse Blvd. Hope to see you there!

Bridges Update

Bridges Updates Blog

Bridges Update, 2-12-10

Paul Hanneman and Wanda Anderson

If you haven’t yet seen the Oscar-nominated film “Precious: Based on the Novel ‘Push’ by Sapphire” about an illiterate, obese black teenager who has two children by her father, we urge you to go. For us, it portrays formidable challenges facing people in generational poverty with stunning accuracy. The movie is a stark corrective to success-oriented middle class assumptions about the conditions with which people in poverty contend; it’s only when you’re faced with others’ situations that you realize how much you’d mapped over from your own experience.

Wanda discovered this “when I did home visitations working as a supervisor for a mental health community support team. I realized that for most all of my career as a social worker, people had come to me, to my office, rather than my going to them. I went to visit a woman who had been homeless for years due to her mental illness. She also had multiple health issues and was a kidney dialysis patient. She was living with an ex-boyfriend and his new girlfriend. It was early March and still cold outside. I walked into the house and her bed was right by the door. The first thing I noticed was that the bed did not have sheets or an adequate blanket. She used a wheel chair and there were several steps to get into the house, I wondered how she managed that with no wheelchair ramp. My goal was to interview her for immediate needs and introduce myself as the new supervisor. Within a few minutes there I got very cold. The woman was talking to me but I could not concentrate because I was so cold. All I could think about was finding a way to get their gas turned back on. It struck me after I left that I did not really hear a thing the woman had said because I was focused on being cold and wanting to get warm. I realized that this is how many of our clients felt when they come to us for help and their focus is only one survival and their immediate needs. I felt it was ludicrous of us to expect people to be present when they are in survival. The first thing I did for that woman was a referral to get the gas turned on before I visited again.”

Not that “Precious” is without serious flaws. The poor people are primarily African American and the people who help Precious are white. In an op-ed piece in the New York Times (Feb. 5, 2010), prominent African American poet and author Ishmael Reed notes that “Judging from the mail I’ve received, the conversations I’ve had and all that I’ve read, the responses to “Precious’” fall largely along racial lines. Among black men and women, there is widespread revulsion and anger… This use of movies and books to cast collective shame upon an entire community doesn’t happen with works about white dysfunctional families… Such stereotyping [about incest in black families, for instance] has led to calamities being visited on minority communities…white characters are always portrayed as caring. There to help. Never shown as contributing to the oppression of African-Americans. Problems that members of the black underclass encounter are a result of their culture, their lack of personal responsibility.”

We agree that “Precious” stacks the deck racially. Yet we also believe it possible to keep these flaws in mind and view the movie through the lens of poverty. It’s painful to do so. Although Reed points out the fact that whites are not shown as contributing to the oppression of African-Americans, we think it is fair to say that most people who are not in poverty might play the role of contributing to oppression of those who are in poverty -regardless of race. Those issues portrayed in the movie “Precious” are typical issues that women in poverty could face and we have worked with women of all races to verify that “Precious” could be the story of any woman in poverty.

We also recommend you see “Million Dollar Baby” and pay particular attention to the scenes with the lead character’s family. In this movie the lead character’s success is not supported but mocked by her mother. They both reject her and try to rob her of her resources. Both of us know many situations where someone trying to move out of survival is rejected by her family and friends. If you’re relationally based and rejected by the very people around whom you’ve built your life, the challenge to get out is enormous.

Blogs

ArtWorks945 at the Charlotte Art League

Troop 162 Collaborates with Street Soccer 945

Street Soccer Wins Season Opener

Bridges Update

More Articles...