17 Years of Gratefulness

These past weeks I have been really struggling…I was already feeling the weight of what my friends and family endure and overcome each day. Many of those friends-  those family are the folks who make up the Urban Mentors Network.  As I have been prayerfully carrying those worries and cares paired with deep admiration, some questions arose over how Urban Mentors functions and whether what we are doing is effective.  It has weighed me down with concern and sadness.

After more than nine years of working in the traditional non-profit world I watched services follow funding or studies and I saw vulnerable youth pay the cost. If a county changed its policy or buddied up to a new organization services could change rapidly – youth could lose therapists or mentors, they had grown to trust. What the youth or their families needed or wanted mattered when it could, but often funding sources had the last word.

While I was working in this world I was building and maintaining authentic, long term, messy relationships with youth and families in my neighborhood. I was living in East Oakland and I was outside my own culture, away from my own family and folks took me in as their own. They also allowed me the privilege of loving their children. These were the relationships that sealed my commitment to Oakland…not a “save the world” idea or my hope of changing others…they changed me and allowed me do life with them. We held each other’s joys, celebrations, fears and pains…we still do.

I arrived in Oakland in 2000, misguided and well meaning. In 2017 I hold so much gratefulness for the ways Oakland has loved me, taught me and trusted me to be a part of the family. Today I am so grateful for the parents of Urban Mentors, who have been through hell and back but keep fighting for their children, they fight for me and they fight to make Oakland better for everyone.  Over 17 years I have seen so much perseverance and transformation- very little of it was due to Urban Mentors but all of it has helped make Urban Mentors what it is. They and their children have a voice in every decision and vision that comes into existence through Urban Mentors. Urban Mentors Network is more than a program…we are a family of parents, youth and volunteer mentors working together to build positive community and our hope is to empower our youth to lead and serve while having a safe place to explore who they are and who they want to be. Everyone has a voice in Urban Mentors and everyone brings something to the table helping build a strong beautiful broken family…funding will never determine the quality or the length of our relationships. We are doing life together. We are fighting for each other.

Sometimes we look like other programs, often we don’t – because we are so much more than a program. This Thanksgiving season I will reflect on 17 years or relationships, 17 years of memories and miracles that shape who I am and shape what Urban Mentors is. I will seek to push through this heavy- hearted season and find my joy knowing I am blessed.

The greatest privilege I have ever been afforded is to do life with all of you. You courageous, strong, talented, underestimated family of world changers…Thank you Urban Mentors Network, thank you East Oakland for being more than words will ever explain. Thank you for taking me in and loving me. Thank you for encouraging me and sacrificing along with me to build this community. Thank you for forgiving me when I messed up or thought I knew more than I did. Thank you for mentoring me into a more authentic, stronger woman. I have tears in my eyes, praying we get another 17 years together…hopefully many more.

A Troubling Day: Smoke Signals

Yesterday the smoke continued to cloud our Oakland sky...smoke signals...cries for help from our brothers and sisters in the Northern Valleys. I awoke to news that a 13 year old boy had been gunned down the night before less than five minutes from my home...just up the street- next to a school. A 13 year old is dead. His dreams, his parents dreams for him...are dead. The love and the pain is not.

As I prepared for Urban Mentors' evening group I could not shake the blanket of worry that wrapped me up with concern. I began thinking of all my youth and more speficially all of my youth who do not have stable housing. I began thinking about all of my boys who do not have consistent access or love from their fathers. Most of my youth do not have their dads active in their lives. I currently have youth whose fathers are no longer alive, are doing serious prison time or have been deported...some are just absent.

I remember thinking I was poor growing up. Our family was different from my classmates. We had a small imperfect house. My parents were not as educated as the rest of the Ann Arbor folks I knew. My classmates made sure I knew my jeans weren't "Guess"; my white canvas shoes didnt have the blue "Keds" stamp of approval.  We didn't travel on breaks from school and I spent my senior year spring break scooping ice cream  (working) while my classmates traveled to Cancun. What I did have was two parents who loves me, were home every night and never missed my sports games...even though I was awful at every sport I played. They praised me after ballet recitals...despite my awkward performance. I always had food on my plate and a warm bed that was mine. I never wondered where I was going to go after school or what I was going to eat. I was not poor...we were blue collar. Somehow I believed my classmates when they made me feel like what my family had wasn't enough.  I know better now.

As my youth head to school each morning they carry much more than their backpacks. They carry heart break, the anxiety of unknowns, generational dreams lost, the burden of issues we havent fixed as a society. They face unsafe unpredictable streets on their way to poorly funded schools. Our world promises them if they do the right things everything will be okay.  Our youth know that is often not the case for the people they know and love and it might not be true for them

These same youth who carry so many burdens, show up at everything Urban Mentors does...they show up and lead and serve. They give back. Many show up to help with the younger youth a second night a week. Yesterday one of the youth who is currently homeless showed up at my apartment at 3 PM...way before I expected anyone, because he had no place to go. Atleast two nights a week we can be his safe place to go. We are working on raising money so we can offer our youth stipends, and small jobs so they get more face time with adults while developing work ethic and earning some much needed money.

Every youth needs to be "swooped up" by additonal adults who become a part of the village caring for them. I remember the adults who swooped me up when I needed to not get lost in the mix. We will swoop these youth up and do everything we can to love and look out for them.

Last night I ended my evening talking to "Platinum"...my homeless neighbor of many years. She is currently living in a tiny tent with her only true family member- an intense chihuahua, outside my apartment. She is not always lucid but last night she was grieving for her boyfriend who had been hit by a train a couple years ago. A man I have known of in the community most of my Oakland years. I wonder when it was that people gave up on them...when was it that someone didn't step in when they were most vulnerable. I thought to myself  "NOT OUR BABIES."   Together,  as volunteers and parents, we need to be a village that "swoops them up" and does all we can to make sure they are not lost; that their dreams are not lost. Lord give us clear vision so we can see every smoke signal our youth send out. Let no cries for help go unheard.

My Friend, East Oakland

The sun is shining and I'm sipping not quite warm enough coffee, avoiding blow drying my damp hair and I'm overwhelmed with both the love and the worry my friend East Oakland creates within me.

This September will mark 13 years of my love affair this this community. I am what one might call a "relocator" . I moved here from a city called Ann Arbor...a safe college town known for being a liberal safe Midwestern town with more diversity than most of it's surrounding cities. However most folks there surround themselves with friends who look just like them and live just like them. (what a waste of diversity if you ask me! But you didn't...so shhhhhh Jaime! )

I moved here to do a one year urban volunteer program (Mission Year- look it up, www.missionyear.org). About three months into a year of service and learning about justice, I knew this place was home.

I hear others talk about my friend East Oakland with fear,even disgust, but most often its just with misunderstanding. It's an "outsiders looking in perspective". My perspective it that too...no matter how long I live in East Oakland I will never be from here. I will be Jaime Taylor, a Midwestern daughter of a factory worker and mother who did various jobs but shines working with alzheimer's patients.  I will be Jaime Taylor the girl who loved ballet but was too awkward for it. Jaime Taylor who has to watch other people clapping in order to clap on beat . Jaime who loves photographing people.  I will be Jaime Taylor a progressive Christian from Christian parents who give everything they can to love people around them. I will be Jaime Taylor a girl who grew up around a lot of mean rich folks but wasn't rich herself. Wait a second...I was and am rich. I have always had my basic needs met, I was blessed with a parents who put my needs before theirs...I have always been surrounded by laughter and down to earth people who knew brand clothes and fancy things didn't define a life well lived. I have always been surrounded by folks who make you better just by being near them.  Forgive my language....but DAMN I'm rich.

Anyways...I'm still rich living here. No I can't pay all my bills every month, and I have no health insurance...but I am surrounded my strong down to earth people who allow me the privilege of living INSIDE their East Oakland and they take care of me as though I was born here. I am blessed to walk alongside youth each day who share their worlds with me and love me as though we are blood related. I am blessed with neighbors who are spicy, dramatic and full of life...and FULL OF COURAGE. They endure but still laugh and celebrate. 

I live where all the crazy stuff you hear about happens too...but I see with the eyes of a friend, watching her friend go through ups and downs. I am on this ride with my friend. I hope that this is they perspective of East Oakland I bring to this blog.

Here is my first rambling blog...probably has typos and errors that will bug you. No worries...that won't change. :) Happy Thursday.