In the fall of 2013, I got a call from Alex on a Thursday night.
His group of friends had located a former police station in Pontiac that they wanted to buy. They wanted to put a tutoring center in it. They thought it would take fifteen thousand dollars or so to buy it. The auction was next Tuesday. They had already looked at the building, and the folks from the City of Pontiac who were selling the property were hoping the kids would get it. The other potential buyer wanted to put a gentleman’s club in it and liked it because the basement had no windows.
Alex and Lindsey had been married a couple of years earlier. Jonah was nearing two. Their group of friends had decided they would do what they could to save the world, one section at a time. They would start with Pontiac, because it was close by and had the third highest crime rate in the U.S. (Every year, Detroit, Pontiac, and East St. Louis would battle it out for one, two and three.) Their plan was that they would all move to Pontiac, they would all start a church that would attract people of various ethnicities, and they would start a tutoring center. Their goal was then to start a tutoring center in each of the top ten highest crime rate cities in the U.S. There were probably ten to twelve couples, all in their twenties, who hatched this plan.
Jayme and my initial thoughts were of concern: Pontiac was a rough place. We rarely entered the city limits, and would intentionally avoid it. It was a poverty-filled town of fifty thousand people in the middle of prosperous Oakland County. Would Alex, Lindsey, Jonah, and our other grandchildren be safe?
On the other hand, how do you not root for a group of twenty somethings who are trying to make a dent in the problems of the world? I remember doing some of the things I did when I was young, and none were quite this noble. The kids had a meeting on the second floor of the Lafeyette Grand in Pontiac that Friday night. Jayme was unable to go but I attended. I didn’t get shot. Alex, Lindsey and their friends were adorable and infectious. No one knew if it would work. We wrote a check.
By the time of the auction on Tuesday, in four days, the kids had raised sixteen thousand dollars, just enough to be the winning bidder. The building was brick but in rough shape. They did a few work weekends to clean it up. They raised another thirty thousand to replace all the windows. They opened in the spring of the following year.
Their concept was that the kids in Pontiac don’t get the after school opportunities that other suburban kids do. A snack or a meal, a few games, a little help with the homework, and a little love might go a long way. The kids believed that the folks in Oakland County would drive to Pontiac one day a week to make a bond with a deserving child. Drug dealers in Pontiac put big TV’s and video games in houses to attract youth. This would be an alternative.
The center has now been open for several years. Another has opened in Detroit and there are a few others. The annual gala is a highlight of Jayme and my year. The kids bought a foreclosed house in Pontiac, and spent six months fixing it up. They moved in with Jayme and I for that time. I’ve always felt that the Hispanics have it right and that multi-generational housing is the way to go. During this six months, we got a steady dose of dance parties, sharing bananas with Jonah, stairway mooch, and “old bucket head” running around our living room with a movie popcorn basket on his head. And we got to spend time with some of the best young people you could ever run across. That just happened to love us as well.
I told Alex after their house renovations were completed that they should sell the house, bank the check, and stay with us. They moved to Pontiac.
While there, they ran across a young man named Selvin. Selvin was in junior high at the time, and they just hung out with him and did what they could to help. They got to know Selvin’s mom and step dad and made sure they didn’t mind. Over the years, Selvin comes to the house a few times a month and they talk often. Jonah and Arthur love him. He’s a terrific young man. He held down a job with Little Caesar’s for several years while attending high school – “nobody makes sauce as good as me” – and was tremendously reliable for his manager. He has attended junior college, and now has a job in a factory making sunroofs for cars. I’m sure he will impress them there as well. He is working on getting back to college. He owns a car, and cares for it. He is not yet a father. He is a great kid.
I told Alex and Lindsey when they started, that they were doing a great thing, and doing it while trying to run their lives – work in their jobs, raise kids, care for the house. I told them that this kind of momentum is hard to keep up, and not to be disappointed if they lose steam in six weeks or six months. It’s now been over five years. They still live in Pontiac, they still run the Centers for Success. The church ultimately closed – after several years – but that’s a different story.
Jayme and I are incredibly proud of them and glad we’ve been able to help.
