My First Month at Bethel New Life

By my third week of work on the Westside of Chicago for the community development organization Bethel New Life, I was stringing up a makeshift volleyball net from the pole of a chain-link fence and the sagging limbs of a dead tree. In the backyard of an abandoned house, it’s windows boarded up and bits of its roof’s shingles strewn around in the grass, we were getting a volleyball game together, marking out our boundaries and choosing teams. When I took this job months ago, back in what feels like a different lifetime at Princeton, I never thought that part of my duties would include high-fiving teammates and trash-talking across the net in the shadow of an abandoned building. But now, here I am, four weeks into my life as a Chicagoan, and a lot of my afternoons have become playtime again, sinking plastic battleships and running the nubs of well-worn Crayons across newsprint paper.


I didn't expect for the mentoring program at Bethel New Life to become such a large part of my life here in Chicago, but almost immediately it did. Bethel New Life is an organization that has been working to strengthen the community of West Garfield Park on the Westside of Chicago for thirty years, and in doing so has become recognized as one of the most influential Community Development Corporations in the country. Created in the aftermath of the destruction caused by race riots of the late 1960s and early 1970s, and the subsequent loss of population and industry as well as the degradation of community infrastructure, Bethel New Life has become an all-encompassing neighborhood organization, with arms in education, elder care, real estate and asset management, and a number of other community services. When I arrived in Chicago, I imagined that my duties would solely consist of the things that I had studied in college: urban development, architecture, and planning. But the breadth and scope of Bethel New Life's programming has pushed me into areas of work I never would have imagined back when I applied to be a part of P55. Before the end of 2010 (if all goes as planned), I will have helped to create Bethel New Life's flagship Christmas Store (providing new toys, clothes, and food to families during the holidays), been a major contributor to a new urban plan for West Garfield Park's commercial district, and played a few hundred games of Chutes & Ladders.


I don't quite feel at home yet in Chicago (subletting an apartment will have that effect -- it feels like being a squatter in someone else's abandoned home, like at any moment they'll come home and kick you out) but I can feel my life settling into this city and into my work. At first, I had trouble dealing with the many obstacles that come with working in the non-profit world, in a world where state and federal funding is frozen without warning, where some community development is as much powered by the political machine as it is by passion, and where the need absolutely always overwhelms the impact. But Bethel New Life is an inspiring place, and every single person working here has amazed me with their dedication and their commitment to West Garfield Park. Seeing this commitment, and having such amazing experiences with the children of the mentoring program, have made me more idealist than cynic, and have excited me for the possibilities of the coming year.

It has helped tremendously to feel as though I belong here, and that what I'm doing is impacting something larger than me. While non-profit work can often be slow going, mired in bureaucracy and halted by budget restrictions, being a part of the mentoring program at Bethel New Life eases those feelings of frustration. It is nice to know that even if the scope of a project becomes overwhelming, or funding for a program dries up, there is a way for me to still make an impact, today, right now, by being a positive, and constant, force in these kids' lives. Yesterday Ava learned how to bump and serve overhand, and we practiced passing under the telephone lines as the light outside began to fade. Sometimes all you can do is give a high-five and play another point of volleyball, and a lot of times, that's enough.