The Interrupters

The Interrupters is a movie all the fellows should go see, but especially my Chicago compatriots, and I'm not just saying that because 1/4 of the movie takes place in one of the neighborhoods the Carole Robertson Center (where I work) serves, or because my drive to work features in not one, not two, but three scenes.

Some of us work in very volatile neighborhoods, and the danger factor is not something we blog about often. For the most part, this is because we are not directly affected. We're not held at gunpoint or threatened. Nonetheless, one of the parts of my job that has been the most educational in the past two weeks is the daily walkover. We offer a service to students who attend nearby schools: staff members will go and meet kids when school lets out and accompany them back to the Center. I recently replaced a coworker whose schedule got switched around on one of these walkovers, and so every day two staff members and I make the fifteen minute walk to a nearby charter school to greet the kids.

The first week of walkover was a breeze. The second week, there were three separate incidents that had the police swarming the neighborhood and had us going to our supervisor and strongly recommending that we spring for a bus. Parents offered to pass the hat. One mother decided that she was going to take off work and drive her kids to the Center every day.

Watching The Interrupters, I couldn't get the faces of the kids I work with out of my head. It was one of those viewing experiences that left me shaken and sure that someone needs to do something. I'm doing all I can at this point in my life. I'm not huge and imposing and I don't know the neighborhood inside out and I am not an organization with endless funds. Still, I'm not going to let CeaseFire out of my sights just yet.