Friday morning came and the students filed into Temple Hoyne Buell Hall. While cold out, people’s excitement was warming. Everyone was divided into their groups and loaded onto their buses. The journey to East St. Louis had begun.
When we arrived in East St. Louis we were greeted by our community liaison Billie Turner. Billie showed us all around the city and told us all about it’s history. It was amazing to learn about a community that had been through so much, and be so resilient. After the tour, we went to Eagle’s Nest for a fish fry. The food was delicious and everyone was given time to get to know one another.
After lunch we went to our respective work sites. I was working on the 41st/Pullman Porter Park project, painting a new sign for the park. The first day we arrived at Willie’s and learned all about her, the park’s history and how our work here would affect her community. After that, we got right to work. We sawed the piece of plywood down to size and then began tracing the poster onto it. The rest of our time was spent painting the park sign. We got the base coat done by dinnertime on Friday.
After a full day, we went out, as a group, to dinner. Over dinner each group took turns talking about the work that was done that day. Friday night ended with a fabulous variety show at the Village Theatre.
Saturday morning came, and everyone seemed just as excited as they had been the day before. Our group spent all of Saturday finishing the details and making final touches. We finished mid-afternoon on the sign, and it was beautiful. We ended our day at Pirtle’s Ice Cream Shop before heading home. It was delicious!
I had a wonderful group of students who were passionate and inspired by Willie, her story, and East St. Louis. They worked hard to paint a beautiful sign and I could not be more proud of them. We all came to East St. Louis eager to make it a better place – and in return, East St. Louis made us better people.
