We arrived into Kokomo tonight around 8:15pm local time (one hour diff from CST) after a safe, successful journey. Chicago traffic was a little slow but not bad and the kids in my van were jammin to music, windows rolled down, making the other cars around us laugh! It was quite funny! Only brief tidbits of road construction, not bad at all!
We are joined at the Youth Works site by a group of 26 youth from a Presbyterian church near Detriot, Michigan and 4 youth from a Luthern church from central Ohio. 46 youth total at this site. Our accommodations are great at this site, a larger air-conditioned church with classrooms, cafeteria space, spaces for small groups, and much more sleeping space than last year.
Kokomo looks like a really nice midwestern town, not very different from our own SW Mpls suburbs. We saw average homes as well as very nice homes on golf courses. But with its roots in the auto industry, the major employers in town are 4 related factories. ALL Chrysler engines are made here, along with some other auto-stereo component manufacturers, etc, that in turn are hit hard by the recent auto industry bankruptcies. Our work projects will show us the "inside" scoop on the town & its struggles with high unemployment and homelessness. The town used to be 75,000 and is currently only a population of about 45,000. Many residents were forced to find work elsewhere. Kokomo asked YouthWorks to come here to help, this is the first year for this site.
More to come tomorrow as we start our work and really learn about this community!
Sent from my HTC Touch Pro2 on the Now Network from Sprint®.
Big group of kids - wow. Thank you Robyn for taking the time to do this! We're praying for all of you from home.
ReplyDelete