In the already-humid, morning air with my bare knees pressed against a wooden milking station, my Birkenstocks covered in straw and damp grass, and my hands just inches away from a goat’s nether regions, I turn to the intern squatting next to me, petting the goat I’m reaching under, and say, Have you ever done anything like this before? He shakes his head. Did you ever think you would? I ask. This time he laughs as he shakes his head. Right? I say.
Tear Down the Walls Ministries is a non-profit organization on the near northwest side of Indy, tucked in between abandoned houses and empty lots beside the Riverside community. The average household income in the under-privileged neighborhood is less than $25,000 a year and half the population makes less than $10,000.
I get about half a pail of milk this morning and manage to slip it out from under both goats’ back legs before they kick it over. I corral them into their pen, holding the pail of precious milk in one outstretched hand and a drill, napkins, and spray bottle of sanitizer in my arms. The goats are indignant as I shut them into their pen, but—as I’ve already told them multiple times—we can’t let them stay out if they’re going to eat all the peach trees.
I pour the milk into the strainer in the kitchen sink which will catch any goat hair, dirt, bugs floating in the milk I just got. I flex my hands, forcing my fingers straight out to stretch them out after rhythmically squeezing the small teats for nearly an hour. Sometimes I play the goats music while I milk them. I’ve decided they like the Lumineers, but I want to get their opinions on the Avett Brothers next.
With the “white flight” in the sixties through the eighties, commerce was straight sucked out of the community. When white people fled, they took with them jobs, businesses, churches, tourism.
After the milk is strained I put a lid on the Ball jar it strained into, date it, and put it in the fridge alongside the abundant jars of thick, white milk. Done with milking, I want to go outside and pick some berries in case we get another order for our mixed berries on farmersmarket.com, but I know we have to start setting up for the VBS we’re hosting this week. It’s been a hilarious, dysfunctional spectacle so far and I’m sure today won’t disappoint.
On Tuesday—our first day of the week—we were serving our homegrown, recently-picked berries for snack and a little girl at my table told me she’d never had a blueberry. She said she was nervous to try one, but then ended up loving them. She asked for blueberries from all the other kids at the table.
I’d felt quick, almost painful jolt of thankfulness for our blueberry bushes out front that I’d spent hours watering and picking blueberries from in the hot sun, my shoulders burning and sweating outside my cut-off t-shirts.
I’d felt a quick jolt of thankfulness for all the scratches I had on my arms from the thorns in our raspberry bushes and for all the time we’d spent trying to keep birds away from the berries and for the soreness in my back from bending down and picking strawberries and for all the yellow jackets, wasps, bees I’d ran from while picking the berries.
I’d felt a painful jolt of thankfulness for this little girl sitting across from me, trying her first blueberry at an age at which I’m sure I’d had pretty much any fruit at my disposal and had tried it all.
I’d felt thankful for Tear Down the Walls.
The near northwest community TDWM is located in is conspicuously missing the working age. The community is made up of 50% of people who are retirement age and then another large percentage of kids under fifteen, so there isn’t a large working-age population to make money for their families. This is apparent in the empty lots and run-down or abandoned houses.
Today at VBS, one of the girl tells me that she’s helping some of the older boys in the neighborhood make a TV show. I ask her what it’s about. Childhood, she says, but, okay, not just, like, childhood, but more like the things that kids do in their childhood. But it sounds stupid when I say it like that. I mean it’s just about…childhood. Here. And how kids live and what they do. I tell her that doesn’t sound stupid and mean it. I would watch that show. After hanging out with these kids just a few days, I want to see what they do. I want to witness their childhoods. I want to know them and understand them and where they’re living. That’s how it becomes possible to make a difference somewhere.
TDWM does some amazing things. They do homeless outreach. They’re building a home for homeless men to live in while transitioning into the workforce. They plant and tend to their community garden so to sell the produce to raise money for the community. They use what they have to help their own neighborhood and city. They give people like me an opportunity to help out with these endeavors and meet new people and hang out with great kids and, hopefully, hopefully, make a difference in this community. To do so, though, we have to be involved in it. We have to give our berries to the kids who’ve never tried them. We have to hear about their childhoods. We have to rebuild trust. We have to stop what we’re doing, while standing two stories up on scaffolding, nail gun in hand, and introduce ourselves to people walking down the street, asking what we’re doing.
We have to be here.
And I’m so thankful for the opportunity to be here.
