Gangs in Detroit

[Pullstart 67,034]

This is a gang I’d join if I were closer…

 

 

[ebinmaine 72,952]

Love that they use older equipment! 

[squonk 43,939]

Like a plow day with mowing decks! 

[parsonsponyz 221]

That's a really good idea.  We might not be able to change the world but we can change "our" part of the world.

[SylvanLakeWH 28,572]

Thanks for posting this Kevin! 

 

You made my day! 

[953 nut 60,333]

Volunteerism is the cornerstone of the United States of America.         Before government began doing things "FOR US" cooperation and local pride made our communities strong. People took pride in providing opportunities for their children to grow and thrive.

That sense of ownership was taken away by well intentioned actions of government agencies. A case in point was a park in my home town. An older dilapidated house and five acres of land was left to our volunteer fire company. The house was beyond economically reasonable repair so we used it for training and once it had been burned enough that it was unsafe we demolished it, backfilled the basement and began building a park.

A playground, basketball court, softball field and a track for bicycles were built using volunteer labor and donated supplies. We set up a schedule for volunteer adult supervision and mowing, the whole community got involved.

What we hadn't done was look into liability insurance, since the fire company owned the land and had done the improvements it was our liability if something happened. Turns out the insurance for a recreational facility like that is quite expensive. The park was turned over to the county recreation department and all was good for the first few years but the county decided it did.t fit their scope of operation because it was a small park in a small community and they shut it down, built a fence and turned their back on our little town.    

[SylvanLakeWH 28,572]

 

Southeast Michigan is littered with similar examples...  

 

And unfortunately, you need to make a big event out of volunteer efforts to pick up trash, clean parks etc. If you don't have t-shirts, food, drinks, bouncy houses etc. no one will do it... 

Edited August 13 by SylvanLakeWH

[ri702bill 9,527]

A plus in the video - no Green tractors. Offset by the fact there were no Red ones either. Good stuff.

We had something similar back in the early 1990's. We always had local Govermnent run by the Town Council. Then the Charter was rewritten to have a Mayor. The first one spent and embezzeled money like crazy - the town had a huge defecit. The second one was headstrong to turn that around within 2 years. All "non-essential" services were put on hold, including Parks & Recreation. I helped out cutting grass at the town Soccer Field, as did about 10- other folks for one summer...

[Beap52 1,476]

Community pride is something I tried to instill in my two kids. They'd ride bikes with baskets gathering soda pop cans thrown around a campground we frequented.  We went to watch the space shuttle blast off.  Not knowing tickets were required to have parking we were assigned to park in an orange grove some distance away with limited view..  We were picking up a busted bottle on the sidewalk when a park ranger gave us tickets for parking.   

 

This morning me and my special needs grandson took the golf cart down to the road to drag a rather large branch that fell off of someone's truck and lay in the ditch.  It had been there a week or so.  I'll cut it up otherwise it would have remained an eyesore for the foreseeable future.

 

Good to see the video of these men spiffing up their community. 

 

Sad to read that 953 nut's volunteer fire department's park had to be abandoned.  It was striking to me that insurance was such a large factor.