StoryCorps “Listening Event” captured powerful, moving accounts of Flint lives
By Paul Rozycki As the StoryCorps wraps up its month-long stay in Flint, a “Listening Event” at the Flint Institute of Arts Aug. 29 shared remarkable tales of life in Flint: A story about a woman who met her birth mother for the first time. A story about an ex-con who turned his life around and is doing the same for others. A story of a women who interviewed her 96- year-old father recovering from a stroke, who told of...
Village Life: The Flint River dumped us, but we got a story (or two)
By Jan Worth-Nelson I told Sarah Carson the river would give us solace—that was how I talked her into it, for my part always wanting an accomplice in my adventures. Two writers who revel in sedentary hours alone. Two writers—one young, one old—rampantly hopeful but almost comically expecting the worst. Two writers who’d never been in a tandem kayak together on an end-of-summer Wednesday. What could go wrong? Ha ha! Here’s the...
Creating Sanctuary in Pierce Park: “To heal ourselves and heal the land”
By Melodee Mabbitt When Desiree Duell’s parents divorced, they sent her to weekend classes at the Flint Institute of Arts. It was there she learned that art could be very therapeutic. Now living and working in the College and Cultural Neighborhood, Duell’s latest art seeks to help everyone in Flint heal from the water crisis, as well as other environmental injustices and longstanding socioeconomic and racial inequalities she sees in...
Pierce Park out for Zero Mass Water proposal; concerns linger as ZMW eyes other sites
By Melodee Mabbitt Neighbors voicing their concerns prevented Pierce Park from becoming the location for a private company to install up to 1,000 solar panels and a bottling facility on Flint’s public land in order to produce bottled water for sale. Zero Mass Water, a water technology company that uses solar panels to make “drinking water from sunlight and air,” contacted the president of the College and Cultural Neighborhood...
Super volunteer, Beecher coach, labor/environmental justice priest honored with Riegle Community Service Awards
By Jan Worth-Nelson Three lifelong activists with deep roots in Flint will be honored Thursday, Sept. 12 as recipients of the 30th annual Donald Riegle Community Service Awards. The three are League of Women Voters leader Rhina Griffel, Beecher High School football coach and former NFL star Courtney Hawkins, and Christ the King Catholic Church pastor, Father Phil Schmitter. The fundraising event, hosted by the Flint Jewish Federation,...
Review: Riveting Semaj Brown “bleeds fire” at Mott Warsh Gallery performance
By Jan Worth-Nelson Facing lies, atrocities and daily affronts to self-love and spiritual peace, “we have to tap that eternal spring of regenerative light,” Flint poet, artist, musician, scientist and activist Semaj Brown implored a rapt audience Aug. 21 at the Mott-Warsh Gallery, 815 Saginaw St. Brown, who moved to Flint from her hometown Detroit in 2003 after marrying local family physician James Brown, combined...
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