For 25 years, there has been a ministry in Portland, Maine's poorest neighborhood, Munjoy Hill. The ministry is known as the Root Cellar, and we have been performing there since its existence was counted in months, not years. In recent years, I have been booking my class's ministry, LOL, to do their program there, and today was our annual show at this venue.
The Munjoy Hill neighborhood, once one of the worst predominantly white ghettoes in the nation, has, in recent years, become a neighborhood of predominantly African immigrants. As unlikely as it seems, Portland has one of the highest African populations, per capita, of any city in the United States. It is truly a cross cultural experience when my suburban seventh and eighth graders, over 90% Caucasian, get to spend an afternoon at the Root Cellar.
Our show was for their after school program, so the audience was mostly elementary aged kids. There were a few older kids and teens in the audience as well, and the turn out was excellent, about 35 children from the neighborhood. The show went remarkably well, as we had four students absent so we were scrambling to make substitutions. In our last routine, one of our girls left with a chaperone feeling sick, so we actually had to make a substitution during the show. Anna stepped in and was remarkably cool wit her last minute assignment.
Another of our eighth grade girls, Katrina, was performing for the last time, as she is moving to Memphis on Friday. She did her juggling solo (every 8th grader is given this opportunity once in the year). Hers was unique as she did a lot of balance board work, hula hooping and dance along with more traditional juggling of balls, clubs rings and machetes. She was awesome!
The best part of our trips to the Root Cellar, though , are always the time the two groups of kids get to play together in their rec. room before the show. Some of our guys were shy at first, but it didn't take long before the two groups were mingling comfortably as they played pool, ping pong, foosball, and Nerf basketball. Katrina and my daughter Rose had a tea party with some of their younger girls. It was a wonderful thing to just step back and watch.
As my students loaded up the vans to head back to school, I could tell by their conversation that they an experience they will not be quick to forget.