Resources:
Rylee Barnsdale's Feature Article: From bingo to free meals, Ypsi residents collaborate to restore programming at senior living complex
Transcription:
Sarah Rigg: This is 89 one WEMU, and this is On the ground Ypsilanti. This is Sarah Rigg, the project manager and reporter with On the Ground Ypsi, the reporting project of Concentrate Media that focuses on what's going on in Ypsilanti and Ypsi Township. I'm filling in for Rylee Barnsdale this week. And today, we're talking about a project at Chidester Place in Ypsilanti to improve the overall mental health and social life of the people who live there. I have brought with me Emy Deshotel to talk about this effort at Chidester Place. Welcome, Emy!
Emy Deshotel: Hi! Thank you!
Sarah Rigg: Emy, tell us a little bit about what Chidester is. It's some form of assisted living space, and I think people might just think it's a senior living residence. But it isn't. It's broader than that. So, tell us a little bit about Chidester.
Emy Deshotel: Chidester Place is a privately-owned building, but it is subsidized housing, specifically for low-income seniors and people with disability. I like it here a lot because it's really quiet. I live here. I moved in here about a year ago. We have this great community room and this theater and a library that I'm not really used all that much, and I wanted to change that when I moved in.
Sarah Rigg: Well, great! Emy, I know because I've talked to you before for a different story we did for Concentrate about that you are the founder of the Ypsi Mental Health Squad, so this sounds like it's right in line with the sort of thing that you're interested in, in your community activism or that you've been doing in the community. Tell me a little bit about your background, community organizing and doing things out in the community before you got to Chidester.
Emy Deshotel: Well, I've always been kind of a volunteer before I moved up to Michigan. I was actually on the board of several bike non-profits, like Bike Lafayette and Bike Baton Rouge. And then I moved up here, and then I immediately got involved with the Washtenaw Bicycling and Walking Coalition. And then I moved to Ypsi, and then I just kind of goes headfirst into all of the nonprofits. I served on the board of First Fridays. I've helped out with the Ypsilanti Enterprise Association. And I also started the Ypsi Mental Health Climb, a Facebook group of about 800 members. We're about two years old right now, and it's just a space for people with mental illness to come and find other people with mental illness, because it's so hard to find that kind of thing when you're an adult. And that's something that I was struggling with.
Sarah Rigg: Right. And it's not only online because you do hold some in-person events as well.
Emy Deshotel: Yeah. Although that has been on hiatus, I've been busy. But hopefully, we'll be bringing that back in an upcoming month.
Sarah Rigg: So, this brings us to Chidester. And you realize that they've got a community room, but nobody's really using it. And it sounds like from what I've read in the article that Rylee wrote that people there were kind of feeling overlooked and abandoned, like there wasn't much in the way of programming for them. Can you tell us what was there before you started and and what you were hoping to build?
Emy Deshotel: So, from what I've learned from other residents, because I only was in here about a year ago, like last September, there used to be a resident council that was run by the residents for the residents. And they were the people who were putting on all of these events. Then COVID hit.
Sarah Rigg: Right.
Emy Deshotel: And now that COVID is not a severe of a thing anymore and people want us to be back, but it takes an enormous amount of energy to organize and collaborate and coordinate with people to bring those kinds of events. And they were doing this almost on their own before.
Sarah Rigg: Right.
Emy Deshotel: And now they were going to have to start from scratch. So, they had nothing going on. The only thing that would happen was we would have Food Gatherers in the community room by giving away food every Saturday and like every other Tuesday. But that was it. There was no socializing. There was no real community.
Sarah Rigg: Right.
Emy Deshotel: And nobody ever went into the theater. And I was like, "You know? This needs to change." And so, ever since I have moved in, I have been trying and trying and trying to get something going. But I don't necessarily have the capacity in my own mental health to be able to take on the organizing whole. So, what I did was I reached out on Facebook and I just said, "Hey, people in the community! I'm looking for the things for the residents here!" And Linda French ended up reaching out to me--
Sarah Rigg: Linda French, who is a local business owner.
Emy Deshotel: Yes. She owns Sidetracks, and she contacted the city. The city recommended Evan Sweet, a city council member. He ended up getting Supreme Felons involved. And Supreme Felons is a local nonprofit that helps with reentry and helps with violence intervention. It's like by felons for felons. And they do a lot of community work. And they ended up bringing in Kitchen, another local nonprofit. And they provide food for low-income people, They're always at the bus stop at the Ypsilanti bus station.
Sarah Rigg: That's great.
Emy Deshotel: And then, it ended up snowballing. We had our first event, and it was dinner and bingo. And it was a huge success! And when I asked them, "What do you guys want? What kind of events do you want?" Bingo! They just want bingo.
Sarah Rigg: That's great. Emy! I just need to jump in here and say this is 89 one WEMU, and you're listening to On the Ground Ypsilanti. We're with Emy Deshotel, and we're talking about the new programming at Chidester Place in Ypsilanti. So, yeah, I would love to talk more about these partnerships. It sounds like it really just snowballed. One person reached out to you. And then, they knew a person who knew a person, and it snowballed from there. What else are you doing besides bingo?
Emy Deshotel: Well, occasionally, we will do movie night. Supreme Felons was able to get a popcorn machine on loan from the Kiwanis Center. We don't do those very often, but we do have bingo and dinner every single Monday. We have also invited the Ypsilanti Youth Choir. That was fun here. And they did that in July. We are looking to add more programing, but we're still just getting our feet off the ground. And we do have to want to expand this to other communities that don't have that same network that we do. And how do you establish something that's more long term, so that it's not just a resident responsibility? Because with all of these amenities, there should be programming. And it's not necessarily fair to have that dust on the residents, especially when we're dealing with a bunch of seniors and people with disabilities.
Sarah Rigg: Right. I know that there's a senior millage on the horizon, possibly. I don't know if that could be directed at programming like this at other places, but that's maybe a possibility. Very interesting. It sounds to me, Emy, you might want to get it better established at Chidester before you suggest using that as a pilot for other places to copy. And also, like you said, you don't necessarily have the energy to bring it forward. You're hoping somebody else is going to step up and do that for you?
Emy Deshotel: So, what do we've done now is that we've kind of established a partnership between like myself, Linda French and Supreme Felons and Kayla's Kitchen. And we all just get together and talk about what we want to do. And we definitely want to expand. And right now, you kind of see it as laying down the groundwork. And when we expand to other locations, we do plan to bring in other nonprofits just because we can't do it all.
Sarah Rigg: Right. I think partnerships is really what makes it go. If I learned anything from doing this on-the-ground work since 2018, it's that partnerships are what makes things happen, especially in the nonprofit world.
Emy Deshotel: Yeah. And with Linda French and her connections. The restaurant Sidetracks saves supplies for salad and soup almost every week. Aubree's, which is owned by her nephew, Andy French, they've supplied bread every single week and given us pizza as well. And Terry's Bakery has given us freshly baked cookies. There's one guy named Johnny here who lives for those parties. He's always happy to see that. He literally says hi to them.
Sarah Rigg: Yeah, they are an institution-- an Ypsilanti institution.
Emy Deshotel: Yeah. And it's this kind of community network that we're trying to build to make it sustainable, so that people don't have to look very hard, so that other maybe other locations--federally subsidized housing like this--won't have to go through all the trouble that I went through just to bring basic programming to the lives of the residents, because there's so many residents here who don't leave. We're talking about people who are mobility challenged and people who have a higher risk for getting diseases.
Sarah Rigg: They don't leave. And then also, there's probably a fair number of people that don't get very many visitors and are pretty lonely.
Emy Deshotel: Yep. Exactly. Actually, one of the things that we're planning to do is we're going to be introducing Birthday Week the first week of every month because there are probably a bunch of people in here who never get their birthday celebrated. These people need community. And I think a lot of people in this city kind of just forgot that there's going into this assistance and which kind of place for that, because we don't get a whole bunch of time round here. But still, we are here.
Sarah Rigg: Right.
Emy Deshotel: And the people still need to be engaged, and they need something to look forward to. And now, they have fun days.
Sarah Rigg: So, I know you said you are only expanding cautiously, and so you might not need a whole lot of other people to volunteer programming right at the moment. But if somebody wants to donate food or supplies or something, how would they get a hold of you, Emy?
Emy Deshotel: So, if you would like to donate food or money, I would encourage you to go to kaylaskitchen.org or donate to Supreme Felons because they're the ones who are getting all of their supplies and everything. If you would like to reach out to me, my email is emydeshotel@gmail.com.
Sarah Rigg: Great! This is WEMU 89 one, and you're listening to On the Ground Ypsilanti. We've been speaking with Emy Deshotel about the new programming at Chidester Place in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Emy, thanks so much for being with us!
Emy Deshotel: Yup! Thank you so much for having me!
Sarah Rigg: If you'd like to learn more about this story, you can find it at concentratemedia.com or at wemu.org on their programming page for On the Ground Ypsilanti. Once again, you've been listening to 89 one WEMU. This is On the Ground Ypsilanti.
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