the Lake we Love

it has been over a year.


This week I organized a group of "young professionals" (what a term) to go clean up trash at Summit Lake park (though the Lake needs it more than the park does...)



It was a nice night, one of the first of the year, and the park was full of activity - basketball, children, baseball, boating, even some older men playing older music and having a tailgate party out of a pickup. Right in the heart of a the neighborhood, in the park i drive past every day. beautiful.


I love Summit Lake. I drive by it every day. It's beautiful from the expressway, and most of the city doesn't know what it is or who goes there. It's unknown and forgotten, even by many who consider themselves Akron lovers, right in the heart of the dangerous part of the city.



Two days before we were scheduled to do this, it looked like we were not going to get anyone. Young professionals are relatively unreliable about weeknight volunteering. I had my fingers on my phone that night, tempted to call in my friends who love this city. People who love the Lake the way I do, and would give up yet another evening in service to the city. I knew they would come. I knew they would give even more of themselves to clean up their park. And yet, why should they? why should I call in people how already give so much? and so I decided against it. I wouldn't call Joe and Nate, Anne and Eric, Jaclyn and Ben, Marci and Neil. I knew they would come. I knew they would serve. But I wouldn't ask them to give up another thing for our park.



We had 6 people show up. The company sent out a camera crew (I will be appearing on our company tv blurb now, great). Great footage of one of us pulling a melted plastic chair and a tire out of the lake and carrying it to the garbage, as though he were a hero. We left our "supplies", which included trash bags and a few fliers, out of sight for five minutes, and of course they were stolen, to the surprise of the group (but not me). And an hour later, they called it quits, not concerned to do any better. not concerned to talk to anyone in the park.



We came, and they left like heroes in their own eyes.



And so things are done in the business world I suppose.



I was appointed co-chair of the community service committee for young professionals. And I have no idea how to create change. No idea how to create a new attitude. No idea how to transform my own sometimes.



I love the lake though. I loved talking to the guys smoking weed outside of the building. I loved watching the kids play. I loved joking with the old men who were having a tailgate party of some sort. I loved that my group looked at me in amazement and confusion, that i would talk to the people of the neighborhood. But I don't know how to create change.