2016 ASBD participants visit Auntie Na's house

Alternative Spring Break Detroit is an annual week-long volunteering program that encourages students to both learn about and serve communities within Detroit. This year, a new site was added to the docket: Auntie Na’s Harvesting Unity.

Located at 12028 Yellowstone St. on Detroit’s west side, Sonia Brown opened her family’s home to the people of her community under the moniker Auntie Na.

Brown and her family have turned a corner into an oasis, considering the surrounding area has been affected by blight, poverty and violence. They service their neighborhood by offering food, shelter and safety.

“We’re a community reaching out,” Brown said. “That’s what I want to build on, and if I could get other folks to recognize that and identify that, then awesome.”

Children gravitate to Auntie Na’s home. Brown stands at the corner after school to greet them, inquire about their grades and display their successes on her board in the kitchen.

“As you drive through, do you happen to see anything else for my babies in this community? That’s why it’s so necessary,” Brown said. “They need to have a place that they know they can go to and they’re safe, they know somebody’s there that’s gonna listen, they know somebody cares.”

Brown believes the futures of the children in her neighborhood are brighter as a result of her cornerstone.

“It gives them a sense of belonging to something,” Brown said. “Auntie Na has put back into their daily activities what the school system has robbed them of, music classes, art programs, ways to express themselves and find themselves, I’ve given it back to them.”

During the winter, Auntie Na’s House also functions as an emergency shelter.

In terms of her residents, Brown said she asks for little to nothing in return. However, she hopes they can help with meal preparations, cleaning up or being kind to the kids.

“I’ve come across those who none of that works for, and I do well to help them find a way to immediately move on,” Brown said.

As a certified 501c3, the Georgia Street Community Collective has chosen to fiscally sponsor Brown’s program, and thus, all monetary donations to Auntie Na’s House are tax-deductible.

“Auntie Na don’t turn nothing down but a collar, and in most cases, I don’t even wear a collar. So volunteering, supplying, helping out, participating, Auntie Na accepts all,” Brown said.

Brown said in order to provide for her community, she goes through family and friends to gather clothes. She also rounds up a team to help her bring back food from different food pantries.

“The city hasn’t worked with me at all,” Brown said.

While trying to expand her homestead and turn it into what she would call Auntie Na’s Village, Brown has run into roadblocks trying to attain additional lots, cleaning up her street after a neighborhood fire and knowing real estate developers have been outbidding her for land, only to resell the spaces for higher prices.

However, Brown said she is kept going by knowing there is a real need in her community.

“I think one of the biggest things for me is when I look at even my own grandchildren. Many of our children are being left at home alone, and we’ve seen some of the awful outcomes from some of those circumstances and situations,” Brown said.

Aaron Appel recently graduated from Oberlin College in Jan. 2016, and now serves as Brown’s resource and outreach coordinator.

He first met Brown in 2014 when participating in an Oberlin winter term service project that linked students to Auntie Na’s House.

Appel said Na was dealing with health complications at the time, so his team of volunteers helped fix her collapsed porch, patched up her roof and dry walled her attic.

“The process of steadily working in Na’s presence takes you aback. I think she has more charisma in her pinky finger than most elected officials have in their whole bodies,” Appel said. “She articulates this vision of love and hope, but she actualizes it in a way that you don’t usually see."

When looking at the children who benefit from Auntie Na’s House, Appel said he knows the deck is stacked against them in a lot of ways because they have to grow to navigate a world that really isn’t built for them.

“The Peewee Planter Program that we hope to run this summer is literally a workforce development program,” Appel said. “We are going to be teaching young children and older folks skills like teamwork, communication, problem-solving, critical thinking and practical employment skills.”

Appel wants to encourage more people to get involved with and supportive of Auntie Na’s House.

“The more folks we have from all walks of life, sort of joining this unity, the better,” Appel said.

Marseda Kavalli, a WSU junior majoring in global supply chain management and a first time ASBD participant, said there were many things that caught her attention upon arriving at Auntie Na’s House.

“When you first walk in, it kind of seems like it’s in a disarray,” Kavalli said. “There’s a lot of things around the house, a lot of color, things nailed to the tree, things on the lawn and then people. That’s one of the main things I saw: people.”

Kavalli also noted that the neighborhood itself was in bad shape.

“It is a disaster,” she said. “There’s a lot of houses that have been burnt down, windows busted in. There are a lot of houses that just need to be torn down, but just haven’t, because the city hasn’t gotten to it.”

After helping to clean up Auntie Na’s attic and spending time with the homes many inhabitants, Kavalli described the experience as incredible.

“It really showed me that volunteering is a lot more than just picking up trash or painting something,” Kavalli said. “She [Auntie Na] emphasized talking to people in her community. I think that it’s really important for her to create relationships like that, because that’s really filling their hearts and filling ours as well.”

Kavalli said she admires Auntie Na for serving as a motherly, nurturing figure that many people in her community lack.

“She provides a safe environment for people to express what their feeling, or even just for people to go and have somewhere to feel comfortable,” Kavalli said. “For me, she taught me to open my heart to everybody. She has no judgment, no reserves. Everyone that walked into her house hugged her, it wasn’t a question. You didn’t hold back, and she never held back, which I appreciated.”

Before visiting Auntie Na’s House, Kavalli said hadn’t realized how much communities needed a nurturing figure like Na.

“We always talk about people. They don’t have food. They don’t have rooms. They don’t have houses, but they still need personal connection as well, and they don’t have that either,” Kavalli said.

For more information, contact reporter and Features Editor Aleanna Siacon at aleannasiacon.tse@gmail.com. Follow her on Twitter @AleannaSiacon.