June 2011 - East English Village

Cadieux
Outer Dr./Whittier
Harper
www.eastenglishvillage.org
A community of choice since 1913
June 2011 • Volume 35, No. 6
Mack
Newsletter
editor
needed
E
ast English Village
newsletter is the primary source of communication for residents in our
community. Many neighbors use the news as a
reminder that the monthly
meeting is coming up
(although it is always the
second Wednesday of the
month).
The editor position and
the advertising sales position are open as of June
2011. We will have another
newsletter when someone
steps up. Will it be you?
Contact president, Bill
Barlage, who appoints the
two board positions, at 313884-0554 or outgoing news
editor, Helen Broughton, at
313-244-5209.
President’s Message
Summer greetings!
W
ell, after so much
rain and hot weather,
summer 2011 is finally here. Our general meetings
the last two months have been
well attended. We have had the
pleasure of hosting
Councilman Andre Spivey at
the June meeting. Councilman
Spivey covered the latest news
on the 2011 City of Detroit budget discussions. Councilman
Spivey and his wife Shemma
announced they will be calling
East English Village home in
the near future.
This summer has been a
challenge for some residents
when it comes to taking care of
their property — grass cutting
is the biggest issue. It has been
embarrassing to many neighbors who are proud of the
neighborhood to entertain in
their backyards on a summer’s
night while having to look at
grass two to three feet high
because the owner or renter
doesn’t get the message that is
this not acceptable. City code
requires grass to be maintained
no longer than eight inches
high. EEV has two mowers to
lend out if needed. Please contact your street rep or our
Residential Chair for more
information. The city will ticket
offenders. This is where we live
— we need to be proud!
Our summer meeting will
continue at St. Clare on the second Wednesday of the month
for July and August. The highly anticipated EEV garage sale
will take place on August 13
from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Please contact our Residential Chair,
Beckie Themer, if you have any
questions. There is a fee and
registration for the event.
See PRESIDENT, Page 2
New twist on Beautification Contest
B
eckie Themer, EEV
Residential Chair, has
lined up horticulturist
Barry Burton to judge this
year s beautification contest again. However, the
contest will have a community bent this year. Judging
will be awarded for first,
second and third place for
the best overall BLOCKS.
The contest is in August,
so now is the time to
spruce up your own yard
and see what you can do to
help your neighbors. Split
some perennials, share an
unused landscape ornament or stop by to help
weed or trim so everyone
on the block is looking
good.
Calendar
Mondays: Curbside
recycling (plastic, paper,
metal) at Mack to
Warren
Tuesdays: Curbside
recycling (plastic, paper,
metal) at Warren to
Harper
Wednesdays: Senior
Tai Chi, 11:30 a.m. at
Bethany Christian
Church, 5901 Cadieux
EEV Community
Meeting: Wednesday,
July 13 at 7 p.m., St.
Clare Montefalco, 1406
Whittier
July Film on the Hill:
Saturday, July 16 at
8:30 p.m., Balduck Park
August
EEV Community
Meeting: Wednesday,
August 10
Bulk Trash Pickup:
Thursday, August 11
Garage Sale Pre-Party
and White Elephant
Auction: Friday, August
12
Neighborhood Garage
Sale: Saturday, August
13 from 9 a.m. to 5
p.m.
Block Beautification
Contest: Saturday and
Sunday, August 20-21
Film on the Hill:
Saturday, August 20 at
8:30 p.m., Balduck
Park
Garden Club:
Saturday, August 20;
topic: Herbs
Page 2
East English Village
June 2011
East English Village information
Officers
Street representatives
Committees
President: William Barlage, 884-0554,
[email protected]
1st Vice President: Terri Shaw,
[email protected]
2nd Vice President: Latisha Johnson,
670-0707, [email protected]
Treasurer: Tanya Cleveland, [email protected]
Secretary: Bee Davis, 882-3169, [email protected]
Commercial Chair: Terry
Shaw, [email protected]
P.O. Box 241009, Detroit, MI 48224
Outer Drive/Whittier: Harry Davis, [email protected]
Chandler Park: Barbara Pitts, [email protected]
Kensington: Fred Vitale, 580-4905, [email protected]
Yorkshire: Janet Meeks, [email protected]
Bishop: Marc Tirikian, 460-1975,
[email protected]
Grayton: Brad Dick, [email protected]
Harvard: Joe Balistreri, 310-3957, [email protected]
Cadieux: Erica Wilson, [email protected]
East English Village message
line: 313-216-1729
[email protected]
Note: If you have questions or wish to volunteer for one of the committees, please use
the appropriate email address listed here or
call the EEV message line, 313-216-1729.
Mailing address
President
Continued from Page 1
Our street lights will be on
soon be back on Outer Drive.
While the light poles are
being rewired we will have
temporary lighting on the
boulevard islands.
We continue to remind
residents that while summer
is a great season it’s also a
working season. Many of us
are working on home renovations, gardens and general
items needing attention from
a long winter season.
Remember to be careful with
power tools, ladders, etc. It’s
easy to over reach while
painting or fixing the garage
door and find you are hanging or falling from a ladder.
Using professional repair
people may be costly but
sometimes is the right way to
go to keep you and your
property looking great.
If you’re using a company
or service please check to see
if they are bonded and or
insured for the work they are
performing on your property.
On a personal note, I
would like to thank Helen
Broughton for being our
Newsletter Editor for the last
several years. Helen has
brought a great sense of
style, creativity and continued continuity to our paper
each month. We wish her the
Residential
Residential Chair:
Beckie Themer, 8823188, [email protected]
Vacant Property: Marie
Cierpial 510-4470
Garden Club: David
Teeter 640-7627
[email protected]
Paid Security: Debbie
Brady, 886-7360, [email protected]
Senior Services: Susie
Rookard,
[email protected]
best in some well-deserved
down time. We will still see
Helen on a regular basis —
not just in her garden but as
our community manager of
Next Detroit for EEV. We
would also like to thank the
newsletter group that helps
each month and the incredible layout editor Diana
McNary for all the hard
work put in each month!
We are currently looking
for someone to fill the
Editor’s spot. If you are interested please contact me via
email at [email protected]
Have a great and safe
Fourth of July!
Bill Barlage
President
Newsletter
Editor: OPEN
Advertising Editor: OPEN
Layout: Diana McNary,
[email protected]
Newsletter Committee: Jackie
Cayton, Steve Babson, David
Nicholson
Lost Pets: Karlene Trump, 8822579
Volunteer Safety Patrol: Marie
Cierpial, 510-4470
Welcoming/Hospitality: MaryBeth
Strong, 886-6096, [email protected]
Seasonal Maintenance: Walter
Strong, [email protected]
Webmaster: Charlie Ericson, [email protected] and
Nancy Brigham
Recycling: Fred Vitale,
[email protected],
580-4905
NDNI sponsored Clean
Neighborhoods team will
remove trash on Harper
and Mack Avenues during
the summer. 1st VP and
Commercial Chair, Terri
Shaw, and EDSI volunteers
will continue to improve
the East Warren corridor.
June 2011
East English Village
Page 3
One man gives back
S
ome neighborhood heroes
keep to themselves, so it
is great when you get to their
story. Soft-spoken and gentle
in manner, Gerry Burns leads
an incredibly busy and active
life. He holds down a fulltime job as a nurse practitioner in infectious medicine
and since the year 2000 has
reared fifteen refugee boys in
his comfortable home on
Outer Drive.
As he unveils the timeline
that led from three years in
Niger, West Africa as a Peace
Corps volunteer to our visit
on his back patio with the
eldest daughter of his eldest
foster son draping her small
dark arm on his chair, I marvel at his experience.
His life changed when he
watched a TV program entitled “The Lost Boys of
Sudan.” The show highlighted 30,000 kids who spend
their life in a refugee camp.
Gerry realized that he was
looking to give back to the
people in Africa who have so
little, yet one can’t even
describe how good they are.
ABC News connected him
to an agency in Baltimore
and then to Lutheran Social
Services. Michigan is one of
fourteen states in the United
States that takes in refugee
children, whose lives would
be endangered if they were
to return to their homeland.
Gerry’s boys came to him,
fifteen over an eleven-year
period, from Sudan, Burma,
Somalia, Iraq, Nigeria, and
Congo. Four were Asian, one
was Arab and the rest
African. Most did not speak
English when they entered
the country. Having experienced learning language by
necessity, picking up Hausa
while in Niger, a Frenchspeaking Muslim country,
Burns didn’t find that communication was difficult for
him and the boys. Teaching
them how to drive, he
smiles, that was a challenge.
Fifteen kids (no more than
six in the house at one time)
were fostered starting at age
fifteen or sixteen years old;
ten still call him Dad. For
one-third, both parents are
deceased. Each child came
from a different background,
so he tailored their educational setting to those needs.
At one time he had five kids
at different schools. He
would drop them off on the
Distribution
sponsor
way to his 8- to10-hour
workday and hire a taxi to
bring them home. One was
trained to be a butcher at
Golightly Vocational School,
one was East Catholic High
School’s 2004 valedictorian,
three have their American
citizenship and several have
gone on to higher education
at Michigan State, Lansing
Community College,
Western and Eastern.
“They are great kids. I
have a great life.” That payit-forward philosophy seems
to stem from his good fortune — having the world’s
best parents, five close siblings, ten godchildren, a
strong faith and support of
good friends. One woman
friend cooks dinner for the
family every Sunday, making
enough food for two to three
days, so they don’t have to
prepare meals. The boys call
her Mom.
Gerry showed me a photo
of himself and his first five
boys, standing tall in a
chevron behind his smiling
face. I again wondered at the
rich fabric of their family life.
“My goal is to be their parent
for as long as they need,” he
explains, it is typical — some
kids move back home.
Whether they live as adults
in Minnesota, Grand Rapids,
Lansing or Saint Clair
Shores, his children will
always have a home base
here.
EEV thanks Ameribilt
Construction who will
sponsor distribution of our
newsletter from JulyDecember 2011!
Garden Club
Notes
The June and July Garden
Club meeting will be combined. Please watch the
EEV website for updates
or contact David Teeter at
640-7627.
Thanks to Beckie Themer,
who raised heirloom tomatoes, and Gwen Wee, who
offered hostas from her
yard, as a benefit for the
EEV Garden Club. Plants
sold for $1-$5 at the
monthly meeting.
EEV Talent
Calendar
David Teeter will be a part
of the Detroit Together
Men's Chorus Concert:
APPLAUSE!! APPLAUSE!!,
Saturday, June 25 at 7:30
p.m. at Lamphere High
School Auditorium on 13
Mile (near John R) in
Madison Heights. Tickets
for this celebration of theater music are $18 in
advance, $15 for
seniors/students and $25
for preferred seating, available at www.dtmc.org or
248-544-3872.
Landscape theft not pretty
T
hanks to Yorkshire resident,
Seletha Porter, who placed four
sets of flowers on the porches of
vacant homes on her block. Caring for
empty houses in this way is a great
signal that we are a neighborhood
that watches out for its own.
Unfortunately, someone un-did her
kind deed by stealing the pots of
posies. Did these find a home in
someone else’s yard? Were they sold
at a discount to an unsuspecting
neighbor?
Times are hard, but stealing landscaping is outright ridiculous.
Page 4
East English Village
References needed: Trusted contractors
by Mark Faulkner
t has been 1 1/2 years since I
bought my home on
Kensington and after many
projects later, the place is looking quite good. The home was
stripped of anything of value
before I bought it, so it needed
everything to make it livable.
Since I was moving here
from Southern California, I
did not have any contacts for
suppliers or contractors to
help with the renovations.
The ads on Craigslist.org have
been my best hope but they
have not always worked out.
If I had a list of valued contractors from my neighbors,
the projects would have been
completed in half the time.
My latest project was to get
the house re-sided and have
the trim painted. After contacting 20 individuals and
contractors, I got only one bid
and on-site inspection.
Usually, I try to get at least 5
site inspections and bids
before making a decision on
who will do the work. But
this has not worked here for
some reason. Many contractors say they give free estimates but then never show
up. There has got to be a better solution for all of us who
need help fixing our homes!
I've heard horror stories
about women and men being
taken advantage of on price
I
and service, and I didn't want
this to happen to me. So I
talked to some of my neighbors, and they gave me names
of people to contact. What a
great help they have been!
Now I can avoid being the
victim of another horror story.
If you have any information about any quality handyman or contractor that you
have used within the past few
years, please let me know
about them. We are putting a
list together that will be available to everyone on the EEV
website. Everyone will modify their home interior and
exterior sooner or later and if
you re living in East English
Village our contractor referral
page on the website will
prove really useful if you
want to start your home
improvement.
Send recommendations for
companies that deal with:
Roofing
Siding
Gutters
Concrete Steps
Wood Decks
Lighting
Room Additions
Painting
Windows & Doors
Garages
Brick Work
Chimneys
Porches
Plumbing
Electrical
Basements
Insulation
Wood Floor Refinishing
Kitchens
Bathrooms
Heating & Cooling
Hot Water Heaters
Carpentry
Tile & Floors
Wall Refinishing
Clean Outs and Hauling
Patios
Wood Decks
Landscaping
Water Fountains
Walkways
Fencing
By sharing your familiarity
with all of us about these
individuals, we can make better decisions about getting the
job done and not spend a lot
of time on getting quotes
from contractors with whom
we have no history.
Please contact us in writing
to give us your best contractor
name, phone, email, and what
they can do. You can send the
information to Mark Faulkner
at [email protected]
Thanks for helping all of us.
June 2011
MHS Pet
of the Month
Meet King! Don’t let his
large stature fool you –
this 2-year-old Pit
Bull/Doberman mix is
very friendly and eager
to please! Playful and
sweet, King is a fast
learner and would make
a wonderful companion.
Come meet him today at
the Michigan Humane
Society’s Detroit Center
for Animal Care! The
adoption fee includes
sterilization, age-appropriate vaccinations and
much more. Visit or call
(313) 872-3400 for more
information and be sure
to provide the pet ID
number, 10726133.
June 2011
East English Village
Page 5
EEV Soccer Team
The EEV team poses before their first game, a victory over the
Poletown team. More information about the Detroit neighborhood soccer league at www.detroitcityfutbol.com.
Mowing with Marie
A
lthough there is no sign on the
side, I would bet that most EEV
neighbors are familiar with Marie
Cierpial s maroon red van. She is
everywhere in the neighborhood —
helping with vacant property
cleanups, delivering newsletters to
local businesses and carrying her
employees from job site to job site.
With a sparkle in her eye, a wink
and a grin she exudes a youthful energy that belies her pert grey ponytail.
A resident on Bishop for fifteen
years in July, Marie says she loves the
neighborhood. “I found a two-family
and loved it instantly,” she explains.
Why? Because of the dark woodwork inside, the brickwork on the
front and the sense of community
she felt on the street.
Six years ago she started Marie’s
Landscaping as a side job, offering
mowing, hauling and snow removal
to local residents. Three years ago
she began volunteering to maintain
our Emma’s houses, the vacant
homes in the neighborhood, paying
for materials and gas out of her own
pocket doing 25-30 per year.
Now a collection is taken at the
general meeting to offset the costs and
Marie hires local residents to assist the
work, teaching them how to pay
attention to details and the finer qualities that make the difference between
a half-done job and a really good job.
You can hire Marie and her team
for your yard this summer. Ten dollars will buy a cut, edge and blow for
the front. She will give a quote to
trim the hedges as well as you would
do on your own. Look for Marie’s ad
at the back of the newsletter.
Her goal for the month of June is
to mow the 200 top vacant eyesores
in the neighborhood. Trimming a
vacant property costs from $10 -$25,
so your donation would be warmly
welcomed.
Page 6
East English Village
June 2011
Advertise here!
To place an ad, please call 313-216-1729 or email [email protected]
The EEV Newsletter printing and distribution is fully funded by our advertisers. PLEASE give them your business as appropriate, LET THEM KNOW you have seen their ad and THANK THEM for their contribution!
Marie’s Landscaping, Property Cleanup, Trash Hauling.
EEV Resident. 313-510-4470
WJU Services - Bill Urbine. Landscaping General Labor,
Reasonable Rates. EEV Resident. Contact william.urbine@ att.net
or 313-434-3177. No job too big or small!
Certified heating and cooling repair. EEV resident. Call
Bob at 313-885-7113
Roof leaks repaired with written guarantee. Gutters
cleaned and repaired. New gutters and downspoutsº
installed. Tuck pointing – porches and chimneys. Area resident. Call John at 313-886-3824. Free estimates.
Do It Guys — We will install, repair, service, fix or clean just
about anything! HW tanks, furnaces, appliances, A/C, plumbing, cars, gutters, cement work, minor home repair. EEV resident.
Call Ray today at 313-885-3381 or 313-213-4087.
Seniors’ Day Out – a monthly lunch program for seniors 55
and better. Wednesdays at 12:30 p.m. at Bethany Church, 5901
Cadieux. For more information, 313-885-0909 or [email protected]
For Rent: Newly renovated multi-family. Freshly painted
interior – Beautifully remodeled kitchen – hardwood floors
throughout – Spacious three car garage. Call Bernice at 313345-0503 – Saros Realty
Garage door repairs, adjusted and installed, very reasonable. Call Charles 313-778-3673
June 2011
East English Village
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