As summer winds to a close, the BuildaBridge office is buzzing as our staff prepare to kick off our 2008-2009 Create! Discovery program. Now in its fourth year, Create! Discovery partners with community agencies in Philadelphia to bring arts-integrated education to low-income children and youth, many of whom are coping with homelessness.

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Just before the afternoon session began, it started to rain—really, really hard. It was raining sideways, and, because the school is at the base of a valley, all of the water flows downhill towards it. While it normally trickled down the steep bank towards the sewage creek, the water shot out of the pipe, roughly five feet across, at a frighteningly high velocity. The water came out almost horizontally and nearly cleared the entire creek. It was almost as if created for an amusement park—only more intense. I could picture the raft full of shrieking passengers going through the torrent and over the rapids.

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The afternoon storm had threatened houses and created swirling rapids in the sewage creek. The following day, as the children arrived for their final presentation, “mineros,” miners, took advantage of the lowered water level to search for recyclables to sell. The color and enthusiasm inside the school seemed to exist in a world outside of the slum, but the dirt on the kids’ clothes and the miners outside brought back the reality of their situation and the world in which they live.

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