Our Plan Is Simply to Expect the Unexpected
During the Neighborhood Prosperity Initiative course, my group has had the opportunity to visit parts of East San Jose and learn about life there. Our visit to Cristo Rey High School gave us a very valuable perspective of how much variation in lifestyles, cultures, and backgrounds there is in the city of San Jose.
Cristo Rey is the most impressive high school I have ever seen, and probably ever will see. Every student works one day a week in a company to get valuable experience to add to their resumes, which they also have the opportunity to perfect. In comparison to my public school education, a Cristo Rey student is far more prepared for professional life than any given student from my high school.
The school also focuses on community service, offering immersion trips and ways to become involved in the community. One of my group’s tour guides, Pedro, planted trees over the summer. Our other tour guide Regina went to an area outside of Tijuana to build a house for a family in need of shelter. I felt very obligated to share whatever knowledge or advice I had for them about college life and the application process. They aspired to go to schools all over, from Seattle University to Santa Clara to Holy Cross, and already had interests in particular majors
From Cristo Rey we continued to a restaurant to meet the business owners. I very briefly met the owners of Sweet Passions, the bakery my group will be involved with, and found them to be extremely sweet people with a passion for their business. They talked about their family and personal life, and I am looking forward to our meeting tonight in which we will learn what plans or ideas they have for their business.
We also had the opportunity to walk by a couple of storefronts, including Sweet Passions. They have a small area with a window sign and some display signs for different types of cakes. Their competitors, Mexican Bakery, are across the street from them on Alum Rock. Mexican Bakery is a much larger place and offers a wide variety of baked goods, whereas Sweet Passions seems to specialize in cakes.
My group has researched Sweet Passions on Yelp and found that they do have a presence there. Beyond that, our meeting with the business owners will determine the direction we take. Our current idea is to expand their online presence and use any remaining resources to improve the storefront. After our meeting we hope to have a clear direction, but we don’t anticipate things to work perfectly right away. At the moment, our plan is simply to expect the unexpected.