Gabriel DellaVecchia and Adil Mohammed

00:04 My name is Gabriel dellavecchia. I am 40 years old today is Saturday, August 10th, 2019. We are in Flint Michigan on me with my friend Abdul Muhammad. Who is the supervisor at the Flint Muslim food pantry that I've been volunteering at for a few years and a friend of mine.

00:23 This is Adam Hamid. I am 58 and today Saturday August 10th weather in Flint Michigan in my entering partner is Gabriel dellavecchia and he's a friend of mine. He volunteers with those at the food pantry and he's become a good crack.

00:50 I wanted to have a conversation with both of you and your wife Maki. But she chose to go visit the Flint Institute of Art instead, but you've been coming in with us almost three years now. I don't really remember when you started but I know it's been at least two years and you know, I know you threw that work and I just wanted to spend a little bit of time getting to know some other parts of your life. If you are not necessarily to pry but just to see you know, what events and things in your life have influenced the work you do and the friend friendships you you making belt.

01:45 Maybe you told me this but do you say you grew up in New Jersey? And then yeah, so can we talk about it a little bit sure. I was born New Jersey let there until I was 18 and I once had someone ask me for the friend's mother had found out that I spent about 25 countries where they love to travel and she said they've been all around the world. Where would you have liked to have been born if you had the choice and I said, you know what? I'm actually really glad I was born in New Jersey. I didn't actually like where I grew up and so I gave me the impetus is if I was born in like, I don't know, Portland, Oregon to replace a tire.

02:44 I grew up about 10 miles outside of New York City and I was it was really frustrating of the young child because I could see the skyline of New York City. And so it was like so close but I was like a kid you can't get there on your own. So why not? I mean what I mean, so once I was able to kind of get around on my own when I was like 15 16, I start going in pretty often but as a the kid of the young teen my family didn't often go in and so, you know sitting around watching TV, New Jersey me like I know there's something else going on. Yeah.

03:25 Do it so that the 25 different countries that have been to so when exactly did you start and how did that happen like where you so again? My my family didn't really take a lot of trips. We spend most of our time in New Jersey growing up. But when I was 12 years old, my extended family decided to have one of those like reunions Cruise things like everybody every like second cousin on this big cruise ship and my immediate family didn't have the money until we were they going to the only Branch the family not to go but my grandmother who was a widow was like, well I can take Gabe with me, younger brother and younger sister and I can take him is like my companion I said that sounds amazing hang out with my extended family, but not my parents.

04:25 You know, we were close but not super close since she trusted me to be in a responsible. And so once you're on the boat, like I was on this cruise ship wandering around and then we went to my aunt had select the cruise ship and it was an Italian cruise line. So it's going to seem like more unusual stops than the typical ones. And so we went to like Caracas Venezuela and it was like Martinique in Curacao, like all these places that weren't the kind of you know, how long the cruise was it was in 10 days. It was a lot so I had to Freedom

05:05 To kind of do I want it on the boat whenever we went and stopped in Newport. I would go with some random aunt or uncle or whatever. What kind of take me along and that trip to stop in Venezuela, which was just for a day and I don't think it's very common for American cruise ships besides specially not in the modern-day concerning relationships. Country.

05:28 We got on this site.

05:31 Is a memory as clear as day we on this bus to go into the downtown Caracas and as we were driving through the outskirts of the city, they were all of these kind of impromptu houses along the hillsides all throughout and houses made out of corrugated metal and not seen with my own eyes yet. I was twelve and I'm driving to the city two things hit my just like always stock one was the driver of the van pointed out that

06:08 The houses didn't have running water, but they all had television prioritizing TV over water at that seems and I was like, well and water is expensive. It's really hard to run pipes easy to have Sanctuary rates electricity and all the wires and then we got to the middle of the city and like there was no driving rules at all. Like people who like dark man was driving on the sidewalk. It was like really really chaotic. And so that was it for me. That was like the world is so much bigger than my sleepy like New Jersey suburb. This looks like things I've read about but I'm not yet seen I need to see more to bring up.

06:57 A water infrastructure and TV because

07:03 I own a rental property in Flint in one of our tenants.

07:08 He spends more on cable TV, then he probably does on.

07:15 The water bill because I could he doesn't pay the water bill. I do as a landlord, but the connection I'm making is Flint's cattle water infrastructure problem, and they don't have money to enough money to fix that but then the citizens get enough money to watch camera cable TV from us. So that started you on this you were twelve then and then what then how did you do to a couple years later in between my freshman and sophomore year of high school? There's a group called the people of people student Exchange program started by Eisenhower. It's kind of like the kid version of the Peace Corps a shorter. Does it still run it does and it's really fascinating.

08:15 People to People Spokane Washington now, it's not feel like the government anymore. And so you get this letter in the mail and they were like, you know different regions of the US would go to different places in different years. And so that very first of the year I got the letter they were sending kids from New Jersey to adjust become the Russian Federation the Soviet Union and I'll just fall apart a handful of years ago before so it was Russia and the Baltic countries and I was like, that sounds absolutely fascinating. How can I go but it was it was a $3,000 trip which against me the time seemed like an absurd amount of money. So I started I talk to my parents not like, how can I get how can I get to make this happen answer? Like well, will it make him like fundraise like you can just start?

09:15 By then again, this is like the early 90s so well before the internet, so I sat there with the Yellow Pages and I went through I wrote two companies. I wrote to like fraternal organization things. I said. Hey, I'm like a 14 year old kid. I want to go to this trip to Russia like really expand my horizons and

09:35 I'll find out how many letters dozens dozens and dozens of letters a I would get a note back from like the Secretary of some large corporation being like that. Such a sweet story like near the boss said no, but like here's $5. So I did that. I only got some the biggest donation. I received was from the local like Masonic temple to give me $500 on the with the agreement. I had to go and then give a talk to them. That was a superb is our night. What ended up happening was I was at a magnet school for Science and Technology to time. It was a countywide magnet school and

10:26 Because we had all of these additional needs the school had like an in-house like fundraising person.

10:35 And so I talked to her about this goal and she's like, well, I'll kind of like slide your to like when we're trying to get money for like computers but school, I'll say and one of our students wants to go to go to Russia and so through my school they ended up like finding the money for me to go on this trip and it was and it was wild. I mean it was like just

11:01 You know from American TV and movies like the Soviet Union were the bad guys in every movie in the 80s and all that stuff and when I got there and again, this is just a handful of years at the end of the Soviet Union. Everything was faded, you know, everything was broken like the you know again with water like the hot water wouldn't work the water would work at all. The lights would go out and I was like, this is the super villain the mighty mighty. Yeah right away the layers of lies and all the stuff that we're told and I'm just like that and just watching these people that were just trying to get by waiting for hours in line for bread.

11:48 And again just just being like this is like what what a pack of Lies we've been sold and these are just people trying to scrape by and then as we travel is retarded Moscow and then we went through the baltics and we would have these homeless it was like a Homestay Wednesday overnight be go and you like for lunch or dinner with a family and talk and one young man. I spoke to and Latvia his family was ethnically Russian David living in Lafayette. And after the company was a Soviet Union broke up with Latvian not Soviet and he's like no one here wants me, but I just my country so they all want me to go back to Russia. I feel like I don't have any

12:35 Hunting background in Russia

12:39 So just released out of everything about it was fascinating. And so the next year they contacted me again people-to-people contact me again like this. You were going to Australia and New Zealand sounds like yes, and so I managed to go on that trip as well. And so that was all high school. And then I was in college I decided to go into the Peace Corps as soon as I graduate. That was my Michael and so I spent a year-and-a-half and South Africa volunteer and then since I left the ink on my bachelor's degree was not yet dry graduated in May 2000 and I was on a plane the next month.

13:26 South Africa by the time they apartheid had ended I'm sure or just ending so my Bella had just so it's six years before is when apartheid had collapsed into Mandela had just finished his term as president a handful of months before I got there. And so when I arrive in South Africa, the big question was what is the country?

13:53 Being held together by the force of Mandela's personality. And now that he had stepped out. Like was it because of him? And so with him no longer is present table on Deck. He had just taken was the country going to spin a part and it was

14:11 That was a very difficult job for sure. So how long will you stay?

14:26 Yes, I was a teacher trainer there and so my job was to in the in the years that Mandela was in power. They had decided to contract with some groups in England's to help them rebuild the education system in build a new curriculum for every subject. And so that had just been released. So my job is to try and help the teachers to adopt this new curriculum, which under apartheid was designs for control teach black African children. And then how do you switch that to

15:09 Cooperative learning creative thinking open Med questioning the kinds of skills. You need to be a good citizen in a democracy thought it was extremely difficult for the teachers to wrap their heads around.

15:24 And it was a very very difficult. I was I was I was too young and I did not know teaching experience to the time my only experience with having been a student in the US with qualified me for no way all day.

15:50 I'll save life experiences like, you know, the fact that you get to see what you saw in Venezuela anywhere 112 and then Soviet Union when you're 14 and South Africa, man, that's fat.

16:05 How long have we known each other about three years now, and I'm finding this out. Now. This is why I wanted to have this. Yeah, okay.

16:23 How do I get too far ahead but was there anything else you want to talk to her about South Africa or Soviet Union South Africa. There was supposed to be a two-year volunteer stint and you can because it's volunteer you can leave if you need to before your contract is up and there were two events that happened in very quick succession that cause me to to quit and I don't like to quit things but I was dating another volunteer at the time who ended up becoming my fiance and was actually my first wife, but we were just dating at the time and

17:09 She-Ra people lived in two Villages are about 10 miles apart from one. Another mine was at the very end of a road. So everyone that I lived with worked with and now you what kind of party their family extended family friends ride live together for so long and might as well been family. And so I felt fairly safe in my Village know if you like you look at the the family names that the class list of the school that got on his exam 5 last names right I guess so

17:43 They were still still some issues there and I was still it was not a safe place to live but I felt safe enough my girlfriend at the time lived in a Crossroads town right near a taxi Rank. And so it was a lot of coming and going and she felt much less safe and she lived I lived in a house Cohoes family where the food was one house in the bedroom of a house. Yeah. She was an American traditional South African compounds where the family should have been more than one room and she was in a separate room and people kept trying to break into her room. And the first time she tried it she wasn't home. We're at a conference like a training for PS4 and she had a friend staying there and so it scared her friend have to be

18:30 Then they tried it a second time when she was home. And so she heard them like rattling at her windows and was terrified can sleep. And so we had decided that it was to happen a third time. When the level of really really high is like it's not it's not worth you being so we decided that are ready and then on September 11th happens while we were there. And in fact, I was working with a group of high school students that I was kind of my main job didn't always give me a lot of satisfaction. So I would find other things to do in the community to try and feel like I was making some kind of difference so

19:15 In South Africa the high school graduation assessment.

19:22 Both parent teacher graduation get your high school diploma and at the entrance exam to the university size really high stakes and the kids are not very well prepared. So I had this group of students that was working with a try and prepare them for this really high-stakes assessment to or sitting on the edge of the village in this little room that we met in and talk about infrastructure. There are no telephones not every house in my Village had electricity that everyone had a mobile phone docking mm my first cell phone taxi in South Africa, New York City bombs.

19:59 Is it in my house when you were going on and my fans like I'm going on what and so I told the students was like I got to I got to go. I need to find out what's happening so I ran back to

20:20 My house turned on the TV and had the TV on just in time to watch the second Tower falling.

20:29 Well, so in the aftermath of that day, the Peace Corps was like they low. We don't know what's going on with the world situation is the safest place for you is to be in your village with people who know you best don't travel and so I was like this, you know, I finally got caught to attack my family and like was anyone in New York. Do you know no one was that's good. So all the sudden everything else super unstable worldwide everything thought unstable in South Africa, especially with my girlfriend the time or just like I don't think we're not meant to be here anymore in the vapors on October 11th.

21:17 So when did you meet a monkey?

21:22 So

21:24 I got divorced after a couple years being my tonight my first wife they weren't married all that long again. I was very young and years later. So kind of again. Can I fast forwarding?

21:39 I've been in his in education. I'd left it for a little while. I had spent a couple years in the film business or mention that and then I missed education I missed feeling like I was making a difference. I was tired of working with spoiled wealthy people. I was like, what am I doing? Where am I? How do I end up here? And I had seen an ad in the paper for a program called jet just the Japanese exchange and teaching program to run by the Japanese government address to make a sign that it's time for me to go back into education. And so I applied for that almost didn't get if I should wait-listed originally.

22:26 I was working on a TV show with the time. I got the waitlist letter. I was like the original departure for Japan came and went and they didn't call me know so I can up there goes that opportunity and then like a month later they called me and I like by the way, there's an opening you still want to go to Japan. I was like how how soon can I get a job at the TV show? I went to Japan and I had had some like expatriate other friends. It wasn't just Americans Canadians Australian to the people from high to speak English as a first language and one of my buddies is this guy from Canada and he was running.

23:12 Osco st. Baldrick's day fundraiser started in Boston a bunch of years ago people shave their heads to raise money then somewhere and he's like I want to put on the st. Baldrick's day and he knew that I was pretty well connected to the community and he knew that I was getting really into the local music scene at 11 musician friend's name is like, could you help me organize this and would you be in charge of the entertainment slide already been there a couple months or 9 months then and there was a group of elephants and I was a big city in the northern part of Japan and there was like a nonprofit networking event.

23:58 And so I was like, all right. Well, let me go I'll pass out some flyers or take baldrick's and you know, see if I can drum up some support. So I recruited my good friend who is really fluent in Japanese. My Japanese was terrible. So we got to this networking event and they were giving everyone like a couple minutes on stage to buy Pitch. What's your project? What do you do whenever you're looking for looking for volunteers? Whatever so we went up there a caywood Ewing St. Baldrick's day. It's going to be at this Club come on out to me a good time. And then I'm passing out flyers and I pass out of liars this one woman you end up being lucky and she starts asking me all these questions in Japanese and I'm like, I don't back in Japan lot of people aren't either they're not fluent in English or they've learned it in school and so they can read it, but they're not really comfortable speaking.

24:58 Yeah, the answer your questions and she's like really cuz she's so confused. She's like wait, you're a bunch of like foreign volunteer that your teachers but you're doing like a children's cancer fund are the community was working for.

25:18 It was kind of like a non-profit promotional group. I guess you'd say they say they were not profit that promoted other nonprofit. He was there in her work capacity since then after that night and we exchanged email maybe phone numbers. I don't remember and she started sending me information like fairly often and like always infected kind of this drummer. I know this band. I know this person's got equipment and answer for a little while. I was like at school like thank you. Let me run into each other and another event and we got going out for coffee. And then that was that was that sound 2020 2010 in between your first relationship and

26:11 I had one kind of longer-term one in between so I got divorced in 2004 5:00 somewhere in there so I can a couple years. Okay, so I I get a sense that you you pick up you see a sign and then you follow it.

26:34 So so what would make what sign did you get that said? Okay, I'm

26:43 I meant to be with my kid.

26:48 So one thing I was really nice not being in Japan and the beginning was that I so after I got divorced. Like I said, I did have a sort of a longer than I was I was with someone for 2 years in between and then I dated a little bit and so I wasn't I wasn't single for a very long time after my my divorce when I first got to Japan there was nine months where I spent a lot of time by myself and really got to kind of recenter many parts of myself that has a teacher as a community member. What do I do? What is what it look like when a I felt like I had been kind of reset in a way where I felt really ready already was ready again. Yeah, and then she's a really Dynamic person and she was really super unusual.

27:46 She doesn't like to be idle just like to be idle from what I've seen these sort of had an Awakening. She often told me about.

27:59 She really know what she wants to do when she was younger. She she went to like a 2-year College didn't really take it all in and it was okay, but then graduate to know what to do. She got this office job and kind of skated through a lot of her 20s got to interrupt and then she she's also married and divorced got married at 30.

28:22 Wasn't quite sure about it and it felt so her like other things were in control. And so then she had an opportunity heard about it, but she she quit her office job and start working at the Sendai International Center supporting all the foreign residents and son died. And so she started meeting all these people especially a lot of women from other countries in East Asia and hearing their stories and again, really funny kind of a purpose and helping others. So she did that for a little while and then she left the International Center and got the job at the organization. She was working for when I met her.

29:00 And just had a real again like a real passion for for community.

29:06 A passion for making a difference a frustration with the way things are in a way that I often.

29:12 Felt like a kind of a space alien and she seemed understand like why those things are bothering me. And so yeah, I mean she was she was really unusual and then the moment where I was like, oh, yeah, absolutely. So she kept telling me about her dog.

29:35 And her dog's name is Matthew. And in Japan people don't like people names and then for it to be like a western name was like particularly a dog's name is Matthew seriously, and so it's like so why is Matthew Sweet who is the musician that I really like? He's actually not a super well-known like she wanted to damage Christmas with you and Matthew Sweet, I would say no time like you you name your dog after Matthew Sweet sick. I love Matthew Sweet like I listen Side album like every day when I was in high school. I was like, like how did you even know but she's so turns out she's into all this like kind of, you know indie rock from the US and UK and I think my gosh you name your dog after messages, so

30:34 40 minutes would it be enough to have a conversation with both of you? Right because I've I've learned so much about you in the 30 minutes. I also wanted to kind of maybe try to bring you back to

30:51 I mean, it's really fascinating again. I think you've had these very early introduction to in a big events right? Then not just life events tonight in geopolitical that I find very interesting.

31:11 I think I think there's a there's something there anyway.

31:17 But you you also somehow found us right now the Flint Muslim food pantry and

31:26 If you can talk a little bit about

31:29 What kind of made you pick up on that? However, you found us. I know you were introduced to us to go to college and what keeps you coming back now, and I helped us helping us. Absolutely.

31:47 So I started my doctoral program at U of M in Fall of 2016 and because I'm a PhD in education a lot about so in my group of 16 people in my cohort it all started the same time. So a lot of us had just left behind our jobs in schools, you know, it was a big transition to go from being like a classroom teacher and working with kids and families every day to being a student again and writing papers and I certainly felt really disconnected and kind of grumpy on the whole thing and I knew some of my classmates did as well.

32:24 And so I was looking for an opportunity for our group to have something to do together and it felt like some kind of volunteer tasks would be.

32:37 Felt like the right fit, you know, we don't have time to go work in classrooms again, but maybe it's something here and there so as I was looking around for organizations, this is right after Trump was elected things were feeling pretty terrible a lot of my classmates were.

33:02 Extremely distraught about that. And so that was definitely on our minds. And as I was looking around I was like, you know, if we're going to we're going to lend our support to an organization. I said, I really think I'd like to find out when a Muslim organization. I think I feel like with this Administration coming in the rhetoric. He's already started. It feels like things are going to get pretty nasty for our neighbors pretty quickly. And so having kind of an infinite choice and places to to look for that kind of has on my mind and then I found out that there was a food pantry in Ypsilanti. Just next door to Ann Arbor and I was like, that sounds like a great place close.

33:44 If not political thing everyone needs to eat so we cannot even if my classmates to Arnold the same political persuasion. Hopefully we can all get behind. Let's make some people of food. So I floated the idea to my classmates and only my friend Katie took me up on the offer. I'll text you a little disappointed, but they come back to Katie and I went his local food pantry and was very small and we went twice.

34:16 And there's usually two or three volunteers already there. It was just one little groom families would come but maybe 20 in 2 hours or so and I said, you know, this isn't I don't really like impactful now, we're not needed here like this is us like so and so I contacted him again after our second visit there. And I said Khaled, you know that it's a wonderful place in a wonderful idea and very necessary community resource, but I don't think we really needed their he's like, well, you know, there's a pantry up in Flint and they're going to make hundreds of families every every other week and I said, oh,

35:02 Okay.

35:05 I feels like something that's where we're going to be needed. And of course Flint was again on our minds. We all knew about Mei don't you think I'd ever heard about Flint was I'd seen Rodger and me in college so I knew about the Auto industry in what town and then about the Water Crisis and so I was like, all right. Well, this is a community that needs the help. He's an organization doing really good work. So we contacted yesterday and we came up and down in the meantime says Katie was still all in and then I asked macchia if you want to come along with us, and she said yeah, let's go and so we came up.

35:52 And I know it's early days 3 years ago when we were still serving 300 families or whatever with a lot of people, you know it again, I felt necessary if I like making some differences and we got to know a lot of interesting people and over these couple years, you know, what sometimes makes me sad to see a lot of them kind of drift drift away and now we come because we're we're dedicated the project we're dedicated to you. Thank you. I'm glad we can help on the days we show up when it's just you and me is like well, I might have said this to you before and

36:42 Hey, I call you the angels from Ann Arbor because you're right A lot of times. It's I really don't know who's going to show up to volunteer, but I'm pretty sure you're going to show up no matter what the weather is like and it's 40 miles away. So I'm going to take the opportunity to thank you for you know, actually.

37:07 Thinking through how much impact you're having where you're having yet and who needs you and where you need it most kind of like that the same reason that I like on Doctors Without Borders, maybe something they live buyers. We find where the need is the most

37:35 And where nobody's going and that's where we want to be. So it's kind of similar to what you're saying. I want to thank you for doing that. I'm so disappointed that I didn't get to talk to Mikey a because one of the things that they don't want to do in the near future is to visit Japan. So I wanted to kind of get to know her a little bit just to kind of get to know the culture, but maybe maybe we'll maybe I'll come winter next, you know later on Saavn. Thank you again from as part of the organization American Muslim Community Services Flint Muslim Food Pantry on a thank you and Mikey and Katie for coming and helping us and stick with us.

38:24 And I'm so glad that I got to know you a little bit better and there's more stuff to talk about you for your friendship. And we also thank you for showing us Community. I mean, we were new here relatively right mate and I have no roots in Michigan at all. And in some ways we feel more connected to this community here than even our immediate know where we live. So we spend a lot of time here and we can we talk to people here like one word. That's cool. That's a lot of that's true i n n Flint has an interesting story. You know, I'm not I came to Flint in 88 or 89 the same year that Rodger and me came out.

39:10 So that's another another connection that I have with that movie arise is that

39:16 The movie comes out and I come to plant and it all goes downhill for foot and I can get the really bad in a black. I'll say I'm not intentionally from from Michael Moore but it just it just had an impact, you know a negative but I think we're still trying to dig ourselves out of that and you know what?

39:46 I also like to say that there's a flint in every city in America. So it's not just playing it's every city is like the sea time zone issues may be an extreme example, but we'll figure things out will be okay. Alright, thank you. Thank you.