Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
(Lydia Lanni) What are we going to do?
(Darron Gibson) Is that what we're going to do.
Whoa!
(Lydia Lanni) I don't know! I got to sit down.
(Darron Gibson) Me too.
(Lydia Lanni) Cass Community they have a green gym,
and in those gyms they have bikes.
While you're pedaling, you are creating energy.
(Stacy Leigh) What they are essentially doing in this room
will help power the machines in the mud mat room, operated by
homeless guys who are part of a vocational training program.
(Faith Fowler) The second room is a document destruction or
shredding room where we employ 50 developmentally disabled
people to sort and shred paper and cardboard and X-rays.
I'm Faith Fowler, senior pastor at
Cass Community United Methodist Church and executive director
at Cass Community Social Services in Detroit.
At least three groups of people pedal the bikes here at the
green gym; some are residents, people formally living on the
streets and now living in our transitional shelter.
(Darron Gibson) Well when I'm working out it's really a lot of fun.
It's keeping me working on my cardiovascular.
It's a dual purpose.
(Marcellus Sabra) I work in the mud mat assembly room,
where we actually take tires, used tires out of the community,
and we bring them back here and we make mud mats out of them,
like door mats.
(Faith Fowler) So the fact that Cass is able to pick up the
tires at no cost to the city, 17,000 so far,
and actually turn that into jobs and keep them out the landfill
is a terrific proposition.
The second group is the staff of Cass.
Very often they come over on lunch hours or after work
or before work.
♪ (music) ♪
The last group of people are all volunteers.
We see 5,000 volunteers a year here.
(Lydia Lanni) The cool thing about this part of
Cass' ministry-- it's building pride for people.
It's not about giving a hand out; it's about helping
and building up people.
(Delano Gayles) I dream to start my own family and have my own
house, you know be on my own one day.
(Andre Jones) You know since I have been here I have been
learning how to become a man.
So it's giving my integrity back, my dignity back and pride back.
(Marcellus Sabra) They put me in a place where I can sit down
and actually evaluate my situation in life.
I feel I'm on the right track and I feel like I just need to
stay on that same track.
(Stacy Leigh) Most of my guys, two years ago
they were on the streets, they were probably using.
They were probably suffering from untreated mental illness
and today these guys are on the front lines of the
green revolution, and they're also learning skills
that make them employable.