Diary of Schaefer Intern, Kerry Crawford

         June 2006 ~ Baltimore 

When I first wandered into City Hall on a scorching June day, I felt just as I had on my first trip to the U.S. Capitol building in Washington, D.C. with my fourth grade class: utterly small and completely in awe of my surroundings. After weaving my way through the one-way streets of Baltimore City during lunch hour, finally finding a parking space underneath the I-83 Fallsway after a series of wrong turns and a seemingly endless search for the coveted last metered space, and passing through the somewhat surprisingly paranoid security guards in the main hallway, I gained entrance to the inner workings of city government. Brandishing my newly acquired VISITOR badge, I set off toward the Mayor’s office, where I was to interview with the Chairman of the Office of Neighborhoods.

It’s impossible to pass hurriedly through the entrance to City Hall on your first trip, which brings me back to my sudden feeling of miniaturization. As I made my way toward the elevator wing, I passed under the dome—the vast upward expanse that formed the building’s center and dwarfed anyone standing beneath it—and couldn’t help stopping dead in my tracks to look up and allow myself to be engulfed in the feeling of being surrounded by both history and progress.

Believe In Our Schools is a program established by the Mayor’s office to physically revitalize inner city schools. If children are going to succeed in school, they need a nice place to do so; rundown school buildings that have fallen into disrepair through no fault of the students are not conducive to the inspiration and encouragement of young minds. As an intern with City Hall and the Believe In Our Schools program, my job is to paint classrooms and hallways in more vibrant (though still standard-issue institutional) colors. Teams of interns, Mayoral fellows, and City Hall staff members invade a different school every week armed with paint brushes, rollers, gallons of paint, and the will to make Baltimore schools better for Baltimore students.

Government is about making a difference, no matter how small that difference may seem, in the lives of the people. How do I know I’m making a difference? I still remember the effect that an old building with a majestic dome and marble floors had on me in June: I was inspired to become a part of the history of public service carried out under that dome and within those walls. We are shaped and motivated by our surroundings, and if a summer of painting classrooms could allow me to make at least one students experience in school a little more positive, then it was worth every minute.