Willa Strawder, June 22nd, 2024
Title
Willa Strawder, June 22nd, 2024
Description
In this interview, Willa Strawder shares what climate change means to her and how it has affected her and her community.
In partnership with the Manistique Community Treehouse Center
In partnership with the Manistique Community Treehouse Center
Publisher
Detroit Historical Society
Date
6/22/24
Rights
Detroit Historical Society
Language
en-US
Narrator/Interviewee's Name
Willa Strawder
Brief Biography
Willa Strawder is a long time Detroiter who has lived in multiple areas of Detroit. She worked for Comcast before becoming involved with the Manistique Community Treehouse Center to help her community.
Interviewer's Name
Kevin Hawthorne
Date
06/22/2024
Interview Length
14:23
Transcription
Kevin Hawthorne: Hello, this is Kevin Hawthorne with the Detroit Historical Society, and I'm here with today.
Willa Strawder: Willa Strawder.
KH: Welcome. And could you please spell your name for the record?
WS: W i l l a S t r a w d e r
KH: All right. Thank you so much for being here today, Willa and do you live in the city of Detroit?
WS: Yes I do.
KH: In which neighborhood?
WS: I live in the Jefferson Chalmers neighborhood.
KH: And how long have you lived in that neighborhood for?
WS: I've been here since 2017.
KH: 2017 and have you lived in any other neighborhoods in the city?
WS: Yes I also actually was born and raised on the West Side. So.
KH: In what area on the West Side?
WS: Rosedale Park I was over there, from the time I was 11, on up to college age. And before then I was on Patton and Grand River, and before then I was also on Archdale lane.
KH: So quite a few, quite a few areas. What brought you to the Jefferson Chalmers area in 2017? What brought you to the Jefferson Chalmers area?
WS: Well, it was a change of scenery, and I was, in a relationship at that time, and it was just something new and something different, bigger space.
KH: And do you work in the city of Detroit?
WS: Yes, I do.
KH: And what is, your career in?
WS: I work at the Community Treehouse. I work with Tammy Black as the programs and sustainability director. Yeah.
KH: And where is the Treehouse's primary location?
WS: Jefferson Chalmers.
KH: And what services do you think the tree house is able to provide the community to combat climate change?
WS: Well, currently, we are doing the weather flooding combination over here, just over in the other room and we're working on weather preparedness. But as far as just in general, it's an ever evolving situation where we're trying to work together to bring about better options for the people to be prepared.
KH: Yeah. When you say weather preparedness, what do you mean by that?
WS: Well, basically, for example, in, 2021, I believe it is the flood happened and, there was so much water where, it got up to at least I want to say at least people were in kayaks going down our street like it was a lot of water and no one knew. It all happened very suddenly, and I was on next door. It was, about one two o clock in the morning and I told individuals who are awake, you know, if you're up, get your street, get your cars off the street, you know, because otherwise your car was going to get flooded. So basically, trying to provide the neighbors in this area with more of a heads up, when things like that are going to occur versus us being caught off guard and unfortunately having to incur a lot of damage as a result.
KH: So with the weather preparedness, are you definitely preparing them more for summer weather, or do you also prepare them for some of the winter weather as well?
WS: I think living in Michigan, it's good to be prepared for everything. At the end of the day, because whatever can happen in Michigan will happen in Michigan. So.
KH: So definitely flooding prevention. Can you also tell us about the Treehouse's solar efforts?
WS: Now, as far as that, we have our solar pathways workforce development program. There we often bring in individuals that have been disenfranchised or looking for a different avenue aside from college and we teach them about, solar installation, solar sales and home assessments. So that's— also, we are working with Communities Power and Communities Power works to install—they they've installed over 25 homes in this area with solar.
KH: All right. And what about the tree houses? Greening efforts. The greening of the community efforts.
WS: We do a lot of planning and gardening and try to bring the community in to do that kind of thing as well. But full disclosure, I started in January, so I'm new to the community tree house. But that's where, you know, focus on holistic training and healing and things of that nature.
KH: So so if you're, being, recent a member of the tree house, what attracted you the most to the organization?
WS: Oh I feel like if I have to work, I might as well be doing something that's going to help the community. I did not want to stay in a 9 to 5 position where I felt like I was working, and I wasn't making a difference. And at Community Treehouse, I feel like I can actually make a difference.
KH: No, absolutely. Always feels good to make a difference. Can you tell me a little bit about the Treehouse's partnership with the National Weather Service? Oh. Do you need me to?
WS: Something's up. Us something. (we paused recording because she didn't know this question and wanted to move on)
KH: All right, that is no problem. So just in general.
WS: Yeah. Oh, yeah. You probably.
KH: Yeah. We'll pause again. So, how do you think the Treehouse is able to engage with the community?
WS: Well, we do a lot of outreach. I—we're a team of two, and, with a lot of volunteers, and, we go out into the community. I myself am out very much in the community passing out fliers, meeting the principals meeting you know, student coordinators and just basically explaining what we do in the community. As I mentioned, we have, programs currently where, we have yoga starting July 9th and just trying to get the adults as well as children engaged because, you know, it's the summertime and they're out of school. The kids are anyway. We also have meetings like this where we bring everybody together to try to bring them, more information about how they can stay prepared for, bad weather. It's just an overall coming together with the community and being out in the community to bring the work. Yeah.
KH: And so, in addition to engaging, or do you think you've been able to help educate people about climate change?
WS: Somewhat yep. I feel like it's, it's a growing, evolving, thing where you're constantly having to tell people because some people don't believe it's real, unfortunately.
KH: And just in general, have you seen most people are accepting of it, or do you see some people are a little bit more apathetic?
WS: I think more people are becoming more accepting, just because, you know, just like the fires that happen over in Canada, what does that a year or two ago? Then there's also, like I said, the flooding here, it was unreal. I've never seen anything like it. And so I think people are starting to wake up and see what's really going on.
KH: You were talking about how, you know, you were very early on, like next door you're telling people like, hey, get your cars out. Did you have any personally bad flooding at your residence?
WS: Oh, absolutely. We had—the water I see was just a couple feet It was like 3 or 4ft in the basement It was probably higher than that. But, yeah, the cars underneath got rusted there was, damage to everything we had in the basement we had to throw out. It was bad.
KH: Yeah. In general, have you how do you compare? Like, the the summers of, like you growing up in Detroit versus, like, the summers of the past four years?
WS: Well. I have to say, and I'm not 100% sure, but definitely for sure in these last couple of years It seems hotter. It definitely seems hotter like this week even and last week in the 90s, you know, and even our springs sometimes seem to happen a little bit earlier than they used to.
KH: And I feel like another thing we've heard with some other residents, not just of Jefferson Chalmers, but of the Detroit area in general. Is also, have you guys noticed an uptick in power outages the past couple years during the summers?
WS: Absolutely. Because of the overgrown trees. I used to work for Comcast and so, there were outages all the time I was working from home during Covid. and, from what I understood, there were overgrown trees in people's backyards that, no longer were there at the residence. You know, there just might be a lot full of trees and so the teams had a hard time getting over there to cut the trees down after a big storm. But yeah, a lot of times due to the storms, they were a lot of power outages.
KH: So talking about we've been talking about some green infrastructure things. If you could have one piece of green infrastructure that the treehouse could offer what would you like to have?
WS: A solar, definitely solar.
KH: Have you looked into getting solar for your house personally?
WS: Yeah, it's a bit expensive, so, you know, have to look into other avenues at this time. You know, maybe some grants or something of that nature, but, yeah, I, I have.
KH: And if you could see the city implement a piece of green infrastructure, but it also be solar, if you could see that implemented more widely through the city.
WS: Yeah. I think solar would be beneficial to, a lot of individuals, businesses as well.
KH: Just in general, how have you seen the how do you feel the city has handled things like, you know, the increase in flooding in like the hotter summers. How do you think the city has handled it?
WS: I think they're working towards making things better. As to whether or not it is going to be sustainable that that remains to be seen. I hope that there are more proactive ways of going about bringing about change versus reactive.
KH: What would be your ideal like proactive changes?
WS: My ideal proactive changes I that takes a little bit more research is a little bit out of my depth, but just definitely like right here there across the way in this other room, they're doing a program where they offer stipends or a grant and, you know, they help with being prepared in those type of situations. But overall adoption, not just, you know, certain select pilot groups, overall adoption, mainstream across the board for our infrastructure. And just everything needs to be revamped and done over. I hate to say it, but yeah.
KH: No. Yes, absolutely. And you know, with two big questions, what would you say to someone who is like, I believe in climate change, and I want to be trying to be aware, what should I be doing?
WS: Research, be a part of what's going on as far as, being a part of the climate groups, the climate justice groups that are looking to change things. Find out how you can get involved, you know, if those groups are out there. So you just have to research and.
KH: And on the inverse of that, what would you say to someone who's like, I don't believe climate change is an issue?
WS: Research.
KH: I was going to say, right.
WS: Yeah. Right and and and be open minded. Don't research to find a point that proves what you're saying. Look for other options in other perspectives.
KH: All right. And those will be some of the questions on climate change. And then I'm just going to do a quick few on Covid-19. One is, obviously we live in an era I don't want to say post-Covid because we still are very much living in that world. But, you know, it's four years out from the most adverse effects of it. And just how did Covid impact your life?
WS: To be honest gravely. You can almost say it shook my world. However, as far as Covid is concerned, I was a hermit. I stayed indoors. I didn't go out except for to grocery shop. And even then it was disinfect everything as much as you can. Leave it out, you know. So it was a huge transition. I actually took some time off. Took some time off from work in order to reassess things. But, you know, I lost a lot of people, unfortunately, as a result. And, it taught me to try to be as healthy and natural as possible.
KH: Did you end up, getting Covid during the four years?
WS: Unfortunately.
KH: Yes. I feel like most people have at least gotten it once.
WS: Well, my twin is a teacher, and so? So she's also.
KH: Probably gone at like 2 or 3 times.
WS: She's gotten it twice and brought it home to me so that before then I had not contracted Covid because I was in most of the time. But afterwards, yeah, I definitely caught it twice and natural remedies help me to get over.
KH: Yeah and what was your experience with just having it?
WS: Oh, I felt like I was in cement. There was coughing, brain fog. It was like the flu, but accelerated. That was my first time. The second time I was more prepared just herbs and teas. Yeah.
KH: And how did you feel? Like the city and, was able to respond to the Covid, pandemic.
WS: Reactive. Yeah. So he was very reactive. But there was this notion that people were exempt from Covid and you couldn't catch Covid. And so unfortunately, I feel like a lot of the people were not aware until it was too late. So yeah, I feel like. I mean, that was I think it was a test for everybody. So every city, you know, every state.
KH: So and just in general, are you worried about seeing like, another large scale disease like Covid within your lifetime?
WS: Absolutely. Absolutely. I hope that we learn from that and can be better prepared. But yeah, that's a it's a concern.
KH: Absolutely. And, just before we wrap up here, is there anything that we haven't covered that you would like to speak about?
WS: No, I think we covered everything so far.
KH: All right, well, Willa, thank you so much for being here today.
WS: Thank you for having me.
Willa Strawder: Willa Strawder.
KH: Welcome. And could you please spell your name for the record?
WS: W i l l a S t r a w d e r
KH: All right. Thank you so much for being here today, Willa and do you live in the city of Detroit?
WS: Yes I do.
KH: In which neighborhood?
WS: I live in the Jefferson Chalmers neighborhood.
KH: And how long have you lived in that neighborhood for?
WS: I've been here since 2017.
KH: 2017 and have you lived in any other neighborhoods in the city?
WS: Yes I also actually was born and raised on the West Side. So.
KH: In what area on the West Side?
WS: Rosedale Park I was over there, from the time I was 11, on up to college age. And before then I was on Patton and Grand River, and before then I was also on Archdale lane.
KH: So quite a few, quite a few areas. What brought you to the Jefferson Chalmers area in 2017? What brought you to the Jefferson Chalmers area?
WS: Well, it was a change of scenery, and I was, in a relationship at that time, and it was just something new and something different, bigger space.
KH: And do you work in the city of Detroit?
WS: Yes, I do.
KH: And what is, your career in?
WS: I work at the Community Treehouse. I work with Tammy Black as the programs and sustainability director. Yeah.
KH: And where is the Treehouse's primary location?
WS: Jefferson Chalmers.
KH: And what services do you think the tree house is able to provide the community to combat climate change?
WS: Well, currently, we are doing the weather flooding combination over here, just over in the other room and we're working on weather preparedness. But as far as just in general, it's an ever evolving situation where we're trying to work together to bring about better options for the people to be prepared.
KH: Yeah. When you say weather preparedness, what do you mean by that?
WS: Well, basically, for example, in, 2021, I believe it is the flood happened and, there was so much water where, it got up to at least I want to say at least people were in kayaks going down our street like it was a lot of water and no one knew. It all happened very suddenly, and I was on next door. It was, about one two o clock in the morning and I told individuals who are awake, you know, if you're up, get your street, get your cars off the street, you know, because otherwise your car was going to get flooded. So basically, trying to provide the neighbors in this area with more of a heads up, when things like that are going to occur versus us being caught off guard and unfortunately having to incur a lot of damage as a result.
KH: So with the weather preparedness, are you definitely preparing them more for summer weather, or do you also prepare them for some of the winter weather as well?
WS: I think living in Michigan, it's good to be prepared for everything. At the end of the day, because whatever can happen in Michigan will happen in Michigan. So.
KH: So definitely flooding prevention. Can you also tell us about the Treehouse's solar efforts?
WS: Now, as far as that, we have our solar pathways workforce development program. There we often bring in individuals that have been disenfranchised or looking for a different avenue aside from college and we teach them about, solar installation, solar sales and home assessments. So that's— also, we are working with Communities Power and Communities Power works to install—they they've installed over 25 homes in this area with solar.
KH: All right. And what about the tree houses? Greening efforts. The greening of the community efforts.
WS: We do a lot of planning and gardening and try to bring the community in to do that kind of thing as well. But full disclosure, I started in January, so I'm new to the community tree house. But that's where, you know, focus on holistic training and healing and things of that nature.
KH: So so if you're, being, recent a member of the tree house, what attracted you the most to the organization?
WS: Oh I feel like if I have to work, I might as well be doing something that's going to help the community. I did not want to stay in a 9 to 5 position where I felt like I was working, and I wasn't making a difference. And at Community Treehouse, I feel like I can actually make a difference.
KH: No, absolutely. Always feels good to make a difference. Can you tell me a little bit about the Treehouse's partnership with the National Weather Service? Oh. Do you need me to?
WS: Something's up. Us something. (we paused recording because she didn't know this question and wanted to move on)
KH: All right, that is no problem. So just in general.
WS: Yeah. Oh, yeah. You probably.
KH: Yeah. We'll pause again. So, how do you think the Treehouse is able to engage with the community?
WS: Well, we do a lot of outreach. I—we're a team of two, and, with a lot of volunteers, and, we go out into the community. I myself am out very much in the community passing out fliers, meeting the principals meeting you know, student coordinators and just basically explaining what we do in the community. As I mentioned, we have, programs currently where, we have yoga starting July 9th and just trying to get the adults as well as children engaged because, you know, it's the summertime and they're out of school. The kids are anyway. We also have meetings like this where we bring everybody together to try to bring them, more information about how they can stay prepared for, bad weather. It's just an overall coming together with the community and being out in the community to bring the work. Yeah.
KH: And so, in addition to engaging, or do you think you've been able to help educate people about climate change?
WS: Somewhat yep. I feel like it's, it's a growing, evolving, thing where you're constantly having to tell people because some people don't believe it's real, unfortunately.
KH: And just in general, have you seen most people are accepting of it, or do you see some people are a little bit more apathetic?
WS: I think more people are becoming more accepting, just because, you know, just like the fires that happen over in Canada, what does that a year or two ago? Then there's also, like I said, the flooding here, it was unreal. I've never seen anything like it. And so I think people are starting to wake up and see what's really going on.
KH: You were talking about how, you know, you were very early on, like next door you're telling people like, hey, get your cars out. Did you have any personally bad flooding at your residence?
WS: Oh, absolutely. We had—the water I see was just a couple feet It was like 3 or 4ft in the basement It was probably higher than that. But, yeah, the cars underneath got rusted there was, damage to everything we had in the basement we had to throw out. It was bad.
KH: Yeah. In general, have you how do you compare? Like, the the summers of, like you growing up in Detroit versus, like, the summers of the past four years?
WS: Well. I have to say, and I'm not 100% sure, but definitely for sure in these last couple of years It seems hotter. It definitely seems hotter like this week even and last week in the 90s, you know, and even our springs sometimes seem to happen a little bit earlier than they used to.
KH: And I feel like another thing we've heard with some other residents, not just of Jefferson Chalmers, but of the Detroit area in general. Is also, have you guys noticed an uptick in power outages the past couple years during the summers?
WS: Absolutely. Because of the overgrown trees. I used to work for Comcast and so, there were outages all the time I was working from home during Covid. and, from what I understood, there were overgrown trees in people's backyards that, no longer were there at the residence. You know, there just might be a lot full of trees and so the teams had a hard time getting over there to cut the trees down after a big storm. But yeah, a lot of times due to the storms, they were a lot of power outages.
KH: So talking about we've been talking about some green infrastructure things. If you could have one piece of green infrastructure that the treehouse could offer what would you like to have?
WS: A solar, definitely solar.
KH: Have you looked into getting solar for your house personally?
WS: Yeah, it's a bit expensive, so, you know, have to look into other avenues at this time. You know, maybe some grants or something of that nature, but, yeah, I, I have.
KH: And if you could see the city implement a piece of green infrastructure, but it also be solar, if you could see that implemented more widely through the city.
WS: Yeah. I think solar would be beneficial to, a lot of individuals, businesses as well.
KH: Just in general, how have you seen the how do you feel the city has handled things like, you know, the increase in flooding in like the hotter summers. How do you think the city has handled it?
WS: I think they're working towards making things better. As to whether or not it is going to be sustainable that that remains to be seen. I hope that there are more proactive ways of going about bringing about change versus reactive.
KH: What would be your ideal like proactive changes?
WS: My ideal proactive changes I that takes a little bit more research is a little bit out of my depth, but just definitely like right here there across the way in this other room, they're doing a program where they offer stipends or a grant and, you know, they help with being prepared in those type of situations. But overall adoption, not just, you know, certain select pilot groups, overall adoption, mainstream across the board for our infrastructure. And just everything needs to be revamped and done over. I hate to say it, but yeah.
KH: No. Yes, absolutely. And you know, with two big questions, what would you say to someone who is like, I believe in climate change, and I want to be trying to be aware, what should I be doing?
WS: Research, be a part of what's going on as far as, being a part of the climate groups, the climate justice groups that are looking to change things. Find out how you can get involved, you know, if those groups are out there. So you just have to research and.
KH: And on the inverse of that, what would you say to someone who's like, I don't believe climate change is an issue?
WS: Research.
KH: I was going to say, right.
WS: Yeah. Right and and and be open minded. Don't research to find a point that proves what you're saying. Look for other options in other perspectives.
KH: All right. And those will be some of the questions on climate change. And then I'm just going to do a quick few on Covid-19. One is, obviously we live in an era I don't want to say post-Covid because we still are very much living in that world. But, you know, it's four years out from the most adverse effects of it. And just how did Covid impact your life?
WS: To be honest gravely. You can almost say it shook my world. However, as far as Covid is concerned, I was a hermit. I stayed indoors. I didn't go out except for to grocery shop. And even then it was disinfect everything as much as you can. Leave it out, you know. So it was a huge transition. I actually took some time off. Took some time off from work in order to reassess things. But, you know, I lost a lot of people, unfortunately, as a result. And, it taught me to try to be as healthy and natural as possible.
KH: Did you end up, getting Covid during the four years?
WS: Unfortunately.
KH: Yes. I feel like most people have at least gotten it once.
WS: Well, my twin is a teacher, and so? So she's also.
KH: Probably gone at like 2 or 3 times.
WS: She's gotten it twice and brought it home to me so that before then I had not contracted Covid because I was in most of the time. But afterwards, yeah, I definitely caught it twice and natural remedies help me to get over.
KH: Yeah and what was your experience with just having it?
WS: Oh, I felt like I was in cement. There was coughing, brain fog. It was like the flu, but accelerated. That was my first time. The second time I was more prepared just herbs and teas. Yeah.
KH: And how did you feel? Like the city and, was able to respond to the Covid, pandemic.
WS: Reactive. Yeah. So he was very reactive. But there was this notion that people were exempt from Covid and you couldn't catch Covid. And so unfortunately, I feel like a lot of the people were not aware until it was too late. So yeah, I feel like. I mean, that was I think it was a test for everybody. So every city, you know, every state.
KH: So and just in general, are you worried about seeing like, another large scale disease like Covid within your lifetime?
WS: Absolutely. Absolutely. I hope that we learn from that and can be better prepared. But yeah, that's a it's a concern.
KH: Absolutely. And, just before we wrap up here, is there anything that we haven't covered that you would like to speak about?
WS: No, I think we covered everything so far.
KH: All right, well, Willa, thank you so much for being here today.
WS: Thank you for having me.
Files
Collection
Citation
“Willa Strawder, June 22nd, 2024,” Detroit Historical Society Oral History Archive, accessed March 23, 2025, http://detroit1967.detroithistorical.org/items/show/1005.