BY CINDY KRANZ
The Cincinnati Enquirer
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Andy Felger and fellow counselor Avis Nichols, left, speak with a young woman in a quiet spot behind the Drop-Inn Center Shelter House.
(Craig Ruttle photo)
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At St. Xavier High School, where 99 percent of seniors head for college upon graduation, Andy Felger chose the road rarely traveled. A 1997 graduate, Andy bypassed college for one year to help the disadvantaged. The day after graduation, he moved out of his disappointed parents' Anderson Township home into an austere apartment in Over-the-Rhine, the city's poorest and most crime-ridden neighborhood.
Now, 1 1/2 half years later, he reluctantly prepares to leave the neighborhood he loves for college.
"It's not that I don't like school,"the 19-year-old said. "I love going to school. It's just that I love working down here, too." And he loves to volunteer. His eclectic experiences began in sixth grade, feeding zoo animals. In high school, his work ranged from renovating a building on an Indian reservation to working with a child with disabilities and remodeling buildings in Over-the-Rhine. He now works at the Drop-Inn Center Shelter House, which provides food, shelter, counseling and other services for the disadvantaged. As a floor worker, he counsels homeless people and helps them get connected to social services.
Andy has quietly made an impact on the people who seek a reprieve from the streets. With his long blond hair tied in a pony tail, he listens to their problems and unsanctimoniously doles out advice to people twice his age.
"Stay out of trouble, man," he advised an unshaven middle-aged acquaintance one night on the sidewalk outside the Drop-Inn Center. The man listened and nodded in agreement.
"You start to care'
Andy began volunteering in Over-the-Rhine during his junior year and developed strong ties to the neighborhood and its vast mix of people.
"Once you meet the people," he said, "it affects you. It affects them. You start to care about them, and it's hard to leave." And so in 1997, Dick and Maridel Felger's dreams of college for their oldest son were dashed -- at least temporarily.
"We were very disappointed," said Mr. Felger, vice president of sales and marketing for PAR Excellence Systems, a computer software firm. "All his friends and kids of your friends are going to college. You're from Anderson Township, and everybody is kind of expected to go on.
"He felt it was better if he lived amongst the people. We said, "Why don't you come back in the summertime and live amongst the people?"'
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Andy, 19, in his apartment in a three story former warehouse.
(Saed Hindash photo)
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Support for underdog
There was no defining moment in Andy's propensity for public service, he said. It just evolved.
"Ever since Andy was small, he always felt for the underdog," said his mother, Maridel Felger, manager of Mountain Laurel Nursery in Anderson Township. "He just had a soft spot, whether it be for other little kids that were picked on or if he found an animal."
Andy heard about the Race Street Tenants Organization Cooperative (ReSTOC), which rehabs buildings for low-income housing, from a fellow St. Xavier student. He started volunteering for ReSTOC in Over-the-Rhine every Saturday his junior year.
He decided to postpone college in his senior year. He passed up two scholarships -- he's since recaptured them -- at Northland College in Ashland, Wis., to spend more time in Over-the-Rhine. His parents tried to tell him he could do more good if he went to college first. When he came back, he'd be older and have more credibility. "He was pretty set in his ways and had made the decision," his mother said. "He can be pretty strong-willed. "We just had to let it go."
Still, they worried about his safety in Over-the-Rhine. "We didn't look at him as being a streetwise kid," Mr. Felger said. On June 5, 1997, he became a ReSTOC intern and moved into the 14th Street intern house, a rehabbed building where interns must live. As a ReSTOC intern, Andy was required to put in 20 volunteer hours a week, so he volunteered with ReSTOC and the Drop-Inn Center to meet that requirement. To earn money, he was a lifeguard at the Washington Park pool.
His internship ended in May,. He now works 80 hours a week, half at the Drop-Inn Center and half at Outdoor Adventures, an outdoor outfitters in Corryville. While he's volunteered in the past at the Drop-Inn Center, he's paid $6 an hour this summer and is saving money for college.
At the Drop-Inn Center, Andy assists with detox and chemical dependency counseling and establishing plans of action to move clients toward self-sufficiency. He was trained by the Council on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse and is paired with a Drop-Inn Center senior worker during sessions.
Shelter coordinator Denise Crew has known Andy for three years, first as a volunteer and now as paid summer staff.
Drop-Inn Center staff and volunteers, she said, have to be sensitive to people's needs and have a genuine desire to be helpful. Andy fits that description. What's more, she said, Andy is more patient than most, she said.
"I guess that's because he's so laid back," Ms. Crew said. "I might go on for 10 minutes about what's wrong with a situation and Andy will sum it up in three words: "That was dumb.' "
Andy moved from the ReSTOC intern house in May into a dilapidated three-story former warehouse in Over-the-Rhine and has two roommates. He pays $25 a month for his share of the rent, plus utilities.
Paint peels from the wall in his room, and burlap curtains cover two windows. The only air conditioning is a rare, short-lived cool breeze. When it's hot, he crawls out onto the roof outside his window to sleep.
His furniture consists of a mattress on the floor and a stuffed armchair.
Five milk crates carry books on nature, ecology and peace and justice issues. Stacks of CDs reveal his love for folk and bluegrass music, ranging from Cat Stevens to Pete Seeger.
"He's kind of a '60s hippie," his father said. "He's very definite in his ideals."
In the trenches
A 50-ish man, smelling of alcohol and sweat, recently approached Andy at the center. "Hi, Larry," Andy said.
Larry asked for soap to shave his face, but the center has set times when dinner is served and when shower supplies and sleeping mats are handed out.
"You can get some at 8 o'clock," Andy said. "It's locked up in the basement.
"I can't wait that long," Larry protested. "I'm like Merle Haggard. I'm hanging in and hanging on."
"You should eat something first," Andy said.
"I don't want nothing to eat," he said. "My stomach is bleeding." Larry segued into a conversation about his life. Andy had heard Larry's story before, but listened again.
"Probably the biggest service is just talking to people," Andy said later. "Like Larry mentioned his stomach was bleeding. I wouldn't have known that without talking to him." (Andy referred him for free medical service.)
At 8 p.m., Andy sat at a table to hand out shower supplies: soap, towels, plastic razors and paper cups of shaving cream.
One man approached the table and said to Andy, "Make him stay away from me." The man pointed to another man at the table. The accused man protested that he wasn't bothering anyone.
"Keep your distance from him," Andy said, calmly diffusing any trouble. The men went their separate ways.
Around 9:30 p.m., Andy went outside and rolled a cigarette. He spoke passionately about the Over the Rhine People's Movement, working to fight displacement in Over-the Rhine.
"It's easier to help people here than if they're dispersed in the suburbs," Andy said. "At least here they know where to get help and it's accessible. I think the main reason I and everyone else works down here is to fight displacement and injustice in Over-the Rhine."
Lives horrible everyday
The neighborhood, he said, is largely misunderstood. Some people try to support themselves by baby sitting, sewing or installing car radios. They might be teens with three children.
"Before you know it, (some are) addicts, because their lives are horrible every day."
Until seeing the reasons people become addicts or alcoholics, he said, people have no right to judge. "I don't think there's anybody I know who could come to live the lives of some of these people and not turn to something."
A lot of the neighborhood's bad reputation comes from outsiders, he said. He's witnessed drug deals and sees that not all users and dealers are from Over-the-Rhine.
"I see white people in Cadillacs, with kids in car seats, buying drugs."
All this first-hand experience worries his parents, who visited his new apartment after he moved there.
"We haven't been as supportive as he would like," his father admitted. "He comes out of the Drop-Inn Center at 1:15 in the evening and has to walk three blocks home. That frightens us. We're going to be happy when he leaves, but we know deep down, this is something he's probably going to be going back to."
Andy understands his parents are concerned about him, but said there has never been an incident in Over-the-Rhine to warrant such concern.
"They're parents,' he shrugged. "It's their job to worry." His last day at the Drop-Inn Center will be Aug. 29. The next day, he'll head to Northland. There, he'll combine his two loves into majors in outdoor education and conflict and peacemaking.
The biggest lesson he's learned? Knowing the difference between helping the disadvantaged from afar and looking poverty in the eye.
"It's not like when you're a kid and your parents give to Goodwill," he said. "The bad part is, it's real easy to look the other way when you don't see it everyday like this. That's why you start to care so much."
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