Helping to Solve Oneonta's Student/Resident Divide with Light Bulbs, Free Rides, and Punk Rock

By Kaler Carpenter
The beginning of the semester for SUNY Oneonta and Hartwick College means the return of thousands of college students to Oneonta, New York--almost doubling the city's population. For the residents of Oneonta, this cycle of quiet summers and hectic autumns are a way of life that defines what it means to live in a college town. However, this particular year has seen more complaints than previous years about student behavior issues. Some Oneonta residents are even making the claim at city council meetings that, "It's the worse that it's ever been."

City Council mtg, 9-15. Daily Star.

The bulk of these complaints come from city residents living in Oneonta's Center City neighborhood; a unique residential zone, strategically located between the two colleges and Oneonta's downtown with its bars and nightlife. The neighborhood has its fair share of off-campus student housing, and many of these student apartments are located next to full-time residents.

Most of these neighborhood complaints are quality-of-life issues in regards to noise and vandalism, and many of the problems originate and happen downtown where the bars are located. Sadly, the worst downtown problem this Fall happened when a SUNY Oneonta student was left critically injured after getting into a fight that was influenced by alcohol. Tragic instances like this, along with the increased amount of complaints from residents, have caused city residents and even institutions to reevaluate this nightlife model and be open to new ideas that can help alleviate the problems.

I don't want to go into all of the complaints made by Oneonta residents about why this year is "the worst." These complaints and statistics are easy to find and are well publicized, and they are dividing the community--perhaps in such a way that truly does make this year worse than previous years. Mike Lynch, the City Council Member representing the troubled Center City neighborhood, recently told me, "The time for complaining has come and gone and we have to get to work," and, "We need a positive dialogue and ideas."

Community Building at RM

In this spirit of community reconciliation, our church has been working hard to make big strides over the past two years in order to help bring healing to our community (this is an old problem). In the past, we've not joined the community dialogue on this issue because we felt too new and too small, but, in light of recent events and cultural developments, we feel like now is the time to share our ideas and experiences with the community.

Reaching Out to Your Neighbors with Respect and Kindness Goes a Long Way

The situation reaches "worst ever" levels whenever each side stops showing the other side respect. I am friends with both students and residents and I have seen how ugly attitudes can get when respect is removed from the equation. The two extremes will say things like, "Students aren't really a part of our community. They come, they go, and they ruin everything," and, "Oneonta would be nothing without us students, therefore, we're entitled to behave however we want." Both of these attitudes lack respect for the other side, i.e., their neighbors.

If neither side respects the other, then the student behavior problems will only worsen. For example, let's say that you're a student traversing through Center City at 1AM and you feel emboldened after having a little too much to drink. As you walk by the homes of residents, you perceive that they despise the fact that you go to school in Oneonta and that they can't wait for you to leave town. If that's the how you perceive things, then being rambunctious, littering, and even vandalizing will be a natural reaction.

If on the other hand, you met people living in these homes that welcomed you to Oneonta, and these people included community members that aren't even associated with the college, then you will have second thoughts about smashing that flower pot or snapping that newly planted tree in two. After all, 'These neighborhood people seem to really care about me, so I should return the favor and respect their quality of life and property."

To this end, during the first week of school for both this year's and last year's Fall semesters, our church has done a full week of outreach projects to serve the students and welcome them to our community. During these welcome weeks, we helped students move into their dorms, facilitated and participated in all-ages rock shows featuring music that students enjoy, and made ourselves available during peak party hours to give students free rides home. As a student, you begin to look at Oneonta more fondly if a local resident volunteers to move your futon up three flights of stairs and takes you home during Rush Week after you've had too much to drink. Essentially, community members welcoming and respecting students makes them feel like they're a part of the community. 

In light of all the recent feelings of hostility, our church has stepped up our efforts with our Sunday Act of Kindness ministry. This Fall, in an effort to bring healing to the neighborhood, we've been going door-to-door in Center City with a basket full of free light bulbs and batteries. We lovingly give these gifts and we have been specifically targeting students, and as we give the free gift away, we welcome the students to the neighborhood and tell them how much we appreciate their presence in Oneonta.

We have climbed rickety staircases leading up three floors and gone down some sketchy-looking hallways to get our message across, but we feel that it's worth it. Plus, with this particular act of kindness, almost all of the students we reached were both surprised to see us and extremely thankful for the free gift. It's a very rewarding way to spend a Sunday afternoon and it doesn't take long before our basket is emptied.

At the time of this writing, we have done this outreach on 4 occasions, going up and down 24 streets in Center City. In total, we have given away 115 light bulbs and 210 batteries, and as you can tell from this map, there are plenty more streets that we have yet to cover. As long as the weather holds, this is how our church will be spending our Sunday afternoons into October. You're welcome to join us, or you can donate to the cause to help us purchase supplies.

Now, you may be thinking, "Your church isn't in the Center City neighborhood. You don't know what it's like living next to these students." This is true. However, the effects of drunken hooliganism have made its way to the 6th Ward and we've experienced annoyances like the ones troubling our Center City neighbors. Annoyances like, having our patio furniture stolen, having our church sign stolen, having eggs thrown at our front windows, having our pumpkins and flowers smashed, finding drug paraphernalia on our property, and we have to close our house windows on Friday and Saturday nights or else be awoken at 3AM by drunken yelling. Now, I know better than to assume that local college students are responsible for all of this, but the timing is suspect.

Post by The Redemption Movement.

Ultimately, it doesn't matter if it was or wasn't students that stole our banner or egged our church, the point that I'm trying to make is the value of showing respect. In fact, our faith teaches us to go even further than showing respect and to show forgiveness and love to those that have wronged us. This is why I feel like the local church is in a great position to represent the community and reach out to the students with respect and love. We are a forgiving people that want to serve the needs of the community, even to someone that may have stolen our patio chair the night prior.

Giving Students Free Rides Gets Them Home Safe and Reduces Neighborhood Noise 

Another activity that we feel has been making a difference is our designated driving service. This is a wonderful ministry where we park our car in front of a downtown bar or restaurant during a busy night and offer people free rides home. We make the rides available to everyone, and by far, the majority of people that take us up on our offer are college students.

Now, I can tell you many amazing stories about getting people home safe that had too much to drink (many of whom were underage), but in keeping with the purpose of this article, I want to hit on another positive aspect of this service, namely, it reduces the amount of foot traffic in Center City. A keen observer of our city's current crisis understands that one of the most long-running complaints comes from Center City residents dealing with the late night foot traffic of students in front of their homes.

So far during this Fall semester, we've performed this service 5 times. This equates to getting 135 people home safely. That's a possible 100+ people that didn't walk through a Center City yard, break a flower pot, awaken a family with noise, or worse, gotten into a coma-inducing fight or been sexually assaulted.

At this point, our designated driving service is small and infrequent. It consists of me and a helper and we use my personal car. We want to find a way to provide this service to our community more often, as well as get more community groups involved. If you would like to get involved with this outreach or support it in another way, then I encourage you to join our new Facebook group "Oneonta Designated Driving Crew." We feel that there's a strong need for more designated driving services like this, and we'll be happy to help coordinate this community effort.

Additionally, there's a value in just hanging out downtime during peak party hours and making yourself visible as a caring older adult from the community. It's my observation that when things get crazy downtown, there are few non-student/mature adults to be found, and it's my opinion that young students would show more restraint if they didn't feel like they had a 10:1 advantage in the downtown nightlife.

There's a Need for a Downtown Community Space Hosting Alcohol-Free Activities

To be fair, Oneonta's downtown has a lot going for it, but the options become thin if it's late and you're under 21. I think this is fueling the perceived rise in house parties in Center City, more so than the recent shutting down of a couple of bars, as theorized in the local newspaper. And to be fair to the colleges, both institutions excel at providing safe and alcohol-free activities to their students on campus.

However, I think that even if the colleges provide more activities, students will still make their way down the hill on a Friday and Saturday night, and subsequently drag themselves up the hill early Saturday and Sunday morning. Anybody that's experienced college will tell you that the weekend means escaping the campus bubble and experiencing real life, and Oneonta's bar-filled downtown provides a convenient escape.

I think that an all-ages venue/community center downtown would help alleviate a lot of the problems. It would have to offer activities during the late night party hours, and the activities would have to be attractive enough so that students will actually want to participate. Realistically, a place like this won't keep a student from drinking that's committed to going out for that very purpose. However, even if 1 hour of their night is spent downtown watching a punk band play without alcohol, then that's 1 less hour of drinking alcohol. Less alcohol in the body means less potential problems, both to themselves and others.

Free funnel cake for show attendees.

It turns out that our church has experience in facilitating such activities. Until recently getting shut down by city code enforcement for having an inadequate building, we used to successfully provide all-ages rock shows for our community. Even though we are located away from downtown, we were still able to draw students to our location, even during the party nights.

These shows and community events were successful for us, and we believe that we can do these events on a much larger scale if we had a space downtown where we could once again put on live music and provide other activities that both students and city residents would enjoy. This is one reason why we're currently forming plans to move The Redemption Movement downtown. We're in the very early stages of planning, but we are very serious about making the move. Any help that we can get with this effort would be greatly appreciated, and we encourage you to keep an eye on this blog and our Facebook page for when these plans come together and we begin fundraising. 

RM's last show before getting our music shut down.

One of the things that brought me great joy at these shows was seeing how the music brought the community together. Many establishments in town are known either as a student venue or a townie place, but what happened at The Ol' Storefront was a wonderful Oneonta anomaly that brought the two groups together. It was rewarding to watch relationships form between townies and residents. Ultimately, Oneonta needs more of this. The more opportunities available to build bridges between the students and local residents will better help our community come together and realize that, you know what, the other side is alright after all.

Contact us to get involved with the community-building efforts of The Redemption Movement, or reach out to Pastor Kaler if you would like to include our church in the outreach plans of your own community group