Resolving Minor Conflict with a Major Impact, with My Friend Michelle

Gospel Con Carne host Alan Graham often describes Community First! Village as a peaceful place with a side salad of tension—and when many of these moments of tension arise around the neighborhood, the team knows just who to call. Michelle Ates helps our neighbors resolve conflict through restorative justice. Growing up as one of the only black people in her school classes, it wasn't until Michelle went to a Historically Black College that she realized her upbringing had been more privileged than the majority of her classmates. She uses her experience to help our friends transitioning out of homelessness to transform stereotypes they had of people who don't look like them, and ultimately helps us all to realize that we're not so different from one another.