Waste Hater: Mama Shu of Avalon Village
Waste Hater is a monthly series where we interview friends in the industry doing interesting and awesome work to reduce all kinds of waste, food or otherwise. In our first edition of 2021, we interviewed Mama Shu, founder and CEO of Avalon Village, an ecovillage in the heart of Detroit.
Mama Shu doesn’t understand the term ‘waste’ – she’s not a hater, she’s a denier.
“Waste is a missed opportunity to nourish, provide and support others,” she tells us.
If anyone knows how to Replate, it’s this remarkable leader. Mother, entrepreneur, minister and activist, Mama Shu hails from Detroit, Michigan, where she’s spent the past decade rebuilding her neighborhood in Highland Park.
Highland Park has a history of neglect by the city. When Ford Motors was at its peak, the community thrived. However, the fall of the automobile industry turned this three-square-mile area of town into one of the most economically depressed places in America. Only 10,000 residents remain, abandoned industrial sites and homes line the streets, and according to Splinter, Highland Park’s last high school closed in 2015. The system is under emergency financial management, one reason the city’s energy service had to repossess around 1,400 residential street lights, due to unpaid bills.
For this reason, Mama Shu decided to rebuild from within. She set out to enact changes that would restore Highland Park to the thriving community it once was, and encourage residents to come together and stay in their homes. It’s all under the guise of her project known as Avalon Village.
“Others see blight and futility, I see beauty,” Shu says.
Shamayim ‘Shu’ Harris began her work in the school system, but changed directions when her son Jacobi, a toddler at the time, was hit by a car on their block and passed away. He was playing outside with his brother where there wasn’t proper street lighting.
Despite her grief, Shu was motivated to make a difference.
“My inspiration for creating Avalon Village was to help rebuild our blighted block,” she recalls. “I had it up in my head, the beginning stages of it, and after he died, I was like, ‘I’m just gonna do it. Ain’t got nothing to lose.’ And I started, and ever since then, just haven’t stopped.”
Started meant cleaning up the block, removing remnants of the past, renovating homes, restoring land. Shu wanted her neighborhood to be safe and inspiring, a source of empowerment for her people.
She points out, “Avalon Street was one of the most notorious blocks in Highland Park, as it relates to crime, as it relates to poverty and hopelessness. There were mattresses left everywhere, abandoned homes which are now torn down and turned to greenspaces. The place felt diseased.”
Block by block, year by year, Mama Shu began her healing. She closely followed the principles and traditions of the ‘ecovillage,’ a community that caters towards residents’ needs and abilities. Ecovillages are designed to be sustainable, participatory, and innovative, with a social purpose.
Aerial shot of Avalon street in Highland Park in Detroit, MI.
“That’s how I was raised – to help the community – this is what we do,” Shu says. “This block was jacked up, to the point where people thought you were crazy to even do it. I stayed there because it was a clean slate, and it couldn’t be nothin’ but built up.”
For Mama Shu, that meant erecting a Homework House where children have a quiet, safe place to complete schoolwork, eat a healthy snack and do functional activities like laundry and shower. This week, she will begin installing a STEM Lab and recording studio.
“These kids are nurtured to become the greatest urban scholars ever,” Shu boasts.
Her mission continued in outdoor alcoves. She cleared abandoned land for parks, a greenhouse, and recreational facilities. She brought in recycled shipping containers, run by solar energy, and opened them for women entrepreneurs to host businesses.
Repurposed shipping containers to host local businesses.
With fundraising and grants, Mama Shu installed roofs to capture and filter rainwater for drinking; opened a Village Hall which operates as a community center and food pantry; tore down an abandoned gas station that will serve as a health food market; and more recently, began work on the Avalon Village Healing House, a wellness facility for physical and mental health services.
And, after a decade of appealing to the city, Avalon Village will receive five solar-powered street lights with Wi-Fi capabilities this year.
“To me, that’s building infrastructure in the village,” Shu comments. “We got lights now.”
The news means a lot to Mama Shu, who from the very beginning sought to bring light to her community in more ways than one. The activist’s inspiration has always been to honor her son’s legacy by creating a place where kids can play safely, in a neighborhood that fosters growth and achievement.
Plus, there’s fun stuff going on all year. Mama Shu leads youth on foraging excavations around the neighborhood where they learn to find edible herbs, fruits and vegetables. There’s music, there’s dance, there’s art and picnics.
“In Jacobi Ra Park, we have a mini-amphitheater, we have concerts, reggae, all kinds of community events,” she says with pride.
In a place overlooked by the government and ignored by those without solutions, Mama Shu found immense potential. She created her own solution, one she intends to develop further and extend. She says she’s “plugging away”, every day, every week, every year. She’s creating jobs for the unemployed, and services for those denied health insurance or other benefits.
With Shu around, things are getting brighter. People are staying put. Highland Park is a home again.
The way she sees it, every piece left behind, every fallen branch is an article to be transformed.
“People think that things are supposed to look beautiful right away, they like that instant gratification, but it takes work sometimes to get to the core and foundation,” Mama Shu believes. “A lot of people would rather walk away.”
Mama Shu, on the other hand, walks forward.
Overhead view of Avalon Village.
Mama Shu’s Replate-ing Tip for the New Year:
“If you want to start a business, an inexpensive way to do it is in a shipping container. You can have it right in your own backyard or in a lot nearby. You can start your dreams real quick with something that’s recycled. It’s a space to have your business – go have your art galleries, sell your shea butter, whatever! That’s what I did.”
For more information on Mama Shu and Avalon Village, visit her website.
If you’re interested in learning more about eco-villages, here’s a good resource.
To hear more about Shu’s story and Highland Park, we found details here.