Bringing two world closer together - News from Chester Eastside, Inc.

Bringing two worlds closer together

One thing Lewis “Pete” Washington and Anne Pike have in common is their deep devotion to the hundreds of people who come to the Chester Eastside Food Center for basic necessities every month. Another is their exceeding modest.

“I’m just a worker bee.” says Pete. In actuality, it’s hard to imagine the massive twice-a-week operation going off so smoothly without Pete at the center of it. People readily follow his directions in assembling the food and distributing it.

When Anne was asked how much time she puts in at Chester Eastside, she said, “Just a couple of hours a week,” a classic understatement of her volunteer time in the Food Center alone. Somehow she neglected to mention the monthly meetings of the Mothers’ Club she organized, along with time spent arranging for outside speakers. And the hours involved in collecting and giving out gifts to 100 families at Christmas time. To say nothing of the seemingly endless Board and committee meetings she faithfully attends. But in so many ways, Pete and Anne come from different worlds.

Giving back to his community.

Pete Washington remembers a very different East Side community where he grew up not far from the site that Chester Eastside, Inc., now calls home. “There were houses where there are vacant lots now,” he says, “and businesses - including two dry cleaners and a movie theater.” Things began to change in the 1970s, as the closing of one major industry after another took the props out from under Chester.

One of the positive influences in Pete’s life was a loving family that made sure he stayed inline. And the warning from a neighbor that “I’m going to tell your mom” was often enough to head off serious trouble.

The other was the round of activities like Boy Scouts and the church-sponsored basketball league that did a lot more than “keep me off the streets,” in terms of education and character development. “My mom made sure I attended those things,” says Pete.

Now, with child rearing more of a challenge than ever for people, those organized activities are all the more essential, he says.

Pete went on to earn a degree with a major in music at Cheyney University. But his talent as a drummer led him into a playing at bars and club, “a bad environment for me,” he says. Then an invitation to perform at a church opened up a whole new world for him. “I haven’t played at a bar or club since.” Joining the team at Chester Eastside, Inc., was a natural step. “I knew the Lord was calling me to do this,” says Pete.   

Getting more back than one puts in

When Anne Pike drives the seven miles from her home in Middletown to Chester Eastside, Inc., it’s like entering a whole new world. “I get a lot more out of the experience than I put in,” she readily admits.

It all started when she heard an inspiring presentation by former Chester Eastside Pastor/Director Tom Torosian many years ago. Having known Chester in the days when people came from all over to shop and go to the movies, it was second nature for Anne to want to invest something of herself in this community.

Anne’s the kind of person who sees an opportunity and acts on it. She realized that people who came for food had other kinds of needs as well. That prompted her to create the Mothers’ Club. Now once a month women have an opportunity to learn new ways of coping with the practical problems of daily life - from healthy living to managing on a limited income.

It was a natural step to invite Anne to join the Board of Chester Eastside, Inc. Her hands-on experience with the people receiving the services is invaluable to the ones making policy decisions and raising the money that makes Chester Eastside possible.

This kind of commitment is infectious. Now Anne’s two daughters have caught the bug and are giving generously to the work of Chester Eastside

Together, Pete Washington and Anne Pike exemplify the special mix of gifts that make
Chester Eastside, Inc., the unique kind of agency it is.

Chester Tries to Save Historic Church - Philadelphia Inquirer

 

The 120-year-old Third Presbyterian Church may be headed for demolition. The Chester Historical Preservation Committee wants to restore it, and some officials want to find more ways to protect the city's oldest buildings. (CHARLES FOX / Staff Photographer)

http://www.philly.com/philly/gallery/20141230_Chester_tries_to_save_historic_church.html?viewGallery=y

The terra-cotta roof and sprawling stone building are iconic in Chester, a sign on East Ninth Street of the city's prosperous past.The red wooden doors of the 120-year-old building are now warped, and its windows are boarded up.

 

The historic Third Presbyterian Church could face the wrecking ball - unless a local preservation group is able to save it and raise enough money to restore it.
 

To the Presbytery of Philadelphia, the building is a crumbling liability. To the Chester Historical Preservation Committee, it is a local landmark that must be restored. And to some Chester officials, it is a wake-up call that the city should consider protecting its oldest buildings.
      

A contractor was ready to begin demolition this month. But that has been put on hold. Discussions are underway for the presbytery, which owns the building, to transfer the property deed to the Chester Historical Preservation Committee.
 

Preservation would be a massive undertaking for the small preservation group. Its activities typically include hosting tours and lectures."We'll need all the luck, help, prayers - whatever we can get," said the group's president, David Guleke.The group will also need money for repairs, which could cost millions of dollars.The church was built in 1895 and has not been used for worship in about 30 years, said Lawrence Davis, business manager for the Presbytery of Philadelphia.Until last year, the church housed Chester Eastside Ministries, a social service organization affiliated with the Presbytery of Philadelphia.The Presbytery of Philadelphia found the building structurally unsound and too expensive to maintain, Davis said. "Our interest is not to prop up a building that we felt was in danger of collapse," he said.Chester Eastside moved into St. Paul's Episcopal Church across the street. This fall, the presbytery's contractor applied for a demolition permit for the old church building. "As soon as that crossed the city's desk, it raised some red flags, because that church, it's got some special history to it," said Paul Fritz, a consultant to the city's planning department. "And the architecture of it, too, is extraordinary."

But officials in the economically troubled Delaware County city had no grounds on which to reject the demolition application, and no means of saving the building.Members of the Chester Historical Preservation Committee decided to step in. Guleke said the church, which claims to be home to the country's first vacation Bible school and once drew crowds to its Sunday services, is a local treasure."It's just an amazing building," he said. "The sanctuary would be perfect for a theater or something like that."

Davis said last week that the presbytery was willing to transfer the property to the Chester Historical Preservation Committee at little or no cost.

The preservation group talks about raising money, applying for grants, and working with other local organizations to save the church.

Guleke said his organization would remain owner of the church but would hope to rent its Sunday school rooms as office space and use the sanctuary as a theater.Meanwhile, Chester will consider adopting an ordinance to protect its oldest buildings from demolition.

Approximately one-third of municipalities in Southeastern Pennsylvania require additional hearings and reviews before historical buildings are demolished, said Charlie Schmehl, vice president of the Bethlehem-based Urban Research & Development Corp.

"Most communities do something after they have a major loss," said Schmehl, who is working as a consultant to help Chester rewrite its zoning code. "More and more are adopting demolition controls."Davis said the presbytery had tried to discuss the future of the building with city officials for years but received little attention until they asked to demolish it.

Mayor John Linder said city officials had an interest in saving the church because it has "such nostalgic, historical value."

Linder said he hoped that restoration efforts could be paired with new development on empty land nearby. But for now, the church's future remains uncertain.

"It's a great opportunity for the city to preserve that building, because it's such an iconic building, so we're hoping we can get everybody on board and really make it a real success story," Guleke said. "I know that's like pie in the sky, but that's our ultimate goal."

Read more at http://www.philly.com/philly/news/local/20141230_Chester_tries_to_save_historic_church.html#SbK7rTMqirIgruEE.99

Community Briefs: Chester Eastside children get holiday tip to Franklin Institute - Delco Times

Posted: 12/11/14, 7:51 AM EST |                                        

Thanks to the generosity of one of Chester Eastside, Inc.’s long-time supporters, the children in the C.E. After-School Program will have a special treat during the holiday season: a trip to the Franklin Institute.

Congregation Beth Israel in Media is sponsoring the trip. In addition to arranging for the visit, including a meeting with Franklin Institute Senior Vice President Dr. Frederic Bertley, Beth Israel will cover the costs.

It all started the way so many good things happen at Chester Eastside — when somebody out there who wants to open up new opportunities for Chester children comes up with a good idea.

In this case, it was Elaine Wasekanes, a member of Beth Israel’s Social Action Committee, who planted the seed. She raised the possibility of the trip to the Franklin Institute with Dr. Stuart Pittel, a fellow committee member, knowing that he had connections with the Institute. A phone call to Rev. Bernice Warren, Chester Eastside’s director, got the wheels turning, and that good idea has now become a reality.

Said Rev. Warren, “The trip to the Franklin Institute is exactly the kind of experience for young people that Chester Eastside’s After-School Program is all about: education that opens up young minds to new and exciting possibilities.”

Article link: http://www.delcotimes.com/lifestyle/20141211/community-briefs-chester-eastside-children-get-holiday-tip-to-franklin-institute

Building A New Vision of Chester - Philadelphia Inquirer

Building a new vision of Chester

Debbie DeSimone stands in front of two properties that she has purchased and rehabilitated into affordable rental units on Madison street in Chester. DeSimone's Madison street properties are easily recognizable with their red doors and grey address placards. Monday, November 24, 2014. (C.F. Sanchez/Staff Photographer)

Laura McCrystal, Inquirer Staff Writer

Posted: Friday, November 28, 2014, 1:08 AM

Boarded-up homes served as stash houses for drugs. Vacant lots were filled with trash. Children took detours on their way home from school to avoid the area.

Those images defined a neighborhood for years, making Madison and Rose Streets some of the most dangerous in the city of Chester.

Today, Christmas lights and wreaths hang from brick rowhouses. Freshly painted red doors have replaced the wooden boards that covered the abandoned properties. A park with benches and flower boxes fills a plot of land that was known as a meeting place for drug dealers.

The park, built by a private landlord on property owned by the Chester Housing Authority, is perhaps the most tangible sign of efforts to transform a notoriously dangerous neighborhood into a family-friendly one. It is also the kind of effort that could "save Chester for Chester," said Chester Housing Authority Director Steve Fischer, and allow lifelong residents of the struggling city to reclaim their own neighborhoods.

In one corner of the park, landlord Debbie DeSimone painted a message that she said was a new mantra for Chester's east side: "Prove them wrong."

With her husband and brother-in-law, DeSimone founded a real estate company called Best Homes and purchased and renovated scores of homes around Chester, including 16 in the neighborhood around Madison and Rose Streets.

DeSimone, who lives in Glenolden, said she saw an opportunity to refurbish old homes and rent them out at the same rate as other properties in Chester - but in better condition.

She was drawn to Madison and Rose Streets because the Chester Housing Authority was already working to improve the neighborhood.

The Chester Towers, between Madison Street and Avenue of the States, were demolished in 2007 and 2008 as part of a massive overhaul of the troubled public-housing agency. The last of the housing authority's new senior apartment and office buildings on the site opened in 2013.

Though it took several years and millions of dollars in federal funding to remake the agency and reconstruct its buildings, "that's, quite frankly, the easy part," Fischer said.

"So now, as we look to what surrounds us, the vision [was] that the redevelopment that happened on this site would hopefully spread its wings and have even more of an impact on Chester."

Major drug bust

He especially hoped that change would come to Madison and Rose Streets.

This fall, the neighborhood was the site of one of the largest drug busts in the city's history. In what officials called the takedown of a drug-trafficking ring that had contributed to a spike in homicides, 35 suspects were arrested in late September. Prosecutors said the drug ring used stash houses in the area of Rose and Upland Streets - just a block from the new housing authority's senior apartments.

Standing in the courtyard of a 10-unit apartment building that she is renovating on Madison Street, DeSimone grew quiet and raised her eyebrows when asked what the property looked like when she bought it.

"It was dilapidated," she said. "It was used as a drug den."

This week, she worked to complete renovations in time for tenants to move in Monday. The one-bedroom units rent for $700 per month - a typical rate in Chester, she said - and have new floors, paint, and appliances.

 'Clean and beautiful'

Cheryl Mitchell, 45, has spent her entire life on the east side of Chester. She used to avoid Madison Street. This fall, she moved into one of DeSimone's apartments there, and she looks forward to letting her grandchildren play outside.

"They really made it safe," she said. "And clean and beautiful."

DeSimone covered a vacant lot on Madison Street with gravel, built a tall wooden fence, and filled the area with flower boxes, benches, and trees. But the neighborhood has not completely transformed. The new park sits between DeSimone's apartment building and a bar.

Building a park next to a bar may not be typical, Fischer said, but the new trees and flower boxes send an important message about saving the neighborhood.

"It's a statement for the community," he said, "that we're going to preserve this, come hell or high water."

Jayson Gethers, 37, is a barber who has rented one of DeSimone's homes on Madison Street for nearly two years. He met DeSimone before his current home was renovated and heard her vision for the neighborhood. It was difficult to imagine then, he said, but he has watched it take shape.

"If you stand on this street and go maybe one or two blocks over," he said, "you can really feel the difference."

---

lmccrystal@phillynews.com

610-313-8116 @Lmccrystal

 

Chester Magazine - Fall 2014 - Widener University

Magazine link: www.widener.edu/chestermagazine

Chester Eastside's Parents First Program News

Child poverty in the U.S. is among the worst in the developed world - NY Times

A man walks with two children outside the Poverello House homeless shelter Thursday, July 31, 2014, in Fresno, Calif. (AP Photo/Scott Smith)

By Christopher Ingraham October 29

The United States ranks near the bottom of the pack of wealthy nations on a measure of child poverty, according to a new report from UNICEF. Nearly one third of U.S. children live in households with an income below 60 percent of the national median income in 2008 - about $31,000 annually.

In the richest nation in the world, one in three kids live in poverty. Let that sink in.
The UNICEF report pegs the poverty definition to the 2008 median to account for the decline in income since then - incomes fell after the great recession, so measuring this way is an attempt to assess current poverty relative to how things stood before the downturn.

With 32.2 percent of children living below this line, the U.S. ranks 36th out of the 41 wealthy countries included in the UNICEF report. By contrast, only 5.3 percent of Norwegian kids currently meet this definition of poverty.

More alarmingly, the share of U.S. children living in poverty has actually increased by 2 percentage points since 2008. Overall, 24.2 million U.S. children were living in poverty in 2012, reflecting an increase of 1.7 million children since 2008. "Of all newly poor children in the OECD and/or EU, about a third are in the United States," according to the report. On the other hand, 18 countries were actually able to reduce their childhood poverty rates over the same period.
The report finds considerable differences in childhood poverty at the state level. New Mexico, where more than four in ten kids live in poverty, has the highest overall rate at 41.9 percent. In New Hampshire only one in eight kids lives in a poor household, the lowest rate in the nation. Poverty rates are generally higher in Southern states, and lower in New England and Northern Plains states.

Map: Childhood poverty rates, by state

"Between 2006 and 2011, child poverty increased in 34 states," according to the UNICEF report. "The largest increases were found in Nevada, Idaho, Hawaii and New Mexico, all of which have relatively small numbers of children. Meanwhile Mississippi and North Dakota saw notable decreases."
 

There are some limits to the usefulness of benchmarking poverty in relation to a country's median income. The median income in the U.S. is going to be very different than that in say, Estonia. So it means something very different to say that a given person is making 60 percent of median income in the former as opposed to the latter.
 

It's also important to note that a household income of $30,000 puts you in roughly the richest 1.23 percent of the world's population. The report doesn't deal with the type of extreme poverty you see in the poor and developing worlds, where roughly 2.7 billion people are trying to get by on less than two dollars per day.
 

But UNICEF's relative poverty measure is still useful in that economies are relative, too. Thirty thousand dollars goes much, much further in Eritrea than it does in Kansas. And while you might be able to get by - barely - raising a family on $30,000 in rural Kansas, try doing that in any of the nation's pricey urban and suburban areas, where many of America's poor actually live.

For the richest country in the world to also have one of the world's highest childhood poverty rates is, frankly, an embarrassment. Like our high infant mortality rate, child poverty in the U.S. reflects the failure of policymakers to seriously grapple with the challenges facing the most vulnerable members of society.

Article link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/29/child-poverty-in-the-u-s-is-among-the-worst-in-the-developed-world/?Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost

News from Chester Eastside - September

Overcoming inequality by improving Internet access - Harvard School of Public Health

July 22, 2014 — Health and wealth are intimately connected. In the United States, people with lower incomes and less education are more likely to smoke, to be overweight, and to be less healthy. One reason for this may be the divide between the ways in which people from different classes access and are exposed to health-related information.

“If you are in a higher socioeconomic position, you are more likely to know about and better understand health risk factors, and to have the capacity to act on this information,” said K. “Vish” Viswanath, professor of health communication at Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), in a July 15, 2014 “Hot Topics” lecture.

Lower income people have less access to all types of media, Viswanath said, and greater exposure to advertising for unhealthy products such as tobacco and fast food. This information environment can affect their health in a variety of ways, such as influencing their beliefs about healthy behavior and limiting their ability to make informed decisions about medical treatments.
Viswanath identified a potential way to bridge the health information divide: Treat access to the Internet as a right and provide subsidies for those unable to pay. Despite the seeming ubiquity of smartphones, only 70% of low-income people have Internet access, Viswanath said, and even that number may be an overstatement. Poor people who get online are often unable to keep up with the bill and are cut off— losing access to a key tool for participating in modern life.

Earlier this year, Viswanath co-authored a study that analyzed how the poor use the Internet when they are provided with access. The Click to Connect intervention, the first randomized controlled trial to examine this issue, provided participants with free Internet access and training, and tracked their online activities. Many received their first email address through the project, and told Viswanath that the experience was life-changing.

Viswanath bristled at the attitude that he once heard from a reporter, who said that the poor would only use increased Internet access for frivolous purposes. “Of course they use it for entertainment. They are just like the rest of us,” he said. But he found that the more they used the Internet for any purpose, the more likely they were to search for health-related information.

Viswanath and his colleagues also identified barriers that marginalized people—including the elderly, non-native English speakers, and people with disabilities or lower education—face online, such as navigating the complicated structures of some websites.

“If we are serious about addressing health inequalities, we cannot afford to ignore the poor,” Viswanath said, observing that tobacco and junk food companies certainly don’t. “There are opportunities to engage with them if you provide the right context.”

He called for efforts to be made to improve the Internet literacy of low-income people and to pass policies that improve access. “Otherwise, we will continue to perpetuate an inequality in relation to something that is considered a necessity in the 21^st century,” Viswanath said. “That is unconscionable to think about.”

—Amy Roeder

Photo: iStockphoto/OlgaMiltsova

Article link: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/overcoming-inequality-by-improving-internet-access/

Shift to 'Food Insecurity' Creates Startling New Picture of Hunger in America - National Geographic

Millions of working Americans are "food insecure."

A woman in Osage, Iowa, cans homegrown vegetables to supplement what her family, classified as "food insecure," receives from the local food bank.

Photograph by Amy Toensing, National Geographic Creative

 

Tracie McMillan

National Geographic

Published July 16, 2014

 

Her face was small and pitiful: a brown-eyed, blond-curled toddler, eyes darting, lying on a doctor's table. First we saw her belly, rounder than her skinny legs would suggest, prodded by a physician. And then the camera pulled back, showing the filthy, caked bottoms of her feet.

The year was 1968, and the child was a subject of "Hunger in America," a CBS Reports documentary that aired amid President Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty. Other scenes showed sharecropper families with rat-infested bedding, and Mexican-Americans too hungry to move.

That was the face of American hunger in 1968. The girl was one of ten million Americans considered hungry, a number equivalent to 5 percent of the population. Most of the hungry lacked jobs, and the unemployment rate of 4 percent nearly tracked the rate of hunger. But however dire that hunger was, it was marginal, with 1 in 20 Americans going without food.

Today, nearly 50 years later, hunger in America looks very different. (Related Graphic: $10 Meals—Fresh Food vs. Fast Food.)

It's a Different Hunger

The biggest difference between hunger in 1968 and today may well be sheer numbers: In 2012, 49 million Americans struggled with hunger, according to the USDA. That's 16 percent of the population, nearly double the then unemployment rate.

For the sake of comparison, that translates to 1 in 6 Americans. Much of that, say experts, can be attributed to a change in how we measure hunger.

In 2006 the USDA traded the term "hunger" for "food insecurity," shifting the focus from whether people were literally starving to whether staying fed was a problem. Researchers had traditionally measured hunger through physical symptoms, like stunted growth and being underweight. Now they began asking Americans whether they were ever actually hungry: Had they missed meals, worried about running out of food, or gone to bed hungry?

Related Graphic: How Subsidized Crops
Affect Diet

Measuring food insecurity rather than hunger has led to a startling new picture of America, says Janet Poppendieck, a sociologist at Hunter College whose recently re-released Breadlines Knee-Deep in Wheat explores the link between hunger and agricultural policy.

When it comes to America's hungry, says Poppendieck, "they're not hungry all the time; they just can't count on not being hungry."

The Hungry Have Stuff—and Jobs

In New York City's Bronx borough, more than one-third of the residents and nearly half the children are food insecure. Even so, the people who show up at food assistance programs there may surprise you, says Christopher Bean, executive director of Part of the Solution, a nonprofit that runs a soup kitchen and food pantry in the borough.

"The most common misperception comes back to the idea that the individuals ... who are food insecure are ... street homeless," says Bean. Part of the Solution sees those people, he says, but its clientele "is families, it is mothers with baby strollers, it's people with cell phones."

Today the hungry are almost always employed, a sea change since the 1960s. In 2012, 60 percent of all food-insecure Americans lived in households with a full-time worker; another 15 percent lived in households with a part-time worker.

It is now so common for people to be both employed and hungry, says Bean, that in 2011 Part of the Solution added Saturday hours to its pantry in hopes of serving more working families.

This year the nonprofit decided to expand into evenings and possibly Sundays for the same reason. "We've seen the trend of more and more working people struggling with hunger," says Bean. "We're changing our program delivery model to accommodate them."

See how a rural Arkansas food bank works to feed every hungry mouth.

Hunger Becoming a Problem of Wages

At its base, modern hunger is a problem of income, says Christian Gregory, an economist with the USDA's Economic Research Service.

In June, Gregory and two colleagues published a report about food insecurity in postrecession America, listing the three biggest predictors. The first was unemployment and a sheer lack of income: If you don't have a job, you're more likely to lack food.

But the next two predictors of food insecurity were variations on the theme of low wages. One was inflation, which in this context means the failure of wages to keep up with the cost of living. The other was rising food prices. Indeed, even though more people had jobs, food prices rose enough that they couldn't necessarily buy more food with their wages.

And that too is a significant difference from 1968. Today the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. In nominal terms, that's a huge raise over the $1.60 on offer in 1968. But adjust for inflation—for rising health and housing costs, for the skyrocketing cost of education—and 1968 looks much better. That minimum wage, today, would equal $10.94.

When it comes to hunger, said Gregory, "it really matters how much income is available to people."

Tracie McMillan is the author of The American Way of Eating and a senior fellow at the Schuster Institute for Investigative Journalism at Brandeis University.

Article link: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/07/140716-hunger-america-food-poverty-nutrition-diet/?utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Social&utm_content=link_tw20140717news-hungerpics&utm_campaign=Content&sf3747666=1

Pictures from Memorial to the Lost - June 21st 2014

Thanks so much to all our volunteers – many hands made light work of putting up t-shirt holders to commemorate lives lost to gun violence in Delaware county.  Passers-by stopped to look, ask questions, find a child’s name, a child’s friend’s name.  A Mom asked if we could add her son’s name, killed in late April (after our list cut off).  Pastor Anita’s daughters, aged 7 and 8, ran back and forth.

 

http://chesterdelcoheedinggodscall.blogspot.com/2014/06/memorial-to-lives-lost-to-gun-violence.html

Memorial serves as stark reminder of gun violence - Delco Times

 By LORETTA RODGERS, Times Correspondent, @LorettaRodgers1

Sunday, June 22, 2014

CHESTER — One hundred forty four tee shirts bearing the names of city residents who lost their lives to gun violence since 2009 made for an emotional and overwhelming sight for those traveling down ninth street this past weekend.
 

Erected Saturday on the grounds of Chester Eastside Ministries at Ninth and Upland streets, the dedication of the “Memorial to Lives Lost to Gun Violence” took place Sunday and featured a host of speakers.
 

“This is not a happy occasion,” said Chester Eastside Ministries Pastor the Rev. Bernice Warren. “These T-shirts represent human lives. We are really glad that the community has come out for this somber occasion. Look at these T-shirts and you realize the tragedy of it all. They are our mothers, sisters, brothers, fathers, grandchildren and friends. They are all our children. This madness has to stop.”
 

Sponsored by the Chester Delaware County Chapter of Heeding God’s Call, the event was co-organized by Pastor Anita Littleton of Chester’s Refuge in Christ Church and Fran Stier of the Ohev Shalom Synagogue in Wallingford.
 

“We are very pleased at the turnout today,” said Stier. “It is time people realize that there is a great need for gun control. Do you know that the city of Chester has more murders in one year than the entire country of Ireland? It is because the gun laws in the state of Pennsylvania are too lax. There are not enough controls in place to stop straw purchases.”
 

Standing with tears streaming down her face, Chester resident Delores Banks Strand, spoke of her three sons, who were all lost to gun violence on the streets of Chester. Her oldest son, Calvin Banks, was shot and killed at the age of 17 in 1993; her middle son, Duane Banks, was killed in 2006 at the age of 31; and her youngest son, Marckus Banks, was murdered in 2013 at the age of 32.
 

“I struggle every day,” Strand said. “I only had three children and they are all gone. I wake up every morning with them on my mind and there is nothing I can do. They are right here with me and I’m still standing.”
 

Heeding God’s Call member Yancy Harrell, who lost his son to gun violence, told those in attendance that they should ask themselves what they are going to do to get involved.
 

“This is your neighborhood, your people,” Yancy said. “The names on these shirts might be those of your son or daughter, or the only child of someone you know. These people will never have a graduation, wedding or children of their own. Think about that before it crosses your doorstep.”

Terry Rumsey of Delaware County United for Sensible Gun Policy, expressed appreciation and congratulated the Chester Chapter of Heeding God’s Call for installing a visual reminder of gun violence.
 

“All the stats in the world cannot measure up to what they have put out here on the lawn of Chester Eastside Ministries,” Rumsey said. “This will remind each and every person who drives by here and all the political officials of what we need to do going into the future.”
 

Rumsey said his group is dedicated to changing gun laws. He added that a walk and rally for universal background checks will begin 10 a.m. Saturday at the Calvary Baptist Church, 1616 W. Second Street, go down Ninth Street to the memorial at Chester Eastside and on to the Providence Friends Meeting House in Media.
 

Littleton said the creation of the display has been exceptionally overwhelming for her. She added that a school teacher stopped to see the display and said several of her students names were on the shirts.

“I wrote out 60 of these T-shirts and out of that 60 there were 29 that I had to cry through, pause, get up and stop because they were all under the age of 19 years old,” Littleton said. “Chester City, it is past time for a change ... We have to be the change we want to see. Change has to begin with us first. It is not the will of God that mother’s bury their children.”

Article link: http://www.delcotimes.com/general-news/20140622/memorial-serves-as-stark-reminder-of-gun-violence
 

 

Weekly Update from Chester Eastside, Wednesday, June 25

Weekly Update from Chester Eastside, Wednesday, June 25

Addressing the larger issues.

 

Chester Eastside continues to offer rich learning opportunities for young people through

its after-school program and summer day camp. But for us to fulfill our commitment to those children, we must to look beyond our own role to what else is affecting their lives. That’s what “working for a more just society” is all about. Chester Eastside is not a lobbying organization in the traditional meaning of that term. Our tax exempt status requires that we not be. But that does not mean ignoring or failing to speak out on those larger issues that affect the people we serve.

 

Case in point: quality education for all.
 

The Pennsylvania Constitution promises children in this state a “thorough and efficient

education. All children, including those growing up in Chester. But then there is the reality.
 

In 2012, drastic cuts in state funding forced the Chester Upland School District to

eliminate 40 percent of its teaching positions, sharply curtail many services, and put prekindergarten and kindergarten classes on half-time. The District has managed to get things back closer to where they were, and some good things have been happening. But Chester Upland is now under state receivership and struggling to give this community’s children a decent education. To their credit, the people who now work in that system have refused to give up and are working hard to provide the kind of education our children deserve.
 

From the beginning, people from Chester Eastside, Inc., have worked alongside others,

served on committees, and raised questions at public meetings. In some cases, Chester Eastside partners with the District on programs. To do any less would, in our minds, be a dereliction of duty.
 

Please note: This will be the last Weekly Update until September.

You may want to forward this Weekly Update to a friend.

Chester Eastside

www.chestereastside.org

610-872-4812

 

• Meeting basic human needs

• Helping people of all ages be all that they can be

• Working for a more just society

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 

Policies to Address Poverty in America - The Hamilton Project

Millions of people live in poverty in this country. They suffer not only material deprivation, but also the hardships and diminished life prospects that come with being poor.

Childhood poverty often means growing up without the advantages of a stable home, high-quality schools, or consistent nutrition. Adults in poverty are often hampered by inadequate skills and education, leading to limited wages and job opportunities. And the high costs of housing, healthcare, and other necessities often mean that people must choose between basic needs, sometimes forgoing essentials like meals or medicine. In recognition of these challenges, The Hamilton Project has commissioned fourteen innovative, evidence-based antipoverty proposals. These proposals are authored by a diverse set of leading scholars, each tackling a specific aspect of the poverty crisis.

Read the full Introduction by Melissa S. Kearney, Benjamin H. Harris, and Karen L. Anderson…

Weekly Update from Chester Eastside, Wednesday, June 18

Weekly Update from Chester Eastside, Wednesday, June 18.

Expanding the horizons.

The Caribbean island nation of Haiti is a long way from Chester, PA. So, you might ask, what was Rev. Bernice Warren, Chester Eastside’s Executive Director, doing there recently?

Taking the time to do so, moreover, with the blessing of Board members.

It all started with a devastating earthquake in 2010 that left an estimated 160,000 dead and many times that number homeless. In a country whose total population is not that much more than New York City’s and whose economy was a struggle to begin with, it was catastrophic. Four years later, Haiti still has a long way to go to recovery.

Seeing that devastation up close “ignited a fire in me,” says Rev. Warren. The latest visit, one of a number since 2010, was an occasion, not just to bring along things ranging from seeds for planting to medical supplies, but to give Chester residents a graphic lesson in giving and receiving. She took along some Chester people to see for themselves. “So often we’re on the

receiving end here in Chester,” she said. “People need to see others many times worse off and be able to see themselves as sources of help to their brothers and sisters in another part of the world.”

The payoff for Chester Eastside and its work.

Expanding our horizons in this way has often held unanticipated benefits for Chester Eastside and its work. Like the time Rev. Warren was helping with the cleanup along the Gulf Coast after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and happened to run into a retired craftsman from nearby Ridley Park, also on a mission of mercy. That chance meeting led to the man’s bringing his group of skilled volunteers, the Busy Bodies, to provide months and months of free labor to Chester Eastside, invaluable help which has continued to this day.

 You may want to forward this Weekly Update to a friend.

 

Chester Eastside

www.chestereastside.org

610-872-4812

 • Meeting basic human needs

• Helping people of all ages be all that they can be

• Working for a more just society

Weekly Update from Chester Eastside, Wednesday, June 11

Weekly Update from Chester Eastside, Wednesday, June 11

Partnering with parents and a school district.

Parents First is Chester Eastside’s workshop series for parents of children in the early grades in 2014, Parents First will be a joint venture between Chester Eastside and the Chester Upland School District.  Its mission: giving parents the tools to assure their children’s success in school.

What Parents First is all about.

It’s as simple as ABC. A, education is recognized as the key to a child’s making it in the world as an adult, especially children growing up in Chester. B, the earliest years are critical to what happens in the rest of a child’s school career and beyond. And C, parents are a child’s first and in many ways most important teacher.

It works this way: Twenty or so parents of children in grades pre-kindergarten through three attend ten weekly workshops led by experienced educators They cover everything from convincing parents that their children can really succeed in school if they get the right kind of support at home to showing them how to get the most out of regular contact with the classroom teacher. Meanwhile, their children engage in activities designed to complement what the parents are getting. Again, it’s experienced educators doing the teaching. Ten weeks is not a very long time, but we have found Parents First to get results that were still evident months after the end of the series. Parents spending more time reading with their children, having higher expectations yet more positive feelings about them, and becoming more involved with the teacher. Children doing better in school, both in terms of academic performance and things like attendance and classroom behavior.

 
Teaming up with the school district is a big plus for everybody.

The Chester Upland School District will be helpful in reaching out to parents. We’ll be working with teachers and supporting their efforts. The partnership will also make it easier to measure the results of our joint efforts.  The partnership is thus a big win-win for Chester Eastside and for the Chester Upland School District - but most of all, for those parents and children.

 You may want to forward this Weekly Update to a friend.

 

Chester Eastside

www.chestereastside.org

610-872-4812

• Meeting basic human needs

• Helping people of all ages be all that they can be

• Working for a more just society

Americans' Wealth Hits Record as Rich Get Richer - Wall Street Journal

Americans' wealth hit a fresh record in the first quarter amid a rise in home values and stock prices, a trajectory poised to continue as U.S. markets push higher but one that doesn't necessarily figure to rev up the sluggish recovery.

The net worth of U.S. households and nonprofit organizations—the value of homes, stocks and other assets minus debts and other liabilities—rose roughly 2%, or about $1.5 trillion, between January and March to $81.8 trillion, the highest on record, according to a report by the Federal...     

Article link: http://online.wsj.com/articles/americans-wealth-hits-new-record-in-1st-quarter-1401985427?mod=e2fb

 

Weekly Update from Chester Eastside, Wednesday, June 4

Weekly Update from Chester Eastside, Wednesday, June 4

Poverty is about a lot more than sheer survival.

We’re apt to be most conscious of people’s need for the basic necessities of life, like food and shelter. But some of the most crippling aspects of poverty aren’t that obvious. That’s why the Food Ministry at Chester Eastside is about a lot more than food. People struggling just to make ends meet are likely to be dealing with a range of other challenges as well. It could be a need for a decent place to live, or help in managing money, or a

substance abuse problem. For children, it could be anything from a greater risk of asthma to traumatic experiences unknown to more affluent kids. Then there’s the message people trapped in poverty get repeatedly from the wider society: that they’re somehow different, and not in a good way.

A welcoming place.

There’s a very different message people get at Chester Eastside’s Food Ministry, which operates Monday and Wednesday mornings each week. In part, that’s because many of the people on the helping end have known poverty first-hand. It starts the minute a person walks in the door. It’s clear this is no welfare office. Instead, it’s a welcoming place. The main business is giving out that urgently needed bag of food. But first, there’s a cup of coffee, a pastry, or a hot dish prepared by one of the volunteers. And just the feeling of being a valued human being.

We also want to get to know you; find out other ways we can help you realize those dreams you haven’t quite given up on; let you know about other programs you might want to be involved in; or just provide a sympathetic ear and a shoulder to lean on.

Does it pay off? Ask the woman who once came to Chester Eastside for a bag of food - later became a volunteer - and later still, a key staff member.

But for some, it’s enough to make it through the day and on to the next. No matter. At Chester Eastside, we don’t give up on anybody, even those who’ve given up on themselves.

 

You may want to forward this Weekly Update to a friend.

Chester Eastside

www.chestereastside.org

610-872-4812 

• Meeting basic human needs

• Helping people of all ages be all that they can be

• Working for a more just society