Friday!

Friday was kind of a crazy day at the Camden Forward School - there was apparently an 'incident' in the morning and half the teachers were in a meeting taking care of it. The remaining teachers couldn't handle holding regular class, so for most of the morning (and all afternoon, as it turned out) the students were in the sanctuary/lunch room basically playing all day. For a short while, the overseeing teachers tried to hold classes in the big room, but there were just too many kids for two teachers. We did have about two normal class periods, but they were brief. As you'll see in the video, the kids are creative with their free time :)

Also on Friday, we had the opportunity to help out with the Boatworks after school program run by Jesus Castro, who started the program last year. This year, the 6th graders are building a canoe and the older kids are building a kayak. It's pretty sweet!

Waterfront South

If you read my post a while back about waterfront south, watch this video - it covers some of what I was discussing, but also introduces Andrea, a woman working to transform the city through gardening and artwork.

New Video!

A video update about last Wednesday, December 15th.

Notes and Thoughts

Why do you report to work each day? What is the motivation for your job? I was ale to chat a bit more with the science teacher, Ms. Parker, Friday at lunchtime about why she teaches, espicially the kids in Camden. She hails from Philly, and commutes everyday to NJ. She was working at a small Christian school over there, but the school closed and her principal came to Urban Promise and asked her to come with her. She said she was always good with kids and really connected with them. She started an engineering degree in school, but somehow ended up teaching (I'm not sure exactly how) and started with the under elementary grades. Then, she was offered a middle school position and found out that really loves kids in that age range. She was also actively involved in after school programing in Philly, but had to leave those kids when she moved to teaching in NJ. She is now involved in the Boatworks program with Urban, working with the middle schoolers after school as well.

On a semi-related note, volunteering at CamdenForward School and not getting the opportunity to work with the after-school programing, honestly, has kind of made me feel like I'm in a Urban Promise bubble. While many of the kids come from challenging backgrounds, many of them (from what I can glean from short conversations with them) come from moderately affluent families who live outside of Camden and want their kids to go to a private school. I don't know if any of them will go to the high school, Urban Promise Academy when they reach 9th grade. In fact, one of the students I talked with, who lives outside of Camden, and she (an 8th grader) did not think that Camden could become a better place. The feeling I got in the high school was very different - those students definitely come from pretty rough backgrounds. Some of the students (a very limited number) when I asked what they were going to do after-school, mentioned going back home and helping out with the various siblings at home. One girl even had her own child, Serenity, that she was raising. The middle school kids, however, all mentioned hanging out at the Cherry Hill mall and shopping for clothing as their weekend choice activity. The campus of Urban Promise itself is very safe feeling - it is on its own little corner set apart from most other businesses. Granted, they've had their share of scares, but overall, I've definitely felt a 'safe bubble' feeling around there. Don't worry Mom - I'm still careful when I go outside :)

I'm still catching up with the videos - they always take longer than I expect to edit, so stay tuned!

Also, I'm not entirely sure why blogger likes to double-space the first paragraph of each post....

Walk it Out

Time for a wordy post: (to be complemented later with a video)

Today our morning devotional was lead by Pam, the intern director. She spoke on the passage in Luke about Jesus' visit to Mary and Martha and their different reactions to his presence. She challenged us to live in the moment, 'walking out' our faith here in Urban Promise on the working ground level, not just remaining in the land of wishing and dreaming that things could change.

She also mentioned that we may not know exactly how coming to Camden will impact us until later - which is a good thing for me to continue to keep in mind as I return to Seattle next week.

Yesterday, we were able to meet a number of people from other organizations that are also working to rebuild Camden. We were taken down to the historic Waterfront South area - we had been there on the initial tour, but did not get out of the car. We first met with a woman named Helene, who runs the Heart of Camden Housing organization. This organization seeks to revitalize this area of Camden by rebuilding the row homes and placing families in them that will raise the level of community in the neighborhood. Over the course of one year, with the close of the some of the industry plants at the end of the second world war, especially the New York Shipbuilding company, the employment opportunities went from 30,000 to 1,700 jobs. People left south Camden in droves, eventually leaving behind 4,000 abandoned homes. One of the largest post-war industries is scrap collection. All the scrap you can imagine is piled high and then shipped to China for processing and disposal. Because one can get money for scrap, all of the abandoned homes have been scavenged and stripped of everything but the outside walls. Appliances, windows, flooring, pipes, and doors have been ripped out and sold to the scrap collections. Many of the roofs have collapsed and frequently, one can see the sky through the open second story windows. The majority of doors and windows of the abandoned homes are boarded up, to keep out squatters and new scrap scavengers.

The Heart of Camden Housing project buys these abandoned homes and then renovates them. They rarely tear down the whole structure, partially because they don't own all the titles to an entire block of row houses. Apparently, they also want to keep the historic aspects of the community intact and seek to keep the exterior of their housing units true to their historic past. The inside is quite modern, but the outside still fits with the feel of Camden.

They operate out of an old theatre - the "Star" theatre that showed silent films, and are renovating the main screening area to be a gym for a nearby elementary school. After the roof collapsed, they basically gutted the whole building and are building from the inside out. While the inside of the gym will look new, the outside will look like the old theatre. The organization has discovered over the years that they can't fix Waterfront South without being involved in politics. Apparently, four out of the last five mayors have gone to jail for corruption; the only one that didn't was 80 years old and really just a puppet during the state take-over of Camden. Well, now the state has pulled out, but the non-profits are still there and still working hard to change Camden.

We also watched this movie called "Poet of Poverty" about Michael Doyle, a priest at the Sacred Heart Catholic Church in this area of Camden. He has been there for a long while, when he was placed in this area after trying to destroy Camden draft records with a group during the Vietnam war. (He was not in favor of the war…) He is, however, a great writer and consistently wrote letters and poems about his experiences and the people of Camden. Sadly, at the end of this video, he comes to the conclusion that not much has changed over the past 25 years. He is still saying the same things about the issues in Camden that he was when he first showed up to serve.

You can watch this clip from the film "Poet of Poverty" to get a feel for what this neighborhood looked like just a few years ago (2007-8 ish)

It was really good to talk with the organizations before seeing this film, as there has been change and improvement in the neighborhood that the movie does not capture. About 200 homes have been renovated and filled with lively people and there are another 44 to be completed in the next few years. They have built a live theatre, a parking lot, an extensive garden with a greenhouse, and a 24 bedroom retreat center in the Center for Transformation run by the Sacred Heart Church. Beautiful art now covers many of the ugly pieces of wood that board up the abandoned homes, bringing warmth and vitality to the community. There is now a park with a tree-line blocking the view and smell from the sewage plant and licorice plant next-door, all playground equipment colorfully painted and fun to use. There is hope, Camden will succeed.

Raking More Leaves

School Day #2 was much the same as the first day of school this week, so this video is a smidge shorter. In the beginning of the clip, Chris is talking about our morning devotionals, which happen every day with different members of the Urban Promise staff.

First Day of School!

(Yes, I'm a bit behind with the videos....they just take so long to edit!)

Two new videos today - I had to split them up or else you'd be watching one video for over 10 minutes!

This details the first Sunday and Monday of our trip, including church, school, errands, and talking with Bruce Main, the founder of Urban Promise.

The first Day of school:

Our talk with Bruce Main: