What: The Department of Parks and Recreation Ward 5 Town Hall Meeting. Stand in solidarity with your Ivy City neighbors in getting the historic Crummel School transferred to the jurisdiction of the Department of Parks and Recreation as a multi-purpose recreation center.
When: Thursday, August 24th, 2006, 6:30-8:30pm
Where: North Michigan Park Recreation Center, 1333 Emerson Street, NE
Background: (from Empower DC)
Ivy City Has a Youth Detention Center - We Need a Youth Opportunity Center!
The continued trend and current rise in crime among youth in the District underscores the dire need for more services, employment opportunities and youth development programs.
The Historic Ivy City/Crummell School Revitalization Coalition is a community based organization dedicated to the rebirth of the historic Alexander Crummell school into a multi-use facility that would provide services to youth and largely underserved senior residents of Ivy City, Langston-Carver Terrace, Trinidad, and surrounding neighborhoods.
The renovated school and its two acre grounds must be transformed from a place of blight and decay to one of community uplift and opportunity including job training, tutoring, mentorship, recreation and other needed programs.
Why Crummell School? The Alexander Crummell School is named for abolitionist, educator and clergyman Rev. Doctor Alexander Crummell whose life's mission was the uplift of Black people. The school was built in 1911 to serve African American children from the historic working-class community of Ivy City and neighboring Trinidad. The school served as the civic heart of the community and as a site for recreational programs until around 1980. Since that time the DC government has allowed the building to sit and rot, and depress its surrounding neighborhood. Residents of Ivy City have long been on record asking that their broken heart be repaired, and turned into a multi-use center to serve youth and elders. Now is a critical time to make this vision a reality.
We are asking the City Council to immediately transfer the Crummell School building and its grounds from the office of Property Management and add it to the inventory of the Department of Parks and Recreation for renovation and community use. Help us hold elected officials accountable to caring for the lives of our youth.
Support the Campaign for Crummell School By:
* You or Your Organization/Institution Signing-On as an Endorser
* Participating in on-going Campaign Activities
Partial List of Endorsing Organizations:
Empower DC
Historic Ivy City/Crummell School Revitalization Coalition
Movement for Love and Unity
Bread for the City
Young Women's Drumming Empowerment Project
DC Statehood Green Party
Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless
Sasha Bruce Youthwork, Inc
Youth Leadership Support Network
Save Our Schools
Power Palette
Gray Panthers of Metropolitan Washington
Stand Up! for Democracy in DC
Committee to Save Franklin Shelter
DC Library Renaissance Project
Fix Our Schools
GCH Endowment to Promote Quality Early Childhood Education
Planned Parenthood of Metropolitan Washington, DC
Parisa B. Norouzi
Co-Director/Organizer
District of Columbia Grassroots Empowerment Project
(Empower DC)
1419 V St, NW
Washington, DC 20009
(202) 234-9119
More background information at Frozen Tropics, Cultural Tourism DC, and the Ivy City-Trinidad Citizens Association.
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