Mercer Street Friends food distribution in the Franklin Park section of Trenton

On Saturday August 9, 2018 members of the Franklin Parks NE Block Association – FPNEBA partnered with Mercer Street Friends to distribute food, personal hygiene products and literature about the organization to over 100 families.

Located in the Trenton NJ’s South Ward, the Franklin Park neighborhood is bordered by Cedar Lane, Chambers, Broad and Liberty Streets.  This diverse neighborhood has a mix of single family and semi attached homes, small businesses and a park designed by Fredrick Law Olmstead.  Olmstead also designed Trenton’s Cadwalader Park, Central Park in NYC and is considered the “Father of Landscape Architecture.”

FPNEBA members are often seen throughout Trenton supporting events, volunteering and working to make NJ’s Capital City better.  “Partnering with Mercer Street Friends to distribute food, personal hygiene products and literature about the programs available is a no brainer and a natural fit, we hope to expand our efforts and to encourage others to participate and develop a similar program that works for them.” offered President Jacque Howard who is also the creator and host of the Trenton 365 Show, a radio and tv program that promotes civic engagement as way to build a better community.

Mercer Street Friends is a 60 year old non-profit with Quaker values.  Besides being the food distribution organization for the county, MSF offers programs for the whole family including workforce development and community schools.  Executive Director Armstead Johnson recently shared about the organizations forthcoming plans to offer services for individuals and families from “cradle to career and beyond!”   

The following images were from the food distribution in September

United Way of Greater Mercer County "Strike Out Hunger" event

Here is some information from our Strike Out Hunger event the other day.

·         52 event staff

·         27 partners and sponsors

·         38 teams

·         600+ participants

·         Nearly 178,000 bowls of oatmeal packaged

Our key partner in the event was Mercer Street Friends Food Bank.

Sponsors included:

·         Wegmans

·         Horizon NJ Health

·         Johnson & Johnson

·         Wells Fargo

·         Case’s Pork Roll

·         Nordson

·         Stark & Stark

·         Ancero

·         East Windsor Education Association

·         NJM

·         Mercadien

·         Wawa

UWGMC also partnered with ten community agencies in Mercer County to expand the focus on summer hunger. These agencies have collectively been awarded $75,000 to purchase additional food to stock their pantries for the upcoming summer months. The goal is to assist more children, families, and other vulnerable individuals to help prevent hunger over the summer.

·         Arm In Arm

·         Catholic Charities

·         Mt. Carmel Guild

·         RISE

·         HomeFront

·         Trenton Area Soup Kitchen

·         Jewish Family & Children’s Service

·         Meals on Wheels of Mercer County

·         Rescue Mission of Trenton

·         Mercer Street Friends Food Bank

We are also partnering with Advocates for Children of NJ, the City of Trenton and the County of Mercer to produce flyers to help make vulnerable populations aware of free summer meals in our area.

In partnership,

Cheri

Cheri Hennessy Durst

Vice President of Development & Strategic Partnerships

United Way of Greater Mercer County

609-637-4904

Cheri.durst@uwgmc.org

http://www.uwgmc.org/

Crossroads Corporate Center

3150 Brunswick Pike, Suite 230

Lawrenceville, NJ  08648

Have a look at some images I captured of the event.

Images of the United Way of Greater Mercer County "Strike Out Hunger"event.

Have a listen to some archived interviews with Tarry Truitt on the Trenton 365 Show

Trenton NJ Youth Stat Meeting Oct 2016

Ayana Abdul-Raheem, Trenton NJ Youth Stat Coordinator invited me to this public event held at the Trenton Board of Education Main Office located at 108 North Clinton Avenue.

Like many other communities throughout the USA, Trenton has an issue with the illegal activities of the youth.  These actions are categorized as Runaways/Missing, Assaults, Weapon Offenses, Curfew Violations and others.

One could point to any number of reasons for this, some of those include a lack of services and programming due to budgetary cuts, reduction in staffing/person power, lack of financial resources in the home, mental and physical health issues, these and many more are effecting the lives of these individuals and the communities where they live.

Approximately 100 people mainly Law Enforcement, Educators and Service Program professionals were in attendance.  After a brief introduction, Ayana delivered a power point presentation describing the program, organizational structure, partners and the very alarming statistics.

Speakers included Juvenile Officers Arlene Miranda and Steve Smith, Aneisha Walker and Armstead Johnson of Mercer Street Friends, Terrence Stokes of the Trenton Board of Education and Detective Sargeant Bethesda Stokes.  In their own words through personal experiences, each expressed the importance for this to be addressed immediately and that a lack of focus would have drastic effects on the lives of so many youth, the communities in which they live and society as a whole.

As a person of faith I am often looking for spiritual references to help with my own understanding of a situation.  I think about the body and the need for it to function as a whole.  The legs without a torso are of little use likewise no oxygen means no life.  In this reference discarding any youth will prove catastrophic to the structure of society here in Trenton and if that progresses then beyond the less than 7.5 sq. mi. city limits.  Law Enforcement will tell you "spill over" has been happening in surrounding communities for many years, (going both ways might I add) therefore this is now a regional problem if not worse.

Details regarding the costs of the program were not discussed however in the past this has been an area of concern as documented in 2013.

http://www.nj.com/mercer/index.ssf/2013/05/trenton_officials_trying_to_ra.html

Ayana made it clear that the efforts of the current Youth Stat Administration were operating under very specific guidelines and I encourage you to contact her for the details and to answer any questions.

Ayana Abdul-Raheem
Youth Stat Coordinator

Trenton Police Department
Youth Services Division - 3rd Floor
225 North Clinton Avenue

609-989-4097
aabdulraheem@trentonpolice.net

Have listen to our brief chat after the event.

https://soundcloud.com/trenton365/ayana-abdul-raheem-youth-stat

In closing, I left with a strong sense that this is not a Law Enforcement problem, this is a societal problem and all members of society need to respond.  I understand that one size doesn't and will not fit all, but we as members of society need to do our individual parts to seek out how we can build a better community.

If you would like to discuss my efforts please email me: trenton365show@gmail.com