NorthCamden.Org

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Originally uploaded by hopeworksncamden

Down baby! It is coming down!

It really is coming down!!!

Riverfront Prison Demo

Originally uploaded by hopeworksncamden

North Camden: Prison Site Design Workshop: Save Our Waterfront and Cooper’s Ferry are planning two community meetings to discuss the reuse and planning of the Riverfront State Prison. All are welcomed to attend and participate. The meetings will be on Thursday February 11th at 6pm at Northgate II and Monday February 15th at 6pm at Grace Lutheran Church.

If you have any questions, please contact Rod Sadler of Save Our Waterfront or Joe Myers of Cooper’s Ferry.

Design of Pyne Poynt Park: Thank you to everyone who attended and participated in the January 5th community meeting at Pyne Poynt School. Cooper’s Ferry will be working with Save Our Waterfront, the City Parks, and County Parks to begin the permitting phase of the project. The project engineer (Pennoni) will also be starting the environmental work over the next few weeks. Shortly, Pennoni will collect historic fill samples and groundwater samples. Pending permits, the testing and eventual removal of the underground storage tank will follow (the tank is located next to the abandoned concrete building near the river). Pennoni believes it will have the results from these investigations in early February. .

Title: Hopeworks Winter Film Festival
Location: Walt Whitman Center
Description: Hopeworks 2010 Winter Film Festival will be held at 6:30pm at the Walt Whitman Arts Center. Come and see the digital stories that the youth of Hopeworks have created.
Start Time: 18:30
Date: 2010-01-13

Title: North Camden Planning Committee Meeting
Location: Camden Lutheran Housing
Description: North Camden Stakeholder meeting reviewing North Camden stakeholder projects.
Start Time: 12:00
Date: 2010-01-14
End Time: 13:00

Film project tells stories of Camden

By WILFORD S. SHAMLIN
Courier-Post Staff

A group of inner-city teens and young adults is using computer skills to compose stories that offer glimpses into their personalities, interests and struggles.

The 11 Camden residents will unveil their work Wednesday during the Winter 2010 Film Festival at the Walt Whitman Center for the Arts in Camden.

The digital stories were created through a program at Hopeworks ‘N Camden, a youth advocacy group that aims to prepare teens and young adults for technology jobs by teaching them a wide array of computer skills.

Students in the program present digital stories — complete with soundtrack and voice-over script — at film festivals three to four times a year, said Shawn Mack, Hopeworks’ literacy director. He said the project gives participants an opportunity to express themselves artistically.

By sharing her story, Zakkiyya Malik, 22, hopes to inspire others to pursue their dreams — even in the face of hardship.

Distraught over the death of her guardian grandmother, Malik was in the second semester of her senior year at Woodrow Wilson High School when she dropped out in December 2004, just months before graduation.

Her digital story is a three-minute piece set to slow-tempo music. In it, she gives viewers a glimpse into her childhood living in Lake City, Fla., and her time in high school. She contrasts the two school systems and says her Florida school districts did a better job of keeping students focused on graduating.

Malik is on the cusp of realizing her dream of attending college and is applying for financial aid to Camden County College, where she plans to study art and history. Right now, she’s working on earning her GED.

Her peers share their perspective on the state of Camden, their favorite sports team and other personal issues through their digital stories. All the participants are Camden residents from 14 to 22 and affiliated with Hopeworks training programs.

On Monday, they made final preparations for the film festival, either writing their biographies or editing and adding sound to their video.

“Oh God, it feels very good . . . a relief!,” Malik said.

http://www.courierpostonline.com/article/20100112/NEWS01/1120349/Film-project-tells-stories-of-Camden

I have been thinking about the 6000 red tulips that are awaiting the spring here on State Street. We planted them over two months ago. I can’t wait to see them–especially when it is snowing out! It is going to be so beautiful. Here is to life here on State Street! Nice job State Street Fellowship!

Maps tell story of N. Camden

By DEBORAH HIRSCH
Courier-Post Staff

For at least the past two years, North Camden has been buzzing with a steady lineup of community meetings to solicit opinions on a neighborhood plan, the design of an upcoming park, or what to do with undeveloped waterfront.

Earlier this week, community leaders and stakeholders gathered once again, this time using maps that they’d created to talk about how to improve the neighborhood.

Hopeworks ‘N Camden Executive Director Jeff Putthoff, who coordinated the meeting, said the idea was to use visual representations to start defining North Camden and what it could become.

“A lot of people are creating stories about North Camden and they’re going to be creating more when the prison comes down,” Putthoff said.

Demolition of the Riverfront State Prison began Thursday.

Members of the group presented maps highlighting everything from parcels tied up in liens to blocks where residents had recently planted trees.

One from the N.J. Conservation Fund bore a single arrow pointing to the only public access to the waterfront.

Another came from 40 children in an after-school program at Cooper’s Poynt School, who used colored circles to mark places they thought were dangerous or safe. Green dots, indicating positive places, covered most of the schools. But the waterfront was filled with red.

Putthoff said it was interesting to see how the existing community is so divorced from the waterfront, which many people talk about as a great asset for future development. The challenge will be figuring out how to make that area important and accessible to current residents so that they aren’t isolated when development gets going, he said.

Other maps showed nonprofit housing developments, the homes of residents who attended local churches and the density of vacant homes per block.

Zoe Selzer, a project coordinator for the Walter Rand Institute for Public Affairs at Rutgers-Camden, said it seems scary to see all that vacant land, “but at the same time it shows a lot of potential.”

“This is how you develop North Camden without using eminent domain because there’s so much land that isn’t being used,” Selzer said.

Edgar Alejandro, who moved to the 600 block of State Street about a year ago, said he came to the meeting because he wants North Camden to look just as beautiful as the downtown waterfront.

“We need to build that front so when people look at it, they go, “Wow, we want to go there,’ ” he said.

http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2009912180356