Putting up the RHHP Christmas tree

The action item following tonight's monthly meeting was to put up the RHHP Christmas tree. It is an artificial tree that leans to one side but it was a nice tree nevertheless. Ellen organized the making of origami and a paper chain which went well with the plastic and glass globes.

The annual RHHP Christmas breakfast

Once a year, Joseph brings out his fine china and decorations and makes a Christmas breakfast for all his house mates. True to form, he once again made his fabulous flan but with a new twist. It has cream cheese which makes it wickedly rich. He also made a great vegetable omelette, a baked ham and pastries. We could have easily had a few more persons at the table and still had plenty of food left over. Thank you Joseph for this great RHHP tradition.

Good news and a request for prayer

After weeks of frenzied preparations and anticipation, Jeff and Sarah were finally married last Saturday at the North Baltimore Mennonite Church. It was a simple but lovely wedding that included a foot washing ceremony that symbolized their love for and submission to each other. A simple soup and salad dinner reception followed the ceremony. Children and adults tried their hands at whacking a pinata. Many visited over board games.

With this wedding, Sarah exchanged one room mate (Anna) for a life long one. Anna moved into another room on the first floor. We welcome Jeff into the RHHP household and look forward to all the different small and large projects he will do around the house. It will be great to have a real live engineer who is actually handy with a screw driver and wrench living among us.

On a somber note, we request prayer for our asylum seeker house mate who seriously injured himself while at work. He is at home recovering and continues to have doctor visits. He is receiving great support from members of RHHP and the African community in Baltimore but this is a trying time for him.

This old house..

Being a hundred year old house, RHHP merits its own maintenance crew. In last Friday's episode in the continual upgrading of RHHP, a plumber who has been re-plumbing the main floor bathroom accidentally discovered a hole in the side of the furnace through which the gas flame is visible. This called for the furnace to be turned off and is only to be turned on when someone is supervising it. So Ellen was "trained" to turn on the furnace so that the house may continue to be heated and have occasional hot water for showers. Residents wanting hot showers are to coordinate with Ellen as she has to stand guard outside the furnace room to keep an eye on it. (See photo above.) Fortunately, the weather has been mild and no one has suffered unduly from the shivers.

The good news is that the Brubaker Plumbing crew from Lancaster, PA, will be here on Tuesday to replace the furnace. They should be familiar with our furnace room after having spent an entire day a couple of years ago replacing one of the boilers.

RHHP Visioning Meeting

Representatives of the RHHP Committee, Asylum Seekers Housing Network, the Mennonite Voluntary Service unit, residents and the house managers met yesterday to review the progress of RHHP over the past eight years, especially the period since the visioning meeting in May 2008, and to look for ways to strengthen the RHHP's fulfillment of its mission in the future. Ruth Clemens ably guided the group through the three hour process. We reviewed the mission statements of the ASHN and MVS to ensure that their missions are in support of the RHHP vision. The respective groups came away with assignments to complete. The group also discussed different ways the community residents, ASHN clients and VSers could be better integrated.

Two RHHP birthday girls

We celebrated two birthdays tonight. Kendra and Sarah had their birthday this week. We all had delicious birthday cupcakes.

St Francis Center community potluck

Tonight was the St Francis Center community potluck. An email had gone out last week letting us know that it will be a surprise celebration to honor Fr Tom's retirement after 48 years in the neighborhood. It was a good turn out. I sat with a group of elderly women who made up the Druid Hill Neighborhood Group who presented Fr. Tom with a card and some cash. These women were part of the great migration from the south. Gloria, who sat to my left, had lived in Reservoir Hill since 1956 and had seen the neighborhood through good and bad times. It was a history lesson for me to talk to them. She described how, in 1992, the city had condemned and demolished a row of businesses on Whitelock between Brookfield and Linden because of the drug and crime around it. The plan had been to redevelop these lots and had been pushed through by some white folks who had recently moved into Reservoir Hill. Unfortunately, the plans to redevelop the lots were never carried out and to this day, we still have a row of empty lots including the one Ellen and I adopted.

I also got to visit with Madeline and Jacob, a young couple and their infant. They moved out here from Berkely, CA, after finishing school. They bought an apartment building on Madison, one block west of RHHP, and instantly became landlords to tenants they inherited from the previous owner. After evicting the criminal elements and finding new tenants, they set about starting a cafe on the ground floor of their building. Unfortunately, they ran into problems with the contractor and ended up firing him but loosing some money in the process. I think that I am seeing a trend here. It seems that the energy driving the changes in Reservoir Hill is coming from the infusion of people with pioneer spirits and visions of what they want in their community.

Reservoir Hill Improvement Council annual meeting

This year's RHIC was held last night in the fellowship hall of the Beth Am synagogue one block north of RHHP. It was a well attended affair with numerous awards handed out to people who have contributed to the improvement of Reservoir Hill. Many were individuals who have lived and worked in the neighborhood for many years. The group of neighbors who started the Whitelock Community Farm were also honored. Others were partners from the city departments, John Howard Eager School and community center. The mayor sent an assistant on her behalf. It made me realize how many pairs of hands it takes to make a neighborhood a good place to live in. Father Tom was honored and his retirement from the ST Francis Center was recognized. Here is a snap shot of Fr. Tom accepting his award.

Whitelock Community Farm festival

Last Sunday, the group of neighbors who live on Brookfield and converted the empty lot on the corner of Brookfield and Whitelock into a farm held its farm festival. The event was blessed with spectacular weather. There was face painting and apple bobbing for the neighborhood kids, pumpkin carving, spiced cider and several boxes of Dunkin Donuts. Justin brought out his three hens and wowed the kids. Many of them had not touched poultry of any sort. The turn out was very encouraging and I got to meet many of the neighbors. The new rabbi of Beth Am temple was there. He moved into the neighborhood when he took over the congregation and appears to be making a deliberate effort to reach out to the neighborhood. Then I met Justin and his wife Rebecca who recently moved here after completing school in Michigan. Justin teaches middle school in a public charter school and his wife is a social worker. Justin's dream is to begin a ministry to house homeless people in their house and to help them get on their feet. Rebecca's passion is bread baking and dreams about starting a bakery in Baltimore. She also has a passion for good food and hopes to introduce good food to the neighborhood. In erecting the greenhouse, she hopes that the farm can extend its growing season. The plan is to eventually produce enough vegetables to be able to sell them cheaply to residents. The group also hope to start a farmer's market in the lot across the street from the farm. It is amazing what these few families have done to this once empty weed and garbage filled lot.

Then I met Cynthia and her husband who lives across RHHP on Eutaw Place in the house that they bought from Brian and Cheryl Martin who once directed the YES program. Glynette, our neighbor from the north was there with her son, daughter in law and grand daughter. Glynette just returned from a couple of months in Florida taking care of some family business. I offered to let her have her own plot of land in the RHHP garden. She has a spigot right near the garden and she can run a hose to our garden. She thought that was a good idea and she was interested in having her own garden next to mine.

English First?

It's been a while since have I seen any coverage in the media about the English First movement. This is a movement made up of folks who fear that foreign languages(primarily Spanish) are encroaching into official government business and who are disturbed when some government entities accommodate non-English speakers by translating forms into various languages. These same people feel that legislation is needed to make English the official language of America and to stop the erosion of its traditional standing as the sole language used in official government business.

I want to share with you one instance in which no legislation is needed to encourage two immigrants to learn English. In recent weeks I have noticed that two of my asylum seeker house mates have been waking up at 5am and leaving the house at 5:30 am. I found out tonight that they recently began free English classes at the Baltimore County Community College in Dundalk just outside of Baltimore City. Instead of taking a bus downtown to catch the number 40 bus to Dundalk, they have been riding their bicycles. I looked up the route on Google map and discovered that it is more than 9 miles on city surface streets and partly by freeway which is undoubtedly a more direct route. Their more circuitous route is very likely more than 10 miles each way. It takes them an hour each way which is about the same length of time by bus and they save the bus fare.

I think this illustrates the folly of measures designed to force immigrants to learn English. Given the opportunity, most new comers will learn English without coercion. Most of them know that the ability to speak English is the first rung on the economic ladder and determines the height to which one can reach. Instead of devising ways to force immigrants to learn English, it would be more productive to increase the availability of English classes to immigrants, especially those who have to work while learning English.

Fruit of my labor....sort of

Out of my compost pile sprang a couple of melon plants. One is a cantaloupe which is producing a few fruits. Here is the first of what I hope will be a crop of at least three or four fruits. Thank goodness I was able to pick it before the rats got to it. It is as big as my head! (It is not an optical illusion.) It's fragrance filled our pantry as we waited for it to ripen. It was as sweet and succulent as any of the cantaloupes we bought this summer. It was sweeter because it was a surprise gift from the garden.

Follow up to earlier post

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-rebuilding-playground-hill-20100921,0,666502.story

Here is the follow up to the September 14, 2010 post on Dan Rodrick's column about one church's effort to reclaim a small area in East Baltimore. Carolyn Pitt's quote at the end of the article points out an uncomfortable fact that we can identify with. The struggle to reclaim her neighborhood will require coordinated and sustained effort. Left on its own, the neighborhood will quickly return to it old self much the same way an untended garden quickly becomes choked by encroaching weeds which thrive on neglect. It will also require the belief that individuals, banding together, are able to make a difference. Mixed in there is a strong conviction that an improved neighborhood is in one's interest. Christians will have to be obedient to the biblical injunction to bring about the kingdom of God in the here and now. I will leave it to those of you who are more theological minded to assay the soundness of this theology.

Community volunteers clean up playground near homicide site
Councilman says effort is follow-up to vigils after high-profile deaths of church worker, Hopkins researcher

By Jessica Anderson, The Baltimore Sun
10:08 p.m. EDT, September 21, 2010

The weeds behind the vacant lot next to Carolyn Pitt's Aiken Street home had reached her clothesline, but on Tuesday, volunteers mowed the plants down, picked up trash and painted the nearby playground to ignite efforts to revitalize the neighborhood.

"Beer bottle, glass, needles — you name it" can be found in the small patch of pavement with a missing basketball hoop, Pitt, 54, said from her tidy front steps. "It's wonderful they are giving kids a chance to play over there," she said as she sat with two of her grandchildren, who she will not allow to play in the area because of the constant drug traffic.

About 50 volunteers with the nearby Ark Church and the Police Department's Eastern District cleared more than 20 tall bags of debris from the playground. The cleanup was part of "Operation Good Faith," an East Baltimore effort that calls on religious community members to look after a four-block radius around their place of worship.

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Less than two months ago, Pitt's neighbor — the caretaker of the Ark Church — Milton Hill was found slumped against a fence in a pool of blood behind his home next to the church. Police believe he was shot for his green scooter. Five days earlier, Johns Hopkins researcher Stephen Pitcairn was stabbed less than a mile away. The two crimes captured the city's attention and inspired two mournful vigils.

"This is a follow-up to the vigils. We won't just pray but move into action," said Councilman Carl Stokes, whose district includes both homicide sites and who attended the cleanup.

He said the city, with help from the Charles Village Civic Association, is hoping to place new playground equipment there in the next two months, as well as replace the lights where the wires were torn out. Members of the Ark Church will maintain the area.

Stokes said the cleanup is not only an effort to clear debris and paint, but "symbolic" that "we're saying no more to drug dealing."

The paved area on the corner of East Lafayette Avenue and Aiken Street is considered "an open-air drug market," said Eastern District Commander Maj. Melvin Russell. The district is committing a strong police presence to the area, and if drug dealers return, "we'll deal with them," he said.

"We didn't do this for nothing," he said of the cleanup. Russell himself helped, hopping on a shovel to dig out the strip of weeds and grass between the playground and the alley.

He said no arrests have been made in Hill's death, but that "we're getting close. We've got good leads."

Two people have been charged in Pitcairn's death.

The Eastern District has been one of the most violent, leading the city in the number of homicides. While last year it saw major decreases, the Eastern now leads the department with 32 homicides.

Russell said the district has seen a 15 percent decline in homicides so far this year, but he said it takes the community "buying into the vision that we can make this happen." He said he tries to encourage his officers to work with residents, otherwise, "as long as we have that great disconnect, nothing is going to change."

While a set of rusted monkey bars and two worn wooden jungle gyms remained, a fresh coat of green, yellow and orange paint was left to dry on a playground wall.

"They are doing a great job, but we don't know how long it's going to last," Pitt said.

Sylvester Toles, a member of the Ark Church, admitted he wasn't excited about the cleanup at first, after a long day at a moving company. But the 54-year-old said "the preacher wanted us to do it for the kids, to make it presentable for the kids. Somebody's got to show that somebody cares," he said.

As he worked up a sweat, he said, "I feel like I've accomplished something.

RHHP fall workday

Every few months, our household get together on a Saturday morning to tackle tasks that we normally don't have the time to do or that require a collective effort to accomplish. Besides, it's more fun to do it together as a household. Some of the more grimy jobs (such as cleaning the hood over the stove) are tackled on workdays.
The Fall workday is also when we change the batteries of the smoke alarms. Our major accomplishment yesterday was the disposal of much of the stuff that had accumulated in the attic over the years. Most of what we hauled out were 2x4's that were once the bunk beds during the Youth Evangelism Service (YES) era. That allowed Ellen to reorganize the storage area. We also took out old TV sets, dead computers and other appliances. They were deposited on the curb at the back of the house and most of the electronics were quickly picked up by passers-by. Richard, who lives across the street, picked up some lumber but as of this morning, most of the pile is still there. If they remain unclaimed they will end up, regretfully, in the landfill.

We concluded the workday with pizza from Bolis and delicious chocolate chip cookies that Kendra whipped up on short order. Ellen made the lime-ade.