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| Photos by Evan Brandt
About 50 people attended last night's Community Discussion about the future of Pottstown.
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Revitalize your community with five questions.
People set at seven tables, many with someone they had never met before, and worked on the five questions together.
The questions were designed to elicit discussion about community priorities, as well as begin to outline goals to pursue to help improve the borough.
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| Twila Fisher, Hobart's Run Executive Director, and Rian Wallace, former Pittsburgh Steeler, sat at a table that talked about the importance of technology in raising youth up into self-sufficiency. |
"We talk about a community center, but we are not centered as a community," Pottstown native and community co-organizer David Charles said.
He spoke after Davis talked about how she found her "second family" at the Ricketts Community Center which, she feels, is hampered by its management by Olivet Boys and Girls Club, which is based in Reading.
Here's most of what she had to say:
Davis said she had planned to leave Pottstown and do community development somewhere else in the world, but volunteering at the Ricketts Center provided an "awakening" to the fact that she could do it right here.
"I realized I didn't need to move to another continent to do important work. There was enough work to be done when I stepped out my front door," Davis said.
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| Hannah Davis, left, works with her table on the night's 5 questions. |
The borough owns the Ricketts Center, and leases it to Olivet to run programs there. But there have been rumblings almost from the beginning about the limited hours and prohibition against adults and children mixing at the center, thus keeping parents away from doing things there with their children.
The lease is up this year and Davis said she and several other activists have presented council with an alternative to signing another lease with Olivet.
"It is time to reclaim the things that are ours," said Charles.
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| David Charles, in hat, talks with one of the tables about Pottstown's need to connect with students at the middle school. |
Charles, who spoke fondly about growing up in Penn Village public housing, now called Bright Hope, and the friends and outdoor fun he had there.
He said afterward he firmly believes the loss of things like Gruber Pool and the limited offerings at the Ricketts Center have contributed to the recent increase in violence in Pottstown Middle School, where he runs a mentoring program.
"When Gruber Pool closed, it changed the culture of our town. Kids got in trouble for stealing because they had noting to do," Charles said.
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| Students at this table want to start a multi-cultural club at Pottstown High School next year where people of different backgrounds can "feel safe." |
and the paths they took were as diverse as the people speaking.
One table talked about how music, food trucks or events with animals might draw more people to a community center.
At another table, Pottstown alum Rian Wallace stressed the importance of teaching Pottstown's youth financial literacy, how to parlay technology into entrepreneurship. "You have to teach the kids the potential of this technology they're holding in their hands. It's the gateway to the world," said Wallace.
In the end, each table offered up thing they had learned from their discussions. Here is a rough sampling:
- Pottstown needs more unity
- Don't be afraid to speak up
This table talked about organizing block parties
around the borough. - People in Pottstown come from different backgrounds and don't always agree, but "we can still have the difficult conversations and still get along
- "Everyone wants to feel safe
- Youth and adults need to be prepared for the modern world
- We can't put a band aid on, or gloss over the issues that we have here
- Pottstown has the opportunity to be the model for how a town transforms from a post-industrial town to a self-sustaining one
- Our diversity is a positive. And positive ideas, breed positive collaboration which breeds positive action
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| Family-oriented events, with music and/or food or with animals could draw people to a community center this table decided. |
Afterward Charles said he and those working with him will collect the data taken from these meetings and approach those people selected as the leaders they trust and "ask them how they can help."
The third and final community discussion will be held at the same location, Connections on High at 238 High St. on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 12 p.m.
Charles urged those there Thursday to think of two people who should be at these meetings but wasn't.
Maybe it's you.
