Pottstown's Rock the Block Clean-up Set for April 13

Blogger's Note: The following was provided by Habitat for Humanity of Montgomery and Delaware counties.

The 4th Annual Rock the Block will be held on Saturday, April 13th.

Organized by Habitat MontDelco in conjunction with Pottstown CARES, Rock the Block will bring together 11 community organizations and more than 200 volunteers working on 20 projects in a massive one-day effort to beautify public and private properties in Pottstown.

New this year is the leadership of Pottstown Community Action, a group initiated three years ago by Habitat MontDelco’s Neighborhood Revitalization effort. PCA is organizing street-cleanup activities and spreading the word among neighbors to participate.

Volunteers are encouraged to sign up here. The event kicks off with registration at 8 a.m. at the corner of Chestnut and North Franklin Streets and lunch will be provided for all participants around 1 pm.

“Rock the Block exemplifies what can happen when residents are supported to drive change; they inspire others to care,” says said Marianne Lynch, CEO of Habitat MontDelco.

From 9 am to 1 p.m., volunteer teams, including 40 students from The Hill School, will complete gardening, carpentry, painting, and spruce-up projects at properties on the 400, 500 and 600 blocks of Beech, Chestnut and Walnut Streets. 

Rock the Block is in conjunction with Pottstown CARES community cleanup day, a partnership of The Hill School, the Borough, the Pottstown School District, Montgomery County Community College, Tri-County Chamber of Commerce, Lowes and Habitat MontDelco. 

CARES volunteers will be working in Edgewood Cemetery, at the Mosaic Community Land Trust garden at Barth Elementary School, and doing street and yard cleanups along Armand Hammer Boulevard. 

The Edgewood Cemetery board welcomes additional volunteers, who may contact Board President Andrew Monastra for additional information at amonastra@wolfbaldwin.com.

In addition to the Pottstown CARES organizations, Rock the Block enlists volunteers from Genesis Housing Corporation, Matt Green at Glocker and Company Realtors, Mosaic Community Land Trust, Phillies Fire Company, Pottstown Fire Department and Victory Christian Life Center. 

The mission of Habitat MontDelco is to bring people together to build homes, communities, and hope. Habitat constructs homes for affordable home ownership, preserves aging housing stock by completing critical home repairs, provides financial literacy and life skills classes, and revitalizes neighborhoods. 

For more information, call 610-278-7710, or visit www.habitatmontdelco.org.

Rock the Block Returns to Pottstown on April 22

Volunteers head out for Rock the Block activities in Pottstown last year.

Blogger's Note: The following was provided by Habitat for Humanity of Montgomery County.

Twelve community organizations will join forces for a second year in a row with Habitat for Humanity of Montgomery County and Pottstown CARES to beautify the borough of Pottstown.

A Hill School student Anya Gupta mans the
Pottstown CARES  

table during last year's
Rock the Block event.

Rock the Block on April 22 will bring together more than 150 volunteers who will pitch in to clean, paint, repair and improve a neighborhood, in conjunction with Pottstown CARES community cleanup day, a partnership of The Hill School, the Borough, the Pottstown School District, Montgomery County Community College, Tri-County Chamber of Commerce and Lowes.

In addition to the Pottstown CARES organizations, Rock the Block enlists volunteers from Genesis Housing Corporation, Matt Green at Glocker and Company Realtors, Mosaic Community Land Trust, Phillies Fire Company, Pottstown Fire Department and Victory Christian Life Center.

From 9 a.m. to 2 p.m, volunteer teams will complete deck and stair repairs, landscaping, spruce up efforts and more on the 300, 400 and 500 blocks of Beech, Cherry and Walnut Streets. 

They will begin work on 629 Walnut St., a new Habitat house in Pottstown. All the while, they will be building community pride.

“Rock the Block shows the power of people coming together in just one day,” said Marianne Lynch, Executive Director of Habitat for Humanity of Montgomery County. 

Marianne Lynch, executive director of Habitat for Humanity of

Montgomery County at a Rock the Block house on Walnut Street

during last year's clean-up.

“Look deeper, and you see the incredible spirit in Pottstown, and the passion residents and officials have for making it the best it can be. We are in year two of a holistic neighborhood revitalization plan and the community couldn’t be more excited and supportive,” she said.

The revitalization plan is being created by a coalition of residents, borough officials and non-profit organizations and is looking at workforce development, resident leadership, housing and quality of life issues such as arts and culture. 

In addition, Habitat Montco is partnering with the Pottstown School District to give students in construction classes hands-on experience at 629 Walnut St., and is planning to recruit for its AmeriCorps jobs from Pottstown.

Pottstown High School student Raekwon Artley 

joins Hill students Lyndsey Williams, Bridget Mayza and 

Ryan Wallace in a demolition job at 430 Walnut St. 

during the Rock the Block clean-up event on Friday, April 15, 2016.

Pottstown High will have about 40 students who will be associated with the Pottstown CARES event on Earth Day.

About 20 students, most of whom are part of the soccer team, with be doing landscaping around the high school/middle school campus and another 20 Student Government students with Dave Woodley and Trojan Man will be doing clean up in the parks.

In addition to volunteering for Habitat Montco projects, Pottstown CARES participants will be working in the MOSAIC community gardens on Walnut Street and Chestnut Street. They will be cleaning up litter in various Pottstown “pocket parks” and along Armand Hammer Boulevard. as well as planting trees. 

In addition, the Pottstown Community Arts group is going to be out cleaning up the lot on the southeast corner of King and Manatawny streets where a new Welcome to Pottstown sign will be painted.

A Teacher Walk-Out in Pottstown .. Sort Of

Photos by Evan Brandt

OK. so yes, I'm overusing the panorama function on the iPhone since I discovered it. S sue me. Anyway, here are the Federation of Pottstown Teacher members in their inescapable green shirts before Monday's Pottstown School Board meeting.

So loyal readers of my blog, as I know you all are, you know that last night was kind of a harmonic convergence of community meetings.

Twila Fisher addresses the Hobart's Run meeting

At 6 p.m., The Hill School's Hobart's Run neighborhood revitalization effort had its kick off meeting at The Ricketts Center.

I was there for about 45 minutes of it.

Then I had to pull-up stakes and head over to the school board meeting at 7 p.m.

That means I was not able to cover the "Rock the Block" meeting which occurred at 7 p.m. at the Victory Christian Life Center.

Anemic staff levels that we have at The Mercury, no one else was available to cover that, so I'll have to catch up later.

But you're probably wondering about that headline.

Well, before I explain it to you let me amaze you with the fact that my passionate and marginally sarcastic plea in yesterday's post urging people to get involved had mixed results.

More than 50 people attended the Hobart's Run meeting and it was standing room only. I'm not saying I take credit for it, but there it is.

But at the school board meeting, where the public was invited to offer suggestions for cutting costs, not one person showed up, signed up or offered a single suggestion.

Who did show up, was a boat-load of Pottstown teachers, more than three dozen I would estimate.

But they didn't stay long.

They were there, in all likelihood, to protest the $90,000 administrative re-organization plan revealed to the full school board Thursday and featured in a previous blog post and in Sunday's Mercury.

But when Superintendent Jeff Sparagana said Thursday's discussion had convinced him to pull if off the table and bring it back to the March 2 Personnel Committee meeting (7 p.m. in the district administrative building on Beech Street), there wasn't much to protest.

That is until School Board Member Kurt Heidel began reading from a prepared statement made somewhat moot by the removal of the item in question.

But he pressed on and, it soon became apparent, the teachers didn't much care for what they heard, so they all left.

Together.

All at once.

While Heidel kept talking.

Here's the video:



Afterward, I asked Heidel for a copy of his comments, but he declined to provide them. I only caught some of it.

Then the meeting continued, but not for very much longer as the main event had been pulled from the stage.

So here are the Tweets, and look for a variety of follow-up articles shortly in your hometown newspaper, The Mercury: