Five Questions to Lead Pottstown to a Better Place

Photos by Evan Brandt

About 50 people attended last night's Community Discussion about the future of Pottstown.

Revitalize your community with five questions.

That was the figurative task set before about 50 people who gathered Thursday night for the second of three Community Discussions organized by a group of people hoping to move Pottstown forward and away from the spiral of violence that has recently consumed the headlines.

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.

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.

"You cannot live in Pottstown and not be familiar with the post-industrial trauma. We see it in the loss of living wage jobs; the poverty; the stress of trying to make ends meet, struggling to just get by and maybe never getting ahead," co-organizer Hannah Davis said.

"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.

Hannah Davis, left, works with her table on the night's 5 questions.

Despite her appreciation for the people at the Ricketts Center, "there was one source of frustration that I kept butting my head up against, and that was Olivet Boys & Girls Club."

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.

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.

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."

So it's up to the people who live here to make it better, he said, and with that, the discussions began
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

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.

And now, here are the Tweets from the meeting:

Hey Neighbor, Let's Talk