Reopening Survey
At Chester Community Coalition, our first priority is the health, safety, and well-being of our clients, staff, their loved ones, and the community-at-large. We've drafted a survey to help us better understand the perspectives of our community so we can provide adequate support through these uncertain times.
This survey is brief and anonymous. Find it here, https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/7DY82D2.
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The Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia
Chester Community Coalition owes its start to the guidance of The Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia, and they have continued to be major supporters. Sr. Betsy Goodwin, the Order’s Director of Sponsorship, was kind enough to contribute a piece, below, on the history of the Sisters’ involvement.
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Chester Community Coalition and the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia
As we struggle with the new norms of a pandemic, it is interesting to note that it was just prior to the pandemic of 1918—while World War I was underway—that the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia first arrived in the city of Chester, Pennsylvania. They had responded to an invitation to staff the newly established Resurrection Parish School. They remained at the school until it closed due to low enrollment in 1992.
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First Grade at the Resurrection Parrish School, 9th and Highland. (Picture by AV Knott)
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Later in the 1990s and early 2000’s, seeds of new ministries were planted with a needs assessment conducted by Sr. Mary Peter Kerner that eventually led to the opening of Anna’s Place—a hospitality center housed in the former Immaculate Heart of Mary School. In addition, Drexel Neumann Academy now located in the St. Katherine Drexel Parish, was opened. Drexel Neumann Academy is a collaborative effort between the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, St. Katherine Drexel Parish, the Sisters of St. Francis, and Neumann University.
The sisters’ mission, our history in Chester, and our concern for the people are the underlying reasons for our continued presence here. We also have a great love for this historical city which is locating fairly close to the motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Francis of Philadelphia.
The newest undertaking of our sisters in Chester is the Chester Community Coalition. This mission began in 2016 when Sister Jean Rupertus became aware that Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI, now known as CommonSpirit Health), had identified nonviolence as a top priority for its Mission and Ministry Fund. Since she has long been an advocate for nonviolence and for the people of Chester, Sister Jean pursued a grant on behalf of the Sisters of St. Francis. Funding is limited to organizations with a special relationship with CHI, a national healthcare system with which the sisters share a very close relationship.
Please click here to continue reading
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Good News From Chester: August 2020
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From the Brother You Matter Chester Peace Walk, June 2020
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C-Pride has V-Pryde: Making A Change Group is launching a Violence Prevention Initiative this summer to encourage youth to focus on fun recreational activities in a safe way. Our new initiative is called VPRYDE, which stands for Violence-Prevention-Recreation-Youth-Development-Engagement Initiative. The premise is centered around keeping youth engaged in recreational activities to prevent them from going down the path that could potentially lead toward a life of violence.
Dr. Monica Taylor, of Delaware County Council with a reminder that filling out the 2020 census is safe, easy, and IMPORTANT. From the Foundation for Delaware County.
My Mask Protects You; Your Mask Protects Me
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Chester City Food Distribution
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Andre Morales Memorial Scholarship
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Chester-Upland Youth Soccer
Chester Upland Youth Soccer provides free after-school soccer training, nutrition education and mentorship at seven elementary schools each fall and spring. For more information or to register a child, please visit https://cuys.org/program-overview
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Chester History, Structural Racism, and Helping to Heal
John J. McClure
John J. McClure took over from his father as head of Chester’s Republican party from his father in 1907 and served until his death in 1965.* Under him, Republican committee-men and ward-leaders controlled access to many jobs, to loans, and to admission to Fair Acres, the county nursing home. They served on the school board, in charge of hiring teachers and principals for Chester’s (segregated) schools.
In the wake of race riots in 1917, the party worked with local realtors, financial institutions, and title companies to devise racial covenants, so African-Americans could only buy or rent in the small area in Chester’s Eighth and Ninth Wards between Tilghman, Delaware, Reaney, and Ninth Streets (shown in orange in the map below).
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Chester’s hospital maintained separate wards for black and white patients through the 1940’s. Many restaurants did not serve blacks at that time, and movie theatres seated blacks separately.
Residential segregation
Public housing in Chester was also originally segregated by race: Lamokin Village, opened in 1942 in the Ninth Ward was for blacks. William Penn and McCaffery, opened a year later, started all white. William Penn was integrated in 1955-1956; McCaffery remained all-white into the 1970’s. (When three black families moved into McCaffery in 1957, their homes were vandalized and Chester Housing Authority officials were threatened. Police refused to provide protection).
In 1958, when George Raymond, head of the Chester NAACP, bought a house in Rutledge, the house burned down the day before his family was to move in, and town government tried to take over the land for a new town hall. (The house was eventually rebuilt and Raymond eventually moved in).
When Horace and Sarah Baker bought a row house in the Delmar Village section of Folcroft in 1963, neighbors vandalized the home, and an angry, white mob blocked the Bakers from entering their house. When, with the help of state troopers, the Bakers occupied their house, the neighbors issued a manifesto: “Perhaps this small borough can show this great nation that the federal government cannot force social integration on the population”. Racial harassment continued until the Bakers sold their house in 1966.
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Folcroft 8/30/1963: Youngsters jeer as moving men tote possessions of the Horace Baker family up the steps of their new home.
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The Chester school board redrew neighborhood boundaries and used selective bussing to keep elementary and junior high schools segregated through the early 1960’s, despite student strikes in 1946, pressure from the local chapter of the NAACP, and the Supreme Court’s Brown v. Board of Education’s decision in 1954. The black-majority schools were mostly old, overcrowded wooden structures, with peeling paint, inadequate bathroom facilities, and hand-me-down books.
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11/14/1963, Chester, PA. A woman civil rights picket is hauled away after protesting about a local school.
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Chester: The Birmingham of the North
James Farmer, National Director of the Congress of Racial Equality, called Chester “the Birmingham of the North”.
Stanley Branche, who came to Chester in 1962 at age 28, was a key player in the struggle. Branche initially joined the NAACP, then split from it, forming the Committee for Freedom Now (CFFN). Protests of school segregation and hiring discrimination by downtown businesses in 1964 met police beatings and arrests, which led to larger demonstrations.
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State police subdue rioter at 3rd and Pennell, Chester, April 1964
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Please click here to continue reading
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Your support allows us to offer participant families safe, door to door transportation (via Lyft), and supper, shared with counselors and volunteers. Donations pay for extra therapists’ time in the schools and in community organizations. Donations support community outreach.
Violence is contagious; trauma is its vector. Helping more people understand the effects of trauma – flashbacks, nightmares, trouble sleeping and concentrating, self-medication with drugs and alcohol – will reduce violence.
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For those who prefer to donate by check, please make check out to “Urban Affairs Coalition, Chester Community Coalition”, and mail to:
Urban Affairs Coalition
Attn. Lee Wall
Suite 700
1207 Chestnut St.
Philadelphia, PA 19107
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