Volunteers, staff, Board members. They are what make Chester Eastside, Inc., a living reality – not to mention the many loyal churches, organizations, foundations, and individuals with their financial support. And on December 10 we had a big “thank you” event, complete with food and carols and just plain fun. It is our special way of bringing the CEI family together each year. As for the thank you part, more than one person has said they get more out of the giving than whatever it is they give us.

Prime example: The Busy Bodies It was just by chance that former CEI Executive Director Rev. Bernice Warren and  a group of retired craftsmen from nearby Ridley Park who call themselves the Busy Bodies learned about each other back in 2005.  They were all volunteering along the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Though not many miles away, Chester was still sort of foreign territory to the men. But by the time they came back north, a new resource for CEI and a new volunteering opportunity for the Busy Bodies were underway; it’s a bond that continues to this day.

You can still be part of the celebration by making your tax-exempt gift to Chester Eastside, Inc. You can give on line at www.chestereastside.org or send a donation via major credit card or Pay Pal or by designating a contribution to Chester Eastside in your United Way donation (#8253). And if you have already made a gift, many many thanks!

“I needed an extra bag of food last week. I was really nervous about asking. You all were more than kind and also invited me to more events you are sponsoring. The man who handles the food is always singing God’s praise. You feed us lunch and do things for our family with such loving kindness. I pray God’s blessings on each of you. Thank you!”
                                                                                                               – A Chester mother

“We live amid the constant threat of guns and violence in our neighbor-hood. “This summer for the first time, the children not only felt safe but had the chance to talk about their fear.” 
                              -Mother of three first-time participants in the Chester Eastside, Inc.
Summer Enrichment Camp.

In this holiday season, as you think about gift giving, you are encouraged to think about a special gift to  Chester Eastside, Inc. It’s one of those gifts that never stops giving, in lives sustained and a better start in life for the next generation and for generations after that. 
 
Chester Eastside, Inc., P.O. Box 36, Chester, PA 19016, is a 501.c.3 tax-exempt community organization. You can give on line at http://www.chestereastside.org via major credit/debit card, Pay Pal, or by designating a contribution to Chester Eastside in your United Way donation (#8253). 

And if you have already made a gift, many, many thanks!

“[Chester Eastside, Inc.] exposed me to relationships and opportunities that helped me see beyond my local context…. In middle school, I held my first job helping in the library at [CEI]. Secondly, they allowed me to help others with reading. These opportunities built confidence in me and planted the seeds for my passion to teach and for the arts. Lastly, [CEI] has continued to serve as a resource throughout my vocational journey. I am really proud of and believe in the mission of [CEI], and feel like there is much to learn through their efforts.” 
-Dr. Sarah Farmer, faculty member, Yale Divinity School.

In this holiday season, as you think about gift giving, you are encouraged to think about a special gift to  Chester Eastside, Inc. It’s one of those gifts that never stops giving, in lives sustained and a better start in life for the next generation and for generations after that. 
 
Chester Eastside, Inc., P.O. Box 36, Chester, PA 19016, is a 501.c.3 tax-exempt agency. You can give on line at http://www.chestereastside.org via major credit card, Pay Pal or by designating a contribution to Chester Eastside in your United Way donation (#8253). 
 
And if you have already made such a gift, many, many thanks!

Rev. Zuline Wilkinson, Chester Eastside, Inc.’s new Executive Director, has worked in a number of cities – her native Philadelphia, the Boston area in Massachusetts, and Trenton, New Jersey, to be specific – during a remarkable career as a social worker and member of the clergy. So one might be moved to ask, Why Chester? Without hesitation she replies, “I feel called  by a passion and commitment to serve those in need in cities like Chester.  
 
“I am excited about joining Chester Eastside, Inc. and building upon the strong foundation that has been laid by Rev. Warren,” say the new Exec. “It has long been my desire to offer my gifts in a faith-based context and I look forward to working with the CEI Board, staff, community volunteers, government agencies, religious organizations and stakeholder groups.” 
 
There are needs that are common to any of these communities, she says. But she knows that Chester, like other urban centers, has its own distinctive characteristics. “It’s too easy to focus just on the problems and forget the strengths.” 
  
Rev. Wilkinson starts her new duties on October 31. For the first two weeks, she is busy getting acquainted with Chester Eastside and the community, working closely with Rev. Warren. 
 
Rev. Wilkinson has a Master of Social Work degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a Master of Divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary. As an undergraduate at Temple University, she majored in Spanish. Over the years, she has developed her leadership skills in senior positions at several social service agencies and medical facilities. 
 
And she comes with a wealth of knowledge about communities like Chester; as she says, their strengths as well as their challenges.

It was a massive undertaking by anybody’s measure: Getting thousands of pounds of food stored away at Chester Eastside and distributing the remainder to other food cupboards in the Chester community. But when the Delaware County Council designated Chester Eastside as the main delivery point for its annual Thanksgiving Food Drive this year, they picked a center who’s staff and volunteers are known for taking on a big job and doing it with style. 
 
The annual drive’s goal of 25,000 pounds of nonperishables  was ambitious, to say the least. That will go a long way to helping the more than 600 men women, and children who receive food aid from Chester Eastside every month. 
 
Open two days a week, Chester Eastside’s Food Center is one of the busiest such programs in the County. But it’s not just bags of food that people receive. It’s also a hot meal, useful information on a range of services, and, most of all, a warm welcome that says, “You matter.” 

Taking young people to the seashore may seem to have little to do with safe streets and
the problem of gun violence in Chester, but it is all part of the work of making parents
and children feel more secure in a sometimes threatening environment. Just one of the
many ways in which Chester Eastside, Inc., seeks to meet people’s needs wherever they
occur.

     Rev. Bernice Warren, CEI Executive Director, has worked closely with Heeding
God’s Call to End Gun Violence, an organization dedicated to reducing the threat of gun
violence. CEI Board member Will Richan was instrumental in involving a local group in
working on the theme of peace in the streets, looking toward a special program during the
Martin Luther King weekend in January, 2017. And the two of them are working with the
Chester Upland School District in fulfillment of the District’s anti-bullying policy. Some
years ago, CEI helped launch the Peace Leadership & Arts Camp, dedicated, among other
things, to helping teenagers find peaceful ways to settle their differences. And in 2015,
the CEI Board passed a resolution affirming the agency’s commitment to seek to reduce
the threat of gun violence.

Confronting reality.

     A feature article in the September 11 edition of the Philadelphia Inquirer told Chester
something no city wants to hear: Between the years 2000 and 2014, the average number
of homicides, mostly from guns, in relation to population size in Chester was the highest
of any city in the United States. And the majority of such cases were never solved,
meaning perpetrators might still be free to walk the streets. Victims were as young as two years old. A 14-year-old was gunned down while running an errand for his mother. More typically, young men in their twenties and thirties were the victims.

     It’s not just the outright loss of lives, but also the impact on those who have been
shot and survived, to say nothing of parents worried about whether their children will
make it home from school or the play yard, and the trauma that impacts the very young
for years to come. To say nothing of the numbers people who feel impelled to keep
loaded weapons in their homes on the false assumption that they are thereby safer.

     But Chester, if nothing else, sees bad news as a challenge, similar to how the
American people viewed the events of 9/11/2001. And so Chester Eastside, Inc., and
others in the community are actively seeking ways to reduce the threat of violence.

Heeding God’s Call.

     Rev. Bernice Warren and others in this faith-based grassroots movement work to end gun violence on many fronts: holding vigils outside gun shops; asking how a person who is
not authorized to have a handgun gets one anyway through a so-called “straw purchase;”
demonstrating that one can walk into a gun shop and buy any number of weapons;
pushing for legislation to limit the trade in weapons. And then there is the work with
young people to convince them that owning a gun does not make you powerful but is
actually a sign of weakness. And those trips to the seashore and other activities to give
kids a break from the stressful conditions they live under.

     “We are talking about changing a whole culture that these children grow up with,”
says Rev. Warren.

Peace in the Streets.

     When CEI Board member Will Richan invited agency professionals gathered at the
monthly meeting of Communities That Care (CTC), an offshoot of the Chester Education
Foundation, to join him in working to include peace in the streets as a theme during the
Martin Luther King celebration in January, he got an immediate response from a number
of people, including sponsors of the meeting. Out of this has come a plan to devote a
major part of one of the monthly CTC meetings to the subject.

     A panel of people from advocacy organizations and law enforcement, along with
those who have lost loved ones, will look at what can be done to stem the violence, then
invite the audience to join in the search for answers. “We still want to do something on
the Martin Luther King weekend,” says Richan, “which, after all, is about a young black
man who was the innocent victim of gun violence. But the work needs to begin long
before that and continue afterward.”

     Richan noted that politicians have traditionally shied away from the issue of gun
control, often intimidated by the National Rifle Association, but this year both U.S.
Senate candidates from Pennsylvania are vying to show that they are the real ally of gun
control. “We may have reached a tipping point on the issue, with those preaching sanity
regarding guns being more willing to speak up. And what better place than Chester?” he
asks.

Bullying: a different kind of violence.

     It started with a series of physical bullying incidents on a school bus, one in which the
driver and an aide did nothing, not even report them to higher ups. Eventually it came to
the attention of top administrators of the Chester Upland School District. To its credit,
the District has been working to turn things around on the bullying issue.

     Bullying, which can range from nasty messages on Facebook to serious physical
abuse like that on the school bus, is sometimes written off as just kids being kids. But it
can have devastating effects on children that can stay with them through life, even to the
point of suicidal thoughts in the victims. And, yes, in a few cases resulting in actual
suicide.

     From the start, representatives of Chester Eastside, Inc., have been following up
with school officials to make sure those fine words in the District’s anti-bullying policy
are translated into action at the classroom level and beyond. Rev. Bernice Warren and
CEI Board member Will Richan, working in league with psychologist Dr. Janice
Hoffman Willis, met recently with the Lead Nurse at Chester High School, who is
overseeing the anti-bullying training program for teachers.

     One more way that Chester Eastside, Inc., is helping to create a safe space for
Chester’s children.

It was a jubilant wind-up session of Chester Eastside, Inc.’s Summer Enrichment Camp at the end of July: young campers and their counselors celebrating the experience and each other through song, dance, and art.

But there was a serious side to the closing event and to the camp season that preceded it. “Make a Change” was the theme, and the change they were talking about had to do with everything from avoiding gun violence in the streets to getting a quality education.

What struck the observer most forcefully was the love-in between campers and the folks who had been doing the enriching on a daily basis for the previous six weeks. The campers waited patiently for a good half hour before the program got underway. No fidgeting. Nobody yelling at anybody. Quite a departure from people’s stereotype of Chester, or what goes on in some classrooms where a lone teacher is trying to manage 25 or more restive children and hoping to teach a little something as well.

The program started with a salute to the people who had helped to make it happen. Counselors introduced themselves – young people, many of them products of the same enrichment camp experience and the CEI After School Program. Then came a series performances by the campers, ranging from six-year-old Leanna Dyitt’s solo, Take me to the King, to middle schoolers expressing their hopes and fears in dance, and the display of massive camper-created portraits of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malala Yousafzai, the young Pakistan woman who braved Taliban death threats and bullets in her fight for education of women.

The finale was a rousing rendition, by everybody, from Rev. Bernice Warren and Summer Enrichment Camp Directors Kathryn Redd and Vida Johnson on down to the youngest camper, as well as parents in attendance, of Man in the Mirror:

I’m gonna make a change, for once in my life
It’s gonna feel real good, gonna make a difference
Gonna make it right...

Performance was at the center of the final session, but has  been only one part of the enrichment experience. Everything from helping kids get over the hurdles in reading and math to broadening their world through swimming lessons and visits to museums.  

The staff and volunteers have served as marvelous role models, people the campers haven’t watched from a distance but have become their close companions over the course of the camp experience.  

But the learning has not all been one way. As counselor  Janni Moody, who is headed for a law degree at Widener University, put it, “Working with the kids convinced me that a had to become an advocate.” 

Make a change? The campers have already been doing it, maybe without even realizing it. 

Edward Nelson’s goal is no less than having a major role in helping the Chester Upland School District, or one like it, provide the kind of education he wished he had had coming up through the grades from K through 12. Quite a tall order for a guy just out of high school.

But talking with Edward, you get the idea that it will really happen. “My father taught me to have faith in my own ability; to know that nobody’s better than me.” The father, Edward, Sr., has been a major inspiration to Edward, Jr., going to bat many times for a decent education, not only for his son, but for all Chester children. That sense of confidence was important in earning young Edward a coveted Gates Millennium Scholarship, one of only 1,000 in the country, and making him captain of the football team for his four high school years and finally senior class president. The Gates scholarship guarantees a four-year college education at any school in the country. Edward’s long-term aspiration is to earn a PhD in education, something Gates can also help with.

Most recently, he’s been a counselor in the Summer Enrichment Camp at Chester Eastside, Inc., before he heads off for Morehouse College in Atlanta in the fall. In a way it’s payback for the experience he had in the After School Program at Chester Eastside.

It was in the After School Program that Edward was helped to master things ranging from reading and writing to math. “I owe a lot to Ms. Redd, (Kathryn Redd, the After School director) and Rev. Bernice Warren, who both taught me how to stay on task and keep from getting distracted.

This summer, in the Chester Eastside Summer Enrichment Camp, he counseled a group of young campers, serving as a mentor and role-model. He was the youngest of the counselors but moved into the new role with ease.

In opting to attend Morehouse, a prestigious, historically black college, Edward has chosen a school with a first-class reputation. Among its graduates was Martin Luther King, Jr.

Growing up on Chester’s East Side, Edward noticed at one point that he and some of his friends were moving in different directions. Along the way, he lost some friends through gun violence. More recently, a beloved teacher was a victim of gun violence.

Now focused on his long-term career goals, Edward still identifies with the community that nurtured him. So we’re confident you’ll be hearing about Edward Nelson, Jr., in  the future. So is Edward.

The Rev. Bernice Warren has been pastor and director of Chester Eastside Inc., formerly Chester Eastside Ministries, for 21 years. She plans to retire in December. PATTI MENGERS — DIGITAL FIRST MEDIA

By Patti Mengers, Delaware County Daily Times

Posted: 07/31/16, 9:00 PM EDT | Updated: 1 week, 5 days ago

The Rev. Bernice Warren, right, pastor and director of Chester Eastside Inc., formerly Chester Eastside Ministries, chats with Deeanna Parks, who has volunteered at Chester Eastside’s food and clothing center for at least 15 years. PATTI MENGERS — DIGITAL FIRST MEDIA

Eleven o’clock Monday morning and the energy is pumping in the basement of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in the 300 block of East Ninth Street, site of Chester Eastside Inc.

Along the far wall, bushel baskets of fresh produce and bags of bread create a cornucopia effect as men and women of all colors, creeds and ages line-up for food to bring home to their families.

The group’s original home in the Third Presbyterian Church of Chester about a block away had begun to crumble and Warren, who has been pastor and director of Chester Eastside since 1995, had to find a new space for the organization and it’s approximately 10 social service programs she has cultivated over the last two decades with the help of a small staff and volunteers.

“How ya’ doin’? Hey girl!” says Warren this particular July Monday as she greets the Chester residents who avail themselves of the more than 100,000 meals a year provided by the non-profit organization.

It is one of the parts of her job that she will miss come December, when she plans to retire.

“I’ve loved being here and doing what I do. I feel at home. It’s a real blessing to come back to Chester and have God use me this way. I love every minute. It brings me much joy,” said the 64-year-old Chester native.

The second of three daughters of Lillian Warren, she grew up in the Ruth L. Bennett Homes public housing project and attended Thomas M. Thomas Memorial Presbyterian Church, where she was influenced by the advocacy efforts of two of the pastors, the Rev. Carroll D. Jenkins and the Rev. Johnnie Monroe.

“They made me understand how the church can be instrumental in changing the life of the community,” said Warren, who remembers one of the pastors opening the church to educators wanting to teach children when they couldn’t attend school because of a prolonged teachers’ strike.

She was also influenced by her now-88-year-old mother who she remembers “had no problem speaking out against injustice.”

“You can’t just sit in church when you see poverty, violence, injustice and schools collapsing around us,” noted Warren. “Jesus spoke to this issue. He didn’t just stay in the temple. My ministry is a ministry of justice and I’m very clear on that.”

A 1970 graduate of Chester High School, Warren earned her undergraduate degree in education from Kutztown State College, now Kutztown University, in Berks County and her master’s of divinity degree from Johnson C. Smith Seminary at the Interdenominational Theological Center in Atlanta, Ga. In between she taught high school equivalency classes in Chester. In 1980 Warren became the first African-American woman ordained a minister in the Philadelphia Presbytery.

She served as the assistant pastor for outreach at the Knox Presbyterian Church in Baltimore, Md., until 1984, underwent chaplaincy training at Delaware State Hospital, then served as pastor of First and Olivet Presbyterian Church in an impoverished area of Wilmington, Del., for 10 years. In 1995 she was appointed by the Philadelphia Presbytery to replace the Rev. Tom Torosian as director and pastor of Chester Eastside Ministries that was founded in 1985.

“They graciously allowed us to come here after we couldn’t maintain our building,” explained the Rev. Bernice Warren, referring to the pastor and congregation of St. Paul’s who have been hosting Chester Eastside Inc. for about four years.

“The fact that I was going to be in the community dealing with people through social service and social action, it was everything about my ministry rolled into one,” said Warren.

Because the position had been vacant for several months, Warren had to rebuild programs. In addition to the food and clothing programs and summer youth camp, services offered by Chester Eastside now include emergency aid and referral, after-school education and tutoring and education programs in parenting, high school equivalency and food and nutrition. But one of the most important elements of her job, noted Warren, has been to provide a voice for the people of Chester.

“I never wanted Chester Eastside to be just a service agency. Chester has enough service agencies. I don’t want to be just a service provider but to be a strong voice and advocate,” said Warren.

When she returned to Chester, the minister was surprised how it had changed since the days of her youth in terms of jobs lost to companies leaving the small city, the proliferation of illegal drugs and gun violence. But her greatest impetus to become heard in the community was when she realized the sorry state of Chester Upland schools that have been under state control now for more than 20 years because of poor academic and fiscal performance.

One day, when the minister visited Chester High School after she heard a fight had erupted, she was horrified to see that one of the girls she knew from Chester Eastside programs had been maced by police.

“They kept changing superintendents and there was a lot of discord, so a group of us started meeting the children at school and greeting them so they felt maybe the adults had not abandoned them,” said Warren.

She also started regularly attending meetings led by the state-appointed Chester Upland School District Board of Control and was once led out in handcuffs by police for refusing to sit down when protesting the proposed removal of a cap on the number of students attending charter schools because she felt that would drain much-needed funding for public schools.

“I thought, ‘I’ve sat down long enough, maybe I’ll just stand.’ It really galled me that people from the outside were telling me to sit down because I was expressing my concern about Chester schools,” said Warren, who also once led a few verses of “We Shall Not Be Moved” at a school board meeting.

She is proud of how Chester students such as Sarah Poole, who is now a Yale University faculty member, have succeeded despite the school district being “broken.”

Warren’s voice has also been strong against gun violence that so far this year has been responsible for the deaths of at least 15 young black males in Chester. One was only 14. With Fran Stier, Warren is co-chair of the Delaware County chapter of Heeding God’s Call, a faith-based anti-gun violence group that campaigns against what members describe on their website as the highly developed illegal trade of gun trafficking made possible through “criminal entrepreneurs, traffickers, the straw buyers who stand in for them to make their bulk purchases and gun dealers who look the other way and enjoy the profits.”

“Her passion for social justice will always be an inspiration to me,” noted Stier.

A member of Ohev Shalom Synagogue in Nether Providence for more than 30 years, Stier has known Warren for about a decade through delivering hundreds of Thanksgiving food baskets from the synagogue for families in need to Chester Eastside.

“Rev. Warren has kept these programs going through many difficulties and funding shortages, through sheer force of will,” said Stier.

Because of funding cuts, Chester Eastside Ministries separated from the Philadelphia Presbytery about 18 months ago, said Warren. Although it still receives some funds from the Philadelphia Presbytery and has received small city and county grants, the organization relies mainly on donations from churches, synagogues and corporations, grants from foundations and volunteer support from the Chester Boys and Girls Club, Strath Haven and Sun Valley high schools, Swarthmore College and Widener University.

In her retirement, Warren hopes to become more focused in her advocacy and not spread so thin. She announced her December 2016 exit last fall so as to give board members time to find her replacement.

“I think ministry is a 24/7 job because you’re always on call,” noted Warren.

She lives in Chester with her mother whom she cares for with the assistance of her sister, Eva Warren Henry, an elementary school teacher, and her daughter, Kearni Warren, a production manager and series host for Kieserman Media. Her other sister, Shirley Warren Douglas, who is now deceased, was a music teacher.

In the last 15 years, the minister has made about 10 trips to Haiti where she has delivered medical and school supplies, food and clothing to a clinic and school operated by Maureen Olivier. Warren hopes perhaps to expand that mission in Haiti which she noted has many of the same issues arising from poverty and disease that Chester does, but no government support. She has also made educational trips to many countries that have experienced slavery, with Johnson C. Smith Seminary professor, Marsha Snulligan Haney.

Warren hopes to continue them and also “maybe do a little relaxing.”

“The way I see it, I’m on a new journey. Where I’m going, I don’t know yet, but I’m going,” said the minister.