Trinidad Concerned Citizens for Reform, Inc.

It was a successful day, Wednesday, July 15th at 500 Indiana Avenue for Trinidad Concerned Citizens for Reform, Inc. The Honorable Judge Joseph Beshouri granted an extension for TCCR to redeem the property at 1601 Montello Avenue, TCCR’s planned green job resource center for the community. The building was donated to the community on behalf of TCCR by Wilhelmina Lawson, the nonprofit’s co-founder and Executive Director, but was sold at a tax sale to Embassy Tax Suite after TCCR’s registered agent failed to deliver notices that the property was being taxed by the City wrongfully as though a nonprofit was not occupying the lot.

Beshouri granted the extension on the grounds that Embassy Tax Services had not yet fully served the defendants, namely one Brenda Rose who Embassy Tax Services’ lawyer says they’ve been searching for for the past year to no avail and will serve via public notice as a final effort. Brenda Rose is named on the Deed of Trust.

Beshouri also considered that Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr. provided a letter of support promising assistance in rectifying the near $15,000 owed in taxes. “I am working diligently with the District’s Office of the Chief Financial Officer to resolve this issue, and I am exploring all possible legislative remedies with our General Counsel and Budget Office.”

It is expected that the next court date, October 7th will result in the loss of the property if TCCR is unable to come up with the monies owed, including more than $4,000 in legal fees by then. Lawson is confident a solution will be found. “The community wants it,” she says of the center.

When a young man was allegedly murdered by a Park Police officer who shot him multiple times in the back Monday, June 8th, and news cameras once again flooded the Trinidad, Northeast neighborhood of Washington, D.C., local ANC Ms. Lawson felt a sense of urgency to connect area young people with employment. “If he had a job, this probably wouldn’t have happened,” said Ms. Lawson to a group gathered outside of the Joseph H. Cole Fitness Center. She has been working in recent weeks with the Center’s staff and volunteers to create a jobs club. The Center, she hopes, will be a temporary site until she is able to open her own community resource, especially because the Center is slated for demolition.

The last time so much attention was focused on Trinidad, just one day earlier in 2008, the Metropolitan Police Department instituted checkpoints in the area, reportedly as a response to a spike in murders. All of the violence, Lawson believes, is a systemic issue, a symptom of an alternative economic structure that made 1980’s Northeast D.C. home to the District’s largest open air drug market, run by one of the nation’s top three most notorious cocaine dealers, Rayful Edmonds, III. This coupled with District public schools being the lowest performing in the nation and having a graduation rate of only 50 percent, and local environmental studies showing the neighborhood has on of the District’s lowest parks and trees coverage.

In 1994, Lawson co-founded Trinidad Concerned Citizens for Reform, Inc., a 501c3 nonprofit organization, to help create a sustainable community first by literally picking up trash and evolving to landscaping and running out-of-school time educational and recreational programs that has enrolled more than 100 youths. Her goal: to change Trinidad “from a drug community to a garden community.” Her mantra: “A clean environment makes a clean mind.”

Though considerable work has been done to “green” Trinidad even before the word became stimulus package-mainstream, Lawson knows that to truly create a sustainable environment for the residents of this neighborhood – one of the District’s largest population of under 18-year-olds – jobs are needed. She sits on her porch daily and is asked by young men if she knows of any work.

“In order to continue to the family cycle and life cycle, we need to have jobs, and training and education,” Lawson said. “I see it everyday. This is what they’re approaching me about, they want jobs.”

Lawson mortgaged her home and purchased a liquor store to donate to the community on behalf of TCCR. This is where she imagines will be the site for the job training and placement center. Yet, in these economic times, it’s been difficult to raise funds to complete the needed renovations.

Grassroots community activities are being planned and an online campaign is being run on FaceBook.com, GoodSearch.com, and TCCR’s own website, www.TCCRinc.org to help secure the other funds needed. So far, approximately $100 has been raised, but it’s just a drop in the well of the project that has been projected to cost approximately $250,000.

“I get so excited when I think of the possibilities,” said Lawson. “All it’ll take is just delivering the resources and the support that’s needed.”

As investigation continues into the details of what transpired Monday night between Park Police and the young man, she hopes people realize the value of getting to the root of the problem.

“Education and training is the key. If you’re not planning for success in five years, where will you be?”

The partially renovated liquor store that Ward 5 ANC, Wilhelmina Lawson purchased and donated to the community on behalf of her 501c3 nonprofit organization, Trinidad Concerned Citizens for Reform, Inc. (TCCR) is at risk of being turned over to a new owner this July, likely never fulfilling the vision Ms. Lawson and the community has for it to become a job training and placement center. The risk is especially great for the Trinidad neighborhood given the economic crisis the nation is suffering. When America has a cold, Trinidad has the flu. This Northeast, D.C. neighborhood is one of the City’s most impoverished.

Last summer, Trinidad became notorious in the mainstream media for violence that was reportedly a symptom of an alternative economic structure that plagues residential D.C. In fact, in the ‘80s, Northeast had been home to the City’s largest open air drug market, run by one of the nation’s top three most notorious cocaine dealers, Rayful Edmonds, III. This was just blocks from where MPD instituted military-style checkpoints last year as part of a Safe City Initiative that will also place 30 police cameras in Trinidad.

When Lawson moved to Trinidad in the early ‘90s, she immediately noticed a need to clean up the neighborhood. She co-founded TCCR in 1994 and began by literally picking up trash and evolving to landscaping and running out-of-school time educational and recreational programs that has enrolled more than 100 youths. Her goal: to change Trinidad “from a drug community to a garden community.

While considerable work has been done to “green” Trinidad before the word became stimulus package-mainstream, Lawson knows that to truly create a sustainable environment for the residents of this neighborhood – one of the City’s largest population of under 18-year-olds – jobs are needed. She sits on her porch daily and is asked by young men if she knows of any work.

“In order to continue to the family cycle and life cycle, we need to have jobs and training and education,” Lawson said. “I see it everyday. This is what they’re approaching me about, they want jobs.”

Though TCCR, in partnership with another local nonprofit, DC Greenworks, received a grant from the District Department of Employment Services to employ up to 24 youths beginning in June to plant rain gardens in the neighborhood as part the Mayor’s Green Summer Job Corps, Lawson, and the young men wonder, “What will happen after the summer?”

The former liquor store that sits at Montello Avenue and Queens Street has been a “beacon of hope” for the community. Neighborhood meetings resulted in a plan for the three-story building to be a resource center housing career and academic labs and administrative space that will serve as a training ground for people wanting to enter or re-enter the workforce. However, a faulty registered agent had not been delivering notices of property taxes owed to the City, and a bill has collected beyond Lawson’s means. She had mortgaged her home to purchase the building.

Perhaps had Ms. Lawson been aware, she would have sooner been able to inform the City that the property is owned by her 501c3, and property taxes, now totaling up to $14,000, should not have mounted in the first place. However, as time continued to lapse, the City put the building up for a tax sale and it was purchased by Embassy Tax Services.  Unable to resolve the issue so far, Embassy Tax Services initiated a lawsuit March 2008 in the District Superior Court to foreclose on the property and revoke Lawson’s right to redemption – her ability to buy the property back from the tax sale purchaser. Absolute right to redemption passes after 6 months from the tax sale. Lawson has been to court 3 times asking for extensions as she works to fundraise.

“In our last court hearing, May 13^th [2009], the court indicated that it was going to be unwilling to consider further extensions,” explained Ellen Cohen of Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, LLP, a local firm that is working the case probono. “We need to come up with the money or TCCR needs to move on and accept that it might lose the property, and we really just don’t want that to happen.”

In order to redeem, TCCR will have to come up with the back taxes owed to the City as well as the $4,300 in legal fees incurred by the Embassy Tax Services. The next court date is scheduled for July 15, 2009.

According to Cohen, Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr. and his office has expressed a willingness to find an administrative solution at least to the City’s portion of the bill.

Grassroots community activities are being planned and an online campaign is being run on FaceBook.com, GoodSearch.com, and TCCR’s own website, www.TCCRinc.org to help secure the other funds needed, and to continue to generate the resources needed to complete renovations on the building. So far, approximately $100 has been raised.

“I get so excited when I think of the possibilities,” said Lawson. “All it’ll take is just delivering the resources and the support that’s needed.”

TCCR has officially registered with GoodSearch, a Yahoo!-powered search engine that gives our supporters a chance to raise money each time they search the Internet of shop online. TCCR earns about a penny per search to help our efforts in building a green-collar economy in Trinidad, Northeast. Similarly, GoodShop.com, a new online shopping mall, donates up to 37 percent of each purchase. A shopper may select from hundreds of stores including Amazon, Target, Gap, Best Buy, ebay, Macy’s and Barnes & Noble and for every order placed, the designated cause benefits. And, it doesn’t cost the users anything!

Our goal is to earn $10,000 through the site this year which will go towards our building fund for our green job training and placement center. Once renovations are complete, we finally have a home-base for our programs and operations after 15 years of service. This former liquor store will be a symbol of our vision to change Trinidad from a drug community to a garden community as we know with it we will be able to provide and inspire a stable economy, education, and environment for our young people. Imagine a facility where people can learn to be prepared for all the job opportunities being created by the redevelopment of the Florida Avenue Market or the new Walt Disney Co. hotel being built at the National Harbor in Prince George’s County.

TCCR is excited about the prospects of fundraising with GoodSearch. The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation which has earned more than $10,000; The ASPCA which has raised more than $23,000; and The Bubel/Aiken Foundation which supports children with disabilities and has earned more than $12,000.

Be sure to go to www.goodsearch.com, enter “Trinidad Concerned Citizens” and select Trinidad Concerned Citizens for Reform, Inc. (only partial name is allowed for verification process) as the charity you want to support. And, spread the word!

Check out this video from Broccoli City, TCCR’s partner in popularizing the “urban organic movement.” BC’s “Project Green: Earth Day Edition” event at the New Era flagship store in Atlanta was a successful evening promoting positive thinking and clean living. Washington, DC-based events management company, Premium Selective Affairs, also a TCCR partner in the UOM, helped to organize. PSA and BC host Project Green events in D.C. and along the East Coast.

BCTV:PROJECT GREEN: EARTH DAY TAKEOVER AT NEW ERA ATL (BCNN) from Broccolicity TV on Vimeo.

Thank you to the Nebraska Society of Washington, D.C. for bringing their annual Arbor Day celebration to Trinidad! Saturday, April 25th, more than 20 Nebraskans-turned-Washingtonians showed up along with DC Greenworks to help TCCR plant 5 oak willow trees along the 1500 and 100 blocks of Montello Avenue, N.E.

One homeowner, Carla, was especially estatic and neighborhood residents like Mike became impromtu volunteers.

Check out this video message from Van Jones, author of “The Green-Collar Economy” and Special Advisor for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and our partners in the Mayor’s Green Summer Youth Employment Program, DC Greenworks!

Green Jobs for a Green Future from White House on Vimeo.

Organic t-shirt company, Broccoli City (BC), a partner in TCCR’s efforts to educate urban communities about living green, has teamed up this weekend with the iconic cap company, New Era for an Earth Day celebration and announcement of New Era’s new recycled cap.

Started in 2007 in Greensboro, NC, BC has evolved to a nationwide green movement awareness campaign with a focus on urban communities. In addition to connecting with TCCR to promote sustainable practices, and hosting events in DC, ATL, and LA designed specifically for trendsetters in fashion and in being conscientious citizens, BC utilizes other progressive marketing strategies such as traditional and video blogging and teaching organic gardening methods at a Greensboro elementary school.

“Educating people about going green and the environment is important because how the environment and the earth is changing. The heat that is increasing – due to the fact of global warming – is increasing a lot faster in the southern part of the country,” explains Marcus Allen, one of BC’s founders. Although there has also been increased government support and other mainstream attention given to the issue, still Allen finds, “Most markets in an urban environment – or in a ‘hood – don’t even sell organic products. I think it’s important for us to try to step in and do something about it.”

New Era Cap Company, Inc. is also a trendsetter having originated the “True Fitted” style, the 59FIFTTY. Since its founding in the 1920’s in Buffalo, NY, New Era has become the single most popular cap company, now producing over 35 million caps per year and selling in 40 countries.

Thank you to SoJones.com for covering this important event!

Thanks to the Mayor’s Green Summer Youth Employment Program TCCR has successfully solidified a partnership with our outstanding new neighbors, DC Greenworks to create two rain gardens in Trinidad for the benefit of our community and the Anacostia Watershed. The rain gardens provide a natural way to capture stormwater runoff and the pollutants that might otherwise end up in our water supply.

This progressive classroom and field-based training pilot program will be essential in our transformation from a drug community to a garden community as we work with young people to improve our education, economy, and environment.

Through our Green Summer grant, up to 24 young adults aged 14 - 21 will be introduced to environmental issues and solutions, green-collar careers, and gain direct field experience through the installation of rain gardens and designing of a community awareness campaign. Visits to the US Arboretum, Kenilworth Park and Aquatic Gardens, Kingman and Heritage Island Park and other local sites will enhance our learning.

501c3 nonprofit DC Greenworks is metro DC’s preeminent green roof advocate and educator working to provide attainable and affordable low impact development technologies and training.

For more information on how you or someone you know may apply, visit: green.dc.gov/summer and select “Green Summer” as your preferred employment option and “Watershed” as your topic.

On behalf of TCCR and in support of National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day local yoga teacher, Sia Tiambi will be guiding a mixed-level yoga class at the Trinidad Recreation Center this Saturday at 2p. The class will serve as a lesson in alternative health practice. “Mindful stretching and resting of the body is the most direct route to relieving stress, stress being the root of all dis-ease,” explains Sia. The class is open to the public, all ages and levels of fitness, and no previous experience is required.

National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day is being hosted in Trinidad by the Center for Minority Studies and the office of Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas. The informational and recreational event begins at 11a and ends at 3p. A basketball game, refreshments, and giveaways are also being offered. Youth are especially encouraged to participate!