Trinidad Concerned Citizens for Reform

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?”

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.

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!

Thank you to Jenna Mack and Stephanie Campbell of Event Emissary. The first ever green inaugural ball was magical success and Trinidad Concerned Citizens for Reform is happy to have been a nonprofit partner in the event. In fact, it even inspired our marketing team, Sia Tiambi Barnes and Ronda Basanta to catch a ride home in oh so eco-friendly petty cabs (a bitter-sweet ride in below 30 degree weather). DC’s own, comedian Tommy Davidson made a surprise appearance and warmed up the crowd with notes about how exciting it is to have Barack Obama elected as the 44th President of the U.S. and Minneapolis hip-hip duo, Just.Live and headliner Wyclef Jean gave electric performances. In fact, Jean’s set (which included a special Obama song) was so charged, he stripped himself of his formal jacket and, after the crowd demanded an encore, managed to get us all out of our high heels and ties, carnival-style:

Thank you to all who came out to N.E. this morning in honor of Dr. Martin Luther King’s memory and in support of President-elect Barack Obama’s movement for community organization. There were approximately 100 gathered at the Trinidad Recreation Center on Childress Street including the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, who organized the event and confirmed that green jobs are coming to N.E.; the DC Labor Chorus, who warmed up the winter morning with beautiful renditions of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” We Shall Overcome,” and “Sia Humba;” Johnny Barnes of the National Capitol Area American Civil Liberties Union; Ward 5 ANC’s William Shelton, Rosetta Davis, Tina Laskaris; and Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas, Jr. who acknowledged that, “the soul of the city is the people, nothing more, nothing less.” Without you, we would not have been able to successfully clean up the Trinidad and Langston, N.E. neighborhoods today.

President-Elect Barack Obama and his wife Michelle are calling on Americans to participate in the in the National Day of Service on Martin Luther King Day (also the eve of Obama’s inauguration), Monday, January 19th. Said Obama Nov. 4, 2008 in Chicago, “we will rebuild this nation the only way it’s been done… brick by brick, calloused hand by calloused hand.”

In response to his call, the Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO, the National AFL-CIO, Ward 5 Councilmember Harry Thomas and the Presidential Inaugural Committee are hosting a Martin Luther King Labor Community Clean-Up in the Trinidad/Langston Community from 9am - 12pm that day.

Trinidad Concerned Citiznes for Reform, Inc. encourages your participation. You are needed to make this event, and our efforts to change Trinidad from a drug community to a garden community, a success.

Please sign up on-line by clicking here. Our online registration capacity is 200, so far we have 60 volunteers. Help us fill the neighborhood with loving spirits!

We are pleased to announce that TCCR has partnered with DC’s first green event planning company, Event Emissary, to kick off the 2009 Inauguration celebration and in the District because we hope to mainstream the importance of creating a sustainable life for our inner-city neighborhoods. DC suffers from the poorest performing public educational system, unemployment rates that are nearly twice the national average, and recent studies have revealed the dangerous impact living in polluted metropolitan areas has on our health. Sustainability in 2009 has to be a three-fold action plan addressing education, economy and the environment; we can start by being more conscious of how we treat our surroundings. Says TCCR Executive Director, Wilhelmina Lawson, “a clean environment makes a clean mind.”

Catering at The Green Ball will be 100 percent organic. The food waste and floral arrangements will be recycled or composted and the lighting will be energy efficient. Event Emissary is also buying wind power offsets and carbon credits to neutralize environmental costs of transportation. Tickets cost $500 per person. The location is metro-accessible. Special invited guest Wyclef Jean will be performing on the main stage. President-elect Barack Obama, Vice President-elect Joe Biden, former Vice President Al Gore and you have been invited. Please join us.

When: Saturday, January 17, 2009; 8:00p - Midnight

Where: Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium, 1301 Constitution Avenue, NW

*TCCR must be selected by ticket purchaser in order to benefit from this event. Please select “Trinidad Concerned Citizens for Reform” when purchasing your ticket from www.GreenInauguralBall.com.

Or, if you are unable to attend, you are welcome to donate now to TCCR: