Trinidad Concerned Citizens for Reform

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!

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:

In 2009, TCCR hopes to complete environmentally friendly construction on an already partially rehabilitated liquor store TCCR Co-Founder and Executive Director, Wilhelmina Lawson donated to the nonprofit. To afford the donation and achieve her goal of providing a job training and job placement center for the community, Ms. Lawson mortgaged her own home – the current administrative headquarters for TCCR - and put up money from her retirement fund.

Once final renovations are complete, The People’s Checkpoint will provide space for the expansion of TCCR’s services and full engagement of TCCR’s partnerships with the nearby Montello Early Childhood Development Center, which provides many community families with affordable, quality day care, supplemental education, and recreational activities; and with New Community Housing Development Organization (NCHDO), of which TCCR is a founding member. Through NCHDO, Ward 5 residents, officials, and agencies are working to cooperatively reclaim abandoned homes, develop new affordable housing, and help low-income families become first-time homeowners.

TCCR’s service expansions will offer pathways to sustainable economy (linking participants to work in progressive industries such as the “green-collar economy”), courses in sustainable education (health and nutrition classes will evolve to include cooking workshops and yoga for physical and mental fitness), and opportunities to create a sustainable community-wide environment (introducing rainwater gardening techniques and organizing access to affordable methods of energy efficiency).

If you are with an organization that would like to partner with our efforts, please contact us, your work is appreciated!

If you are interested in being a sponsor of the construction site or any of our programs and events, please contact us, your help is needed!

Or, donate now: