Fairhill Friends Ministry
Annual Report 1998-1999

Between July 1998 and July 1999, the Fairhill Friends Ministry has maintained a Friendly presence in the Fairhill Neighborhood of North Philadelphia and brought to Friends and the world our testimony to the Spirit of Love and Reconciliation. We seek to share the life of our neighbors in Fairhill, sharing their struggle, and inviting Friends everywhere and the world to live in the Spirit that brings us together.

The ministry has played an active role in the neighborhood organization, the Neighbors of Fairhill. In concert with the Neighbors of Fairhill, we have helped to do the following:

• partner with different local organizations, such as Philadelphia Green, Women's Community Revitilization Project, and the Fairmount Park Art Commission, to bring about significant changes in Fairhill. These include creating a community garden, more open space, more trees, and more grass in the park, and a proposal to restore and redisplay a sculpture in the park and to create new artwork for the park.
• work with the City of Philadelphia's Department of Recreation and City Councilman Richard Mariano to put in motion other important changes in the park, including the upcoming demolition of a hazardous and ugly structure, the installation of new playground equipment, and the installation of a water source, as well as improving trash removal in the park.
• work with local schools and afterschool programs, including Timothy Academy, Julia de Burgos Bilingual Middle School, Taller Puertorriqueno, and Edison High School.
• staff Art-in-the-Park programs for neighborhood children, and organize an afterschool Earth Day celebration for about 150 children
• organize the summer celebration of the neighborhood
• work with city agencies to help make the neighborhood more safe for the people who live here, including helping neighbors to secure abandoned buildings.
• organize regular monthly clean-up days in the park, keep park structures free of graffiti, and encourage neighborhood residents to do the same for their buildings.
• educate the neighbors about proper ways to dispose of trash and dog owners about the proper way to clean up after their dogs, and encourage children to respect and care for the trees, the park, themselves, and each other.

Our ministry of presence has served to provide support to neighbors both in their everyday lives and at moments of crisis. We experience this in friendly interactions with neighbors, in the way that neighbors seek our help in times of need, and in the way that neighbors have learned to be a more open and trusting community to each other. We maintain a weekly meeting for worship and a weekly prayer time, attended by a core group of Friends and open to neighbors and others.

In addition, we have cooperated with a Catholic agency to teach a year-long course in English as a Second Language in the neighborhood.

We have also supported members of the Fairhill Friends Ministry in their outreach to Friends and the wider world to share a Quaker witness. Such activities include:

• Talks at several monthly meetings, including Green Street, Abington, Gwynedd, Germantown, Salem, and Arch St., and leading a three-part series of gatherings on Gospel Order at Chestnut Hill Monthly Meeting.
• Leading a series of Spanish-language Alternatives to Violence Program workshops at Graterford prison. Many of the inmate participants come from the neighborhood of Fairhill. Leading five Alternatives to Violence Program workshops in Quito, and one community building workshop in Pallatanga, Ecuador.
• Facilitating an interest group at the fall 98 Quaker Service Conference.
• Organizing and facilitating gatherings on Ministry, Eldering & Worship at three monthly meetings: State College, Newtown and Germantown. * Organizing a worship and discussion session at Old Frankford Meeting (now Unity, Frankford) in support of the demonstration against the U.S. Army School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia.
• Organizing an ongoing series of weekly prayer vigils for peace in the Balkans and the world at Independence Mall, in which Friends from more than fifteen meetings, as well as some non-Friends, have participated. (The vigils have been reported on radio and television.)
• Cooperation with a Quaker household carrying out a ministry in another North Philadelphia neighborhood, and development of relationships with Philadelphia Catholic Worker Houses.

The Fairhill Friends Ministry Working Group meets once a month, alternating between meeting at Friends Center and Casa Amistad, in North Philadelphia. Our working group is composed of people from five different monthly meetings, and our meetings are characterized by a friendly support and concern for one another and a willingness to listen to divergent viewpoints.

The majority of the work of the ministry is carried out by the two Friends who live at Casa Amistad, but members of our working group have provided significant assistance in many ways, including attending neighborhood meetings and helping with neighborhood events, participating in park clean-ups, representing the neighborhood at public gatherings or meetings. The working group provides oversight to the ministry, acting many times as an ongoing clearness committee, holding up areas of concern or possibility, asking questions, providing information, suggesting courses of action, exploring motives and repercussions of choices, examining the larger social and spiritual dimensions of the ministry, worshipping together.

We have reached out in a special way to two meetings in Philadelphia Quarter this year. In fall 1998, after speaking at a forum at Green Street meeting, we hosted a well-attended gathering at Casa Amistad for interested members of Green Street meeting, some of whom returned to help out at subsequent neighborhood clean-ups. In the winter and spring of 1999, we reached out in particular to Unity Meeting in Frankford, until recently under the care of Green Street meeting, providing company as it made its transition to monthly meeting status. Unity Meeting is located in a neighborhood that has parallels to our own.

We have been blessed with the encouragement of a small core group of neighbors actively committed to regular participation in the neighborhood efforts. Many neighbors have been encouraged to individually take a more active role in community life and in advocating for improvements and enlisting the support of city agencies and other organizations when help is needed. Gradually, the helplessness, cynicism, and anger expressed by many when talking about life in the neighborhood has been transformed into a tone of greater empowerment, commitment to neighbors, hope, faith, and joy.

We are grateful for the participation of Friends from many monthly meetings in our neighborhood activities, their donations (money, food, books, flower bulbs...,) as well as many verbal and written expressions of interest and support and invitations to speak at monthly meetings and other Friends gatherings. We are grateful for the ongoing assitane of the spiritual care and support groups provided to Jorge and Marcelle by their respective monthly meetings. We see opportunity for more Friends to share the tasks and opportunities of the ministry. We especially hope to see more Friends move to the neighborhood to share this witness. We continue to redefine our witness/presence as we seek to include the ways the Spirit is asking us to witness beyond the geographical confines of the neighborhood.

Copyright © 1999, Philadelphia Yearly Meeting

Last modified: Wednesday, February 18, 2004 at 08:18 AM