At the 2018 Annual Sessions this year, there will be a booth during free time and dinner time on Thursday and Friday where Resource Friends will be available to talk with you about their work and what they might be able to support for you and your meeting. They will also be offering workshops on Friday and Saturday. Resource Friends help our community thrive by providing support in specific areas of concern in our monthly and quarterly meetings. They offer a diversity of gifts and an extensive “how-to” knowledge-base. [Read more…] about Resource Friends at Annual Sessions!
News
Friends in Fellowship
Friends in Fellowship at Sessions
Our season of compelling Friends in Fellowship lecture events ended this May, but we will be offering seven Fellowship Workshop events this July at Annual Sessions, on July 26, 27 and 28 at the College of New Jersey.
You can attend any of the 30+ Thursday, Friday, or Saturday Workshops at Annual Sessions by signing up as a resident (overnight accommodations) or as a commuter (day trips). Programming is free. [Read more…] about Friends in Fellowship
Woodstown Friends Meeting’s Strawberry Supper Raises $5K for Fire-Stricken South Jersey Ambulance Assoc.
Chicken salad, rhubarb and, of course, strawberry shortcake and hand-dipped ice cream. For 126 years, the Quakers at Woodstown Friends Meeting have been serving up platefuls of this traditional fare at their annual Strawberry Supper. The proceeds always go to a charitable cause which could be scholarships for local students or funding for mine locators in war-torn regions throughout the world.
This February, when a fire ripped through the American Legion Ambulance Association of Woodstown destroying the building and life-saving ambulance vehicles, the Quakers knew they had to help.
“The suggestion to dedicate the supper to the ambulance squad was brought up and immediately endorsed by everybody,” said Kahlil Gunther, clerk of Woodstown Friends Meeting.
With overwhelming community support, 2018 turned out to be one of the most successful Strawberry Suppers in recent memory — a whopping 552 tickets sold.
“Not only did ticket sales increase but so many people and businesses contributed supplies and made contributions toward purchasing items for the menu,” said Gunther. “It was the same supper, but it took on a new and exciting atmosphere.”
The hard work of Woodstown Friends Meeting and the greater Woodstown community resulted in the delivery of $5,000 check to Joe Valentine, President of the Woodstown Ambulance Association, who has had to shoulder much of responsibility of rebuilding.
“It has been probably the most stress that I’d have to endure in my life but one of the good things has been watching how everyone has come together,” said Valentine.
Memorial Service and Obituary: Penny Colgan-Davis
Date for Memorial–Saturday, July 21 at 10:00
A memorial service for Penny will be held Saturday, July 21 at Germantown Monthly Meeting, 47 W. Coulter Street, Philadelphia, PA 19144.
The service will begin at 10 AM. Contributions in her name can be made to the Kelly School Library Fund; c/o Germantown Monthly Meeting; 47 W. Coulter Str. Phila. PA 19144.
Contributions may also be made to the Ridgeway Scheirer Fund for Peace and Justice at Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. Mail to 1515 Cherry St.; Phila. PA 19102 to the attention of the Development Office.
OBITUARY –
Educator, activist, traveler, Joan Penny Colgan-Davis, 72, passed away on Tuesday, June 19, 2018. Diagnosed with melanoma in November of 2017, she battled the illness for 6 months, before dying at her home in the Mt. Airy section of Philadelphia. Known as a leader in progressive education and active in the Philadelphia Religious Society of Friends, she brought innovative changes to a number of educational institutions and positively affected the lives of hundreds of students, parents and teachers throughout her long career. She is survived by her husband, John, her son, Evan, her brothers Tim and Tony, and her sister, Debby.
Penny was born in Wilmington, Delaware on October 21, 1945, and lived for many years in Arden, DE. Her parents were Tom and Joan Colgan. Born into a Quaker family, Penny grew up in a house and community that believed in social action. She was taken to Civil Rights Marches as a child, and that started her life-long concern with social justice. When she graduated from Guilford College in 1967, she became an elementary school teacher at Philadelphia’s Miller Elementary School and taught for there for 6 years. Following the protracted teacher’s strike of 1973, she left the school district, saying, “We struck for weeks, and when it was over I was still 1 teacher in a classroom with 33 students. That was not good for the students or for me.” She also had some different educational ideas she wanted to try out, so she joined a parent-run cooperative school in West Philadelphia-the University City New School.
At the New School she helped develop curriculum that featured research projects powered by student questions, plenty of outdoor play and study time, hands-on learning, student designed art projects, and consciously working on building and maintaining a supportive community. These ideas were important ones to her, and they became hallmarks of her later work at other schools. For Penny, education had to be active, involving students in questioning, making knowledge, discovery, and community building. Wherever she went she brought that vision into the lives of countless families.
Following the New School she was a lower school teacher at Friends Select School for3 years, eventually becoming the Director of Lower School for another 3 years. She also served as the principal of the Miquon School in Miquon, Pa for 11 years. From there she became the first head of the Russell Byers Charter School. Finally, she was Head of Frankford Friends School, from which she retired in 2015. At each place she worked she brought the vision and values she believed in and helped change each school in meaningful ways. Her influence was profound, and many of the programs and approaches she introduced can still be found in each of the institutions she led.
Retirement did not mean she was no longer involved with schools. At the time of her death Penny was organizer and leader of a group of volunteers who made the once closed library at the Kelly public elementary school in Philadelphia a vital part of the school. That project continues to grow and thrive. She was also an esteemed mentor in the University of Pennsylvania’s Aspiring Principals Program, helping to train future public and private school principals.
Penny was very active in Philadelphia’s Quaker Community. A member of Germantown Monthly Meeting, she took an active role in that meeting and eventually became clerk for the meeting. She later became clerk for Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, the organization representing Quaker meetings in the tri-state area. She took a role in the re-organization of the Yearly Meeting and was active in it until her illness made that impossible.
Penny was not just an educator and Quaker activist. She was an active person for whom the world offered opportunities to explore. She was a tent camper, a birdwatcher, a quilter, a lover of literature, and a gardener. She visited spots in Pennsylvania, in Canada, New Mexico and Arizona and more on birding trips with her husband. She and John camped regularly in upstate New York, Maryland, and yearly outside of Kingston, Ontario. Her garden is a wildlife friendly habitat and a stopover for hummingbirds, butterflies, finches, wrens and more. She grew herbs and vegetables that found their way to her kitchen and eventually to her table. She was a member of both a cookbook club and a literary book club. She was also a member of the Mt. Airy Quilters and loved to visit quilt shows and shops whenever she traveled. And she was an active participant in the movement to connect kids with gardening, starting an outdoor garden at Frankford Friends.
Penny Colgan-Davis led a full and joyous life that directly affected many people in many ways. Her giving spirit, sense of purpose, and love of life touched people of all ages. She will be well remembered and missed by many who were fortunate enough to know her. Her light shines brightly and casts a radiant glow.
A memorial service for Penny will be held Saturday, July 21 at Germantown Monthly Meeting, 47 W. Coulter Street, Philadelphia, PA 19144 from 10 AM until 1 PM. Contributions in her name can be made to the Kelly School Library Fund; c/o Germantown Monthly Meeting; 47 W. Coulter Str. Phila. PA 19144. Contributions can also be made to Ridgeway Scheirer Fund for Peace and Justice; Philadelphia Yearly Meeting; 1515 Cherry St.; Phila. PA 19102
Update July 7, 2108 — An additional obituary has been published in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Bringing It All Back Home Again
Something significant & sobering is happening in Montgomery, Alabama (MGM). PYM can participate in the reckoning MGM is going through. Montgomery was a hub for warehousing & auctioning of enslaved persons. It is now recognizing that history with the Legacy Museum: Enslavement to Mass Incarceration, & a ten minute walk away, The National Memorial for Justice & Peace, a collection of 1600 weathered steel monuments, two for each US County where a black person was lynched between 1877 & 1950. The hanging monuments, pictured, will always remain, but duplicates spread out like coffins waiting to be buried are gifts to the 800 US counties where a lynching took place.
There are two monuments for each county because counties are invited to take their monument home. Frank Meadows was lynched in Chester County, PA on July 27, 1917. Do we, PYM & Chester County Friends, want to bring his monument home? It could be a sad, sobering, but grand project!
Rick Howe
Mourning the Passing of Penny Colgan-Davis
Dear Friends,
We are sad to report that our beloved clerk, Penny Colgan-Davis, passed away quietly in her sleep, last night.
Penny has been many places and done many things in a life of service to others as she followed divine leadings. A mentor, career teacher, school director, principal, head of school, faithful Friend in Germantown Meeting, and within PYM, loving daughter, spouse, and mother were just some of her callings in life. As PYM Clerk she led us in beginning to live into and embrace a new structure and corporate witness to end racism and white supremacy within PYM and beyond PYM.
The song Magic Penny comes to mind. Like a “magic penny,” she has touched many lives with love and spread it further and further across the earth. In each of our hearts, she will continue to do so.
We will report memorial plans as we learn them. In the meantime, please join us in holding John and Evan Colgan-Davis in the Light.
In loving prayer,
Amy Taylor Brooks, Interim- Clerk Quaker Life Council
Bruce Haines, Clerk of Administrative Council
Amy Kietzman, Alternate Clerk
Tom Hoopes, Alternate Clerk
Chris Lucca, Alternate Clerk
Melissa Rycroft, Clerk of Nominating Council
Andrew Anderson, Treasurer
Christie Duncan Tessmer, General Secretary
Slavery and Mass Incarceration; CPMM Members Observe Cash Bail Hearings
If we are proud of our heritage of opposition to slavery, we have no choice but to take a stand on mass incarceration. Last spring Central Philadelphia Monthly Meeting passed a minute in opposition to mass incarceration. As one step in bringing that minute to life, to test the role of outside observers in the effort to end cash bail, several members of our meeting recently ventured through a metal detector and down to the small basement room in Philadelphia’s Criminal Justice Center where bail hearings take place. There we found the court players separated by a glass wall from a few benches for observers. People who have been arrested appear via a video screen from where they are being held at different police districts around the city.
Many of the individual hearings take less than a minute. The bail commissioner, or magistrate, verifies the person’s name, reads the charges, lets them know their court date and warns that if they don’t show up a warrant will be issued for their arrest. Then comes the question of bail. Sometimes this is done with minimal consultation. With a simple DUI or drug possession case, the person is often now released on their own recognizance—signing for bail without having to pay anything. Sometimes the Commissioner wants more information and enquires about previous arrests or detainers (requests that a person be held in relation to another charge). Sometimes it’s more complex. The DA’s representative suggests a bail amount, the Public Defender counters. The Commissioner may ask for their reasoning. Then s/he decides, announces the amount of the bail, and the next person in line is brought in.
We learned from a fellow observer at the second session that the hearings are held every four hours, 24 hours a day, with different court personnel rotating in and out. With such a steep learning curve, all we could do at first was try to follow along. By the end of the afternoon, however, we had gotten our bearings and could start to reflect on the nature of what we were witnessing.
Everyone was focused on “just the facts”, as the conveyor belt on their assembly-line job brought an endless stream of human misery—oppression, straitened circumstances, addiction, poor judgment. The one sign of shared humanity we witnessed was with a veteran charged with DUI and damage of another vehicle. The Commissioner probed to learn that he had served in Afghanistan, made a point of telling him about court programs for veterans, and thanked him for his service.
It was hard to watch people attempting to dispense justice in the midst of such an unjust system. There was no uniform treatment here. The Commissioner and DA’s rep in the second session were both much more punitive than those in the first. At one point, the latter recommended a bail of $300,000! That the Commissioner came down to $50,000 was probably of scant comfort to the guy on the screen. The $5000 required up front was clearly beyond his reach or the reach of anybody else we saw that day. Even the challenge of finding $500 for bail of $5000 would keep most of these folks in jail or send them straight to the bail bondsmen and their extortionate rates.
Did any of the thirty or forty people we observed need to be behind bars before their arraignment? Maybe the guy who had missed 23 of his last 26 court appearances. Possibly the two who had threatened family members. If so, then why not just say that those few need to stay in jail, rather than using a bail system that punishes the poor and lets the rich buy their way out? Looking at the bigger picture, the people who are seriously endangering us and eroding the quality of life in our country have fat wallets, work in high places and would never be caught by this system.
We now carry the weight of what we witnessed. How can those of us who have some protection from this part of our penal system take in its enormity? How can we face squarely the incredible injustice and pain that permeate it, and acknowledge how we have acquiesced to its existence? In a situation where silence implies consent, what needs to happen for us to speak out?
Friends inspired by NY Friend Sandra Steingraber speak out against Pipelines and in favor of Clean Energy
Members and attenders of Westtown and other Monthly Meetings joined several hundred in West Chester on June 9th to publicly witness on behalf of our neighbors facing the dangers of new pipelines snaking their way through Chester and Delaware counties designed to carry high risk liquefied gas pipelines. The Mariner East Rally for Community Safety speakers painted a grim picture of the threat to families, schools and local businesses. Quaker activist Sandra Steingraber came from NY to lend us encouragement. She and other Friends in NY State led a multi-year civil disobedience effort to protect the water resources provided by Seneca Lake. Many of us first heard of Sandra and we were inspired by her letter Why I am in Jail. Others of us had read her compelling book Living Downstream. In the evening, we attended the Pennsylvania premier of the film Unfractured depicting this struggle and the hard work that she and others undertook which finally led to the ban on fracking in New York State. Her message was clear – as people of faith, we all need to find our courage and determine what role we can play in choosing life giving energy over fossil fuels, given what we know about their short and long term impact on human and environmental health. She herself had to overcome her own preference to stick to research as an approach to change, as she is by nature more of an introvert. To learn more about the pipeline movement and which Monthly Meetings are in or near the blast zone visit the Middletown Coalition for Community Safety.
2018 Philadelphia State of the Meeting
Name of the Meeting or Group
Monthly Meeting of Friends of Philadelphia [Read more…] about 2018 Philadelphia State of the Meeting
39th Annual Nanticoke Lenape Powwow
The 39th Annual Nanticoke Lenape Powwow held on the Salem County Fairgrounds June 9th and 10th may now enter into history. Pow-Wow, from the Wampanoag Indian word “pauwau,” refers to a gathering, conducted by a holy man/ medicine man, to heal the souls and bodies for his people. In western states and Canada, it is a time for hunting, feasting, ceremonies, trading, friendly competitions. Today, these two ideas in combination are representative of the Powwow as well as an opportunity for Native Americans to reach out to share their culture with non-natives.
Chief Mark Quiet Hawk Gould commented in part, to “All My Relations and Supporters… Since 2012 we have been under attack by the NJ state government trying to break our spirit. Not because we did something wrong but because they wrongly think we might want something (casinos) that we have proven we believe is against our spiritual values. We must continue to help one another, like our families before us; support our youth and help them to advance; teach our history, teach survival, teach respect and spirituality…Whatever happens in the courts, whatever the verdict we hope will come soon…we have won!”
By invitation, the Salem Quarter Indian Affairs Committee was present with a table display. Ensuing conversations highlighted the booklet by Pastor JR Norwood (Nanticoke-Lenape), “We Are Still Here”; the work of the National Native American Boarding School Healing Coalition; Toward Right Relations with Indigenous Peoples, workshops by invitation; and Mickleton MM’s last of their Series Toward Radical Justice and Fearless Faithfulness (set for Sept. 16 at rise of fellowship ~11:30.) An additional handout featured all 7 of our SQ meetings’ addresses and times for worship; the reverse side showed our SQ Minute of Support for the Nanticoke-Lenape Tribal Nation toward Reaffirmation by the state of NJ.
The 6-hour fundraising effort raised over $60 for the Nanticoke-Lenape Tribal Nation and priceless stories. In conversation, we were one step away from friends of F(f)riends, perhaps you know a few of them too: Lisa Garrison, Judy Suplee, Peggy (Colson) Warner, Mary Waddington, Thompson family, Mary Crauderueff, Arla Patch, Christie Duncan-Tessmer, Mary Ellen McNish, Donna Boyle (Choctaw-Cherokee descendant), Mary Ann Robins (Onondaga/Seneca), Sandra Cianciulli (Oglala Lakota), Jeremy Newman, Cara Blume. Add to the personal connections, the Opening Ceremonies; Tribal Prayer Circle Ministry; Royalty; dances (Fancy/ Shawl, Grass, Traditional, Jingle, round, Sneak-Up, Snake, Rabbit/Two-Step, Ribbon, Hoop); birds of prey and a car show; it takes two days to just begin to experience the beauty.
So, find your calendar now…mark the second weekend in June for the Annual Nanticoke-Lenape Powwow! See you for the 40th, June 2019!
