No neighbor left behind!
a town hall meeting on organizing to prevent gentrification and disinvestment

Panelists include:

• Ellen Somekawa, the executive director of Asian Americans United, who will talk about how her organization led a successful campaign to prevent Foxwoods casino from building in Chinatown. Ellen will talk about how to build trust and develop relationships with people as an organizer that you can later draw upon for urgent campaigns.

• Lynn Cummings and Harold Adams, from Pennsauken, New Jersey, who will discuss their groundbreaking work to fight white flight and build a multi-racial community of equals in their suburban town.

• Rev. Dr. Kevin Johnson, the pastor of Bright Hope Baptist Church, who will discuss his church's campaign to convert an abandoned school into a community center. He'll also talk about the church's decision to support a black-owned bank and to help revitalize a North Philadelphia shopping center.

• Ian Phillips, Neil Herrmann and Junette Marcano, from ACORN, who will describe their role in a city-wide campaign to pass the Inclusionary Housing bill which requires developers to set aside units or money for low-income homeowners and renters.

After hearing from these speakers, we'll break into small groups. Each small group will discuss what they learned, share their own success stories and help us to form a master list of ideas to share with policy makers and our communities.

Tuesday, February 2nd, 2010
Bright Hope Baptist Church
5:30-8:00 PM

If you want to learn about best practices in community organizing that curb disinvestment, promote neighborhood diversity and pick up some tips that you can use to make your community a better place to live in, click here to sign-up to attend: