PHOTOS BY ALAN DIXON ’83 in Chester A new generation of Swarthmore student activists is determined to help rehabilitate one of the poorest cities in the nation. “Sometimes I get very upset,” says Salem Chester Tutorial, an adjunct to Upward here.’ It was a gray day and, believe me, Shuchman ’84. “I see a lot of students who Bound, encourages Swarthmore students to Chester looks horrible on a gray day. But are concerned about the war in El Salvador spend one night a week tutoring students in after a lot of discussion, we decided to move and the deployment of missiles in Europe, Chester on a variety of subjects. in. and some other very important issues— But “With my family background, I have a lot “The biggest thing I had to overcome in I wonder how some of them can be so con­ of opportunities and I think most students living there was that I always knew in the cerned about problems that are 3,000 or here do or they wouldn’t be here. But for back of my mind that I could leave—that I 4,000 miles away, when they don’t even most of the kids in Chester that opportunity could just walk out that door and come back want to look at the social problems just is never going to be there,” Shuchman points to campus to live__ But Chester was good 3x/i miles away in Chester (Pa.).” out. “A kid growing up with his mom on for me because it gave me a chance to test Shuchman’s conviction that Swarthmore welfare just doesn’t have much hope of ever my skills. In that sense, it wasn’t like the students should be more concerned about leaving Chester.” academic environment. Sometimes I’ll solving social problems in their own back­ Shuchman speaks with the authority of write eight or nine drafts of a letter or article yard led to the creation last spring of the someone who not only has seen the social because I know it’s vital to the success of the Swarthmore-Chester Internship Program problems in Chester firsthand, but lived with Chester project.” (SCIP). The program, governed by a com­ them. With the aid of a Eugene M. Lang Nearly $30,000 has been raised so far to mittee made up of Swarthmore professors Opportunity grant, Shuchman and Dana cover SCIP’s projected budget of $43,700 and administrators along with representa­ Lyons ’82 lived in Chester for six months for interns’ stipends over the next three tives of the Chester community, each year during the past school year, while working years, including a $25,000 grant from the will give up to eight students stipends to without pay for the Chester Community William Penn Foundation last summer. cover their living expenses while they work Improvement Project (CCIP), a grass-roots Over sixty students representing seventeen full-time as unpaid volunteers for commu­ group organized by the city’s leading black campus groups joined in a day-long Chester nity groups and social service agencies in clergymen. CCIP and other Chester com­ internship benefit in April. The benefit— Chester. Interns may work for a three- munity groups have been hit hard by recent featuring a clown, a bake sale, an outdoor month period during the summer, or as long cuts in federal social services such as VISTA, concert, and an evening dance—raised over as 5y2 months during the school year, which had provided staffers to help run its $1,500. Since then, many alumni, the rather than taking classes that semester. In programs. Swarthmore Friends Meeting, the Eugene some cases, the work done by interns may “I really thought we needed to live in M. Lang Foundation, and the First Pennsyl­ qualify for academic credit. Chester to get to know the community,” vania National Bank also have contributed The College became involved in Chester Shuchman explains. “Finally, I found a to the internship program. on a continuing basis more than twenty place there and when I showed it to Dana This past summer SCIP’s first three years ago when it began its summer Upward the first time he simply said, ‘I’ll never live interns began working with community Bound Program, which helps prepare Ches­ groups in Chester. Brian Simboli ’83 and ter high school students for college. The By Larry L. Elveru Mark Reynolds ’84 devoted much of their DECEMBER, 1983 1 SHERRILL FRANKLIN Salem Shuchman ’84 time to CCIP’s housing rehabilitation effort, while Lacey James ’84 concentrated on helping the Community Action Agency of Delaware County establish an emergency shelter for families in Chester. Together the three interns also planned the startup on campus this fall of the Volunteer Clearing­ house—a placement center for students interested in doing part-time volunteer work for social service agencies and social action groups in Chester and other parts of Delaware County. In mid-August, Sarah Fleischmann ’83 and Tom Thornton ’85 went to Chester as interns for the fall semester, continuing the work started over the summer. They report that thirty-five students already have been placed through the new Volunteer Clear­ inghouse. Meanwhile, both are helping CCIP bring together students and commun­ ity volunteers to finish renovating two houses in Chester’s west end, which they hope to see occupied by early spring (see accompanying story). “Overall, the response of students here has been pretty good,” Shuchman says. “Over the past year-and-a-half, there prob­ ably have been about a hundred students involved with the Chester project in one way or another__ It’s an experience anyone can benefit from—whether they are a math, science, or political science major—that of seeing a part of society that they otherwise wouldn’t see.” JSk 2 “chipping away..., one ice cube at a time.” obs, decent housing, and hope—all are in short supply in Chester, Pa., and black community leaders would be pleased just to stem the J tide. Located less than four miles south of Swarthmore, Chester is one of the poorest cities in the nation, with over 60 percent of its citizens dependent on some form of federal financial aid. The 1980 census found the population of the old riverfront industrial city had dropped by nearly 18 percent in just ten years, to 45,794, leaving almost 25 percent of its homes abandoned. Over the past year, thousands of residents have lost their jobs in the face of plant closings and cutbacks, including 3,000 workers at Pennsylvania Shipbuilding, the community’s largest employer. “\Ye’d be the biggest fools in the city, maybe in the country, if we thought just getting one old house and fixing it up would change Chester suddenly. It took Chester a long time to get this way,” explains Rev. Wallace Smith, pastor of Calvary Baptist, the oldest Baptist church in Chester. Rev. Smith, a professor at Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Philadel­ phia, is chairman of the Chester Community Improvement Project (CCIP). CCIP is trying to help low- and middle-income families purchase and renovate abandoned houses in the city, hoping eventually to see entire neighborhoods rehabilitated. The Swarthmore-Chester Internship Program gives students a $400-per-month stipend to work full time in Chester during the summer or a semester on behalf of a social service agency, or community group like CCIP. Leaving Swarthmore’s tree-lined splendor behind, crossing over 1-95 in Chester, and driving through the desolate southwest end of town can be a totally disorienting experience akin to crossing the Mexican border, going from the flowered expressways of San Diego to Tijuana’s blighted streets. On this particular mid-September Saturday, while there were a dozen student volunteers busy scraping, plastering, sanding, and painting the interior of a dilapidated rowhouse at 1329 West 2nd Street, only a handful of volunteers from Chester itself had turned out to help. Understandably, there is a great deal of skepticism to overcome in Chester CCIP head Rev. Wallace Smith (above) has begun mobilizing members of his church, including Walter Clark (right), to work with students in Chester. SHERRILL FRANKLIN after the repeated failures of various govern­ ment programs, over the past couple of decades, to improve housing in the com­ munity. As Rev. Smith points out: “The town is worn-out and the people here are tired. After years of being in this position ... there’s not much fight left in them anymore. It’s sad, but that’s what we’re running up against. “And that’s a major problem for us in rounding up volunteers to work here. It’s hard getting people motivated, getting enough people excited in the community— We need to get a couple of houses done. I think that will make a difference. Until we have an obvious success, everybody’s going to be a little tentative about this, waiting to see if we’re just another bunch of do-gooders.” In a city now nearly 70 percent black that remains dominated by a predominantly white Republican political machine, however, CCIP and the efforts of Swarthmore students are gaining credibility, in part, because of their independence of city government. “We may run the organization on a shoestring,” explains Rev. Smith, “but we’re not be­ holden to anyone. That means we can work here totally without fear that we’ll be viewed as just a quasi-political operation. We’re free Renewed campus activism from any of that kind of criticism on the streets.” Rev. Smith illustrated his point by describing an encounter he’d had on the Once, when most of today’s students the Draft and the Swarthmore Anti- street at 1329 West 2nd Street.