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Burgwin Rec Center out-of-school programs get city funding | The Homepage
- jmartinez5135
- 4 days ago
- 5 min read
By Managing Editor Juliet Martinez
After weeks of uncertainty, the city has funded after-school and summer programs at Burgwin Rec Center. A bill to funnel $200,000 from the Stop the Violence Fund cleared committee on July 22 and is expected to receive full council approval on July 28.
This funding means that after-school programming at Burgwin Rec Center could start when school starts on Aug. 24.
The city funding was a result of the advocacy of the nonprofit that has run the rec center for six years without city help, the community standing behind it, and the work of District 5 City Councilor Barb Warwick of Greenfield, who pointed out the inequity of communities that have a city-funded recreation center and those that don’t.
For most of the last 35 years, Hazelwood residents have worked to help neighborhood kids by using the Burgwin field and rec center. From the early ’90s to around 1998, Glen and Rena Dixon ran the Hazelwood Cobras youth football program on that field. In 2001, at the urging of the Dixons, Adelle and Rev. Michael Murray restarted the program. They soon gained access to the rec center, where they ran a summer lunch program, Mr. Murray recalled on July 21.
“We were always feeding them,” Mr. Murray said. “Because we just loved kids.”
In 2014, registration for the football program dipped too low to keep it going and the Murrays stepped back. Soon thereafter, James “Poose” Cole took over as head coach.
At the time, he was working as a bodyguard and was often out of town. Whenever he was back in Hazelwood, he worried about the rising gang violence. The neighborhood was fracturing into warring territories, he said during a July 19 call.
“When I was a kid, it was never like that,” he said. So he called some of his friends to talk about what they could do. They decided to bring the Cobras football program back.
“And then we’ll use football as the engine to bring the kids together and teach unity and teach community building through youth football,” he recalled of their decision. “And that’s what we did.”
He is still at it. Under Mr. Cole’s leadership, the football and cheerleading program grew to include after-school programming. About six years ago, those programs moved off of tables on the football field and into the rec center. They added a summer camp, too. In addition to homework help, the kids have received meals, gardening lessons, field trips and guest speakers. They have learned about nutrition, financial literacy and African drumming.
“We just were introducing them to different things and letting them know that they can be anything they wanted,” he said.
Mr. Cole has run the out-of-school programs on a shoestring budget. He has used some funds from the football program, and Mr. Cole’s mother, Saundra Cole-McKamey has helped directly and through the nonprofit she runs, People of Origin Rightfully Loved and Wanted, known as POORLAW. The nonprofit has also received Stop the Violence Fund grants from the City of Pittsburgh.
Through the years Mr. Cole has paid for many expenses out of his own pocket, but he can’t keep that up. Without support from the city, the out-of-school programs at Burgwin will be unsustainable, he said. He has had to find another job.
‘That is not equitable’
The city did not seem poised to help at first. Even after spending three years and $1 million renovating the rec center with extensive input from Mr. Cole, it had not budgeted for someone to run the programs. The renovations are expected to be finished this fall.
Ms. Warwick introduced the bill to fund the programs in June and engaged the help of Hazelwood residents.
A contingent of 17 Hazelwood parents, children and advocates gathered in City Council chambers on July 8 to speak in favor of a bill that Ms. Warwick introduced to fund after-school programming at Burgwin Rec Center.
“There has been a lot of talk in the city of Pittsburgh lately about what kids do when they’re not in school,” said Hazelwood Initiative Inc. Outreach and Sustainability Director Lauren Coursey. “I think that, in place of criminalizing children and teens, we need to provide them with options.”
Hazelwood resident Pastor June Jeffries appealed to the city councilors on a personal level.
“You probably have children. You probably have grandchildren, nieces, nephews, whatever, godchildren,” she said. “Would you do this for your own children?”
But Mr. Cole and his mother both opposed the bill because it would have included a request for proposals and a competitive bidding process. Both objected to it.
Ms. Cole-McKamey called it “blatant disrespect.”
“These children right here trust us. Okay? You bring somebody else in the community, you’re not going to get the effect that you would get if it was us,” she said.
When Mr. Cole spoke, he pointed out the inequality of the funding situation.
“It’s crazy that most underserved communities have small nonprofits who are doing programming within these city buildings,” Mr. Cole said. “And wealthier neighborhoods get the funding and have all of this stuff to be able to have a after-school program and summer camp.”
That, Ms. Warwick said, is the heart of the issue. Children who live in neighborhoods with a city-operated rec center have access to free after-school and summer programming paid for and managed by the city, she wrote in a July 16 email. But communities like Glen Hazel are expected to figure things out for themselves.
“That is not equitable,” she wrote.
If a local nonprofit does not step up in these cases, the kids get nothing, she wrote, even though the city has the resources to fund out-of-school programs where kids can be safe and cared for.
“My kids have that at Magee Rec. Hazelwood kids deserve that too,” she wrote.
On July 22 Ms. Warwick changed the language in the funding bill to take out the request for proposals.
The idea was to give CitiParks the greatest possible flexibility in making the out-of-school programs happen at Burgwin Rec Center, she wrote on July 16.
“My hope is that, whatever process CitiParks decides on, POORLAW will be at the table. Certainly, their experience and trusted relationship with Glen Hazel kids should be a key consideration.”
At the July 22 standing committees meeting, District 1 Councilor Bobby Wilson and District 3 Councilor Bob Charland suggested Ms. Warwick’s bill be changed to fund rec centers throughout the city with Stop the Violence money. Both argued the amount should be determined through the anti-violence fund spending plan.
Ms. Warwick expressed her willingness to work together on a future bill to fund rec centers in what she called “high-need communities” through the Stop the Violence Fund. But she rejected the proposed changes.
Mr. Wilson’s amendment did not get enough support to be written into the bill. Ms. Warwick’s $200,000 Burgwin funding bill passed with the request-for-proposals language removed.
Correction: The print version of this article indicated that the Burgwin Rec Center renovations were already complete.