Thursday, January 27, 2011
Bed-Stuy Foot Soldiers Make Bank Shoveling Out Scores of Homes after Christmas Blizzard
Lanzilote for News
Bed-Stuy Foot Soldiers set an earnings record digging out Brooklyn brownstones after the blizzard.BY JAKE PEARSON
A group of Bedford-Stuyvesant teens turned last week's blizzard into a cash bonanza.
The Bed-Stuy Foot Soldiers, teens who shovel, sweep and clean the neighborhood's stately brownstones, earned nearly $5,000 last week shoveling snow - a one-day record for the group.
"This was the biggest storm we've ever dealt with, the biggest and the scariest," said Foot Soldiers founder Barnabas Shakur, 30. "There were four times I thought I was going to hit a car."
The storm was a blessing for the group, part of Shakur's youth nonprofit Project Re-Generation, which operates on a shoestring budget.
"We've been having a lot of financial problems," said Shakur. "The [Foot Soldiers] are what's kept the organization alive."
Only about 20 of the Foot Soldiers' 100 members were able to brave the snow last week and travel around the neighborhood in Shakur's Ford F-150 pickup, stopping at houses and clearing the sidewalks, porches and steps.
"We'd just split up into groups of four people, and it would take us about 10 to 15 minutes to clear a house," said Terrell Ellis, 17, a junior at Abraham Lincoln High School. "We work as a team. We know what to do and how to do it."
So when signs of a storm came on Christmas Day, Shakur made sure to send out a team of volunteers to throw down anti-icing salt on the steps and sidewalks of brownstone homes.
But after the last snowflakes fell Monday, the neighborhood was so covered in snow, Shakur wasn't able to coordinate enough soldiers to travel to the 184 homes that paid an annual fee for immediate snow shoveling.
"Monday and Tuesday we were immobile, we couldn't move," said Shakur, who finally got enough workers out in the field on Wednesday and Thursday to clear as many houses as they could. "The streets weren't clear, workers couldn't get to the office, trains were down; it was crazy."
Residents who pay for the Foot Soldiers' services can buy various plans that range from a $49 one-shot-cleaning to a $865 yearly service charge.
The soldiers were able to clear almost 100 homes - and picked up 50 new clients as they worked.
"Let me say, I can empathize with the Department of Sanitation," said Shakur. "It was really hard out there: We couldn't move, our trucks got stuck ... it was horrible, but we got it done."
Foot soldier Joey Horne, 19, said he didn't mind the cold - and felt good after an elderly woman thanked him for shoveling her out of her house.
"She said, 'Thank you and keep up the good work,'" said Horne. "It was actually fun and it was great exercise."
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2011/01/04/2011-01-04_bedstuy_foot_soldiers_make_bank_shoveling_out_scores_of_homes_after_christmas_bl.html#ixzz1CIjb4flE
Group of Bed-Stuy Men, "We Make Us Better" Escorts Pedestrians in Wake of Robberies
Keh/News
Members of the group We Make Us Better escort pedestrians home from the subway in the wake of robberies and reach out to young black men.BY JAKE PEARSON
They're not part of a political club, they don't come from any one church and they've never been particularly active in the community - until now.
After a spate of recent muggings and robberies, a group of 20 Bedford-Stuyvesant men started escorting people home as they got off the train and are walking through the neighborhood reaching out to young men.
"We're not the Guardian Angels, we're not armed," said Kareem Varlack, 35, a field technician for Verizon and a founding member of the group We Make Us Better.
"We're about encouraging males to be involved, because you don't see men in their 20s, 30s and 40s involved in the community anymore, so we're trying to bridge that gap."
Once a week - on random evenings - the men walk subway riders home from the Utica Ave. train station. They also sponsored a neighborhood outreach walk earlier this month, stopping to talk to young men hanging out on the corners.
"I've been here now 15 years, and I never walk around," said co-founder Thomas Simms, 41, who works in finance.
"I've never done any kind of marching or activism. I deal with the swim team parents at the Bed-Stuy YMCA, that's as far as I go, [so] this gives me an opportunity to do something in the community."
The idea for the group came about one night a month ago when Varlack, Simms and others swapped horror stories of friends and relatives who had recently been mugged.
For Richard Beavers, 41, the idea for the group hit home after a friend of his called him in the middle of the night after being robbed - one of 300 robberies so far this year in Bed-Stuy's 81st Precinct, an almost 10% jump from 2009.
"She was on her way home, came out of the Utica Ave. A train station and made it onto her block when a group of young males approached her and robbed her," recalled Beavers, who owns the House of Art Gallery on Lewis Ave.
"I decided we can't have these people terrorizing our young women and children, and we're not speaking up and making our presence felt."
The group's organizers hope to set up a mentoring program soon, and are meeting with local community organizations so they can refer people they meet to special services.
But their main strength is a street credibility that comes with being young, successful black men, said co-founder Titus Mitchell.
"A lot of these youths don't have a positive male influence," said Mitchell, 41, director of a nonprofit.
"When I see these kids, I don't judge them, I understand who they are and what they are, and as black men, we can just talk to them on their level."
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/brooklyn/2010/11/30/2010-11-30_taking_a_stand_on_streets_20_men_in_bedstuy_escort_pedestrians_reach_out_to_yout.html#ixzz1CIhUzZnz
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