The Community Action Committee of the Lehigh Valley's take on poverty, how it affects our communities, and what we're doing about it.
Immediate Part-Time Job Opportunity: Be a Census Ambassador in Allentown by the City of Allentown Census 2020 | What You Can do by Lehigh Valley Community Foundation ...
For Immediate Release Media Contact: David Jones: (610)-739-3386Don Cunningham: (610)-266-6775Kumari Ghafoor-Davis: (484)-893-1033Alan Jennings: (610)-248-9900 CACLV AWARDED $110,000 GRANT FOR DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF REGIONAL DIVERSITY PLAN Nonprofit Receives Discretionary Federal Block Grant Funds Through PA DCED The Community Action Committee of the Lehigh Valley has won a competitive grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Community and Economic Development to support its initiative to develop a strategic plan for diversity and inclusion in Lehigh and Northampton counties. The project, announced during...
BETHLEHEM, Pa. -$160,000 in state funding will go toward efforts to revitalize south Bethlehem. The Department of Community and Economic Development’s Neighborhood Assistance Program will provide funding to the Community Action Development Corporation of Bethlehem for its SouthSide Vision 20/20, State Sen. Lisa Boscola said. ...
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Alan Jennings advances his causes and tells (almost) all in new book about community activism… ...
ALLENTOWN, Pa. – A new tool was announced Tuesday in Allentown to encourage landlords to reinvest in the city and in turn boost their property value…. ...
The Community Action Committee of the Lehigh Valley will hold a press briefing on Tuesday, November 19th, to announce a significant new tool to continue the revitalization of the neighborhood just northwest of the Neighborhood Improvement Zone in center-city Allentown. ...
The Morning Call ran a brilliant front-page article in the Sunday edition about our public education system. As the opening salvo in a series the paper is running that looks, in depth, at poverty (finally), your reporters made one key point very clear: How we fund and govern public education in Pennsylvania is the single, most effective way we lock inequity into our society. ...
The outpouring of community support for those displaced by the Fountain Street fire in Allentown was more amazing then can be put into words. ...
BETHLEHEM, Pa. – Business and community leaders gathered Tuesday in Bethlehem to announce a new project to combat racism… ...
In the Lehigh Valley, 28% of black residents and 36% of Hispanic residents live in an area with little access to housing, transportation, employment and education, according to data from the Lehigh Valley Planning Commission. ...
ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Investigators are pressing forward in their search for the cause of a fire that took out an entire row of homes in Allentown… ...
hree Lehigh Valley nonprofit agencies are working together to collect and distribute donations for people displaced by Sunday morning’s fire that destroyed 10 homes in Allentown. ...
Oct. 22–“Everything is gone.” That’s what Giovanni Ramos said Sunday while sitting on a bus parked not far from his burned-out home, one of 10 destroyed by a fire that engulfed a block of North Fountain Street in Allentown. ...
MEDIA ADVISORY CONTACT: Alan Jennings 610-248-9900 LEHIGH VALLEY COMING TOGETHER TO NEGATE IMPACT OF RACISM Many of the Lehigh Valley’s major leadership groups will be coming together to announce an unprecedented effort to dull the impact of racism on the people who suffer its consequences. The project, called “Color Outside the Lines” will be announced at a press conference on Tuesday, October 22, at 11:00 PM. The press conference will take place at Northampton Community College’s Fowler Center on Bethlehem’s Southside. The project, organized by...
In his mind’s eye, Sam Mullay has leveraged every square foot of the cavernous former fabrics mill on North 12th Street to help Allentown kids beat the odds. ...
MEDIA ADVISORY CONTACT: Alan Jennings 610-248-9900 CACLV INTRODUCES ITS “PRIORITY BLOCKS” STRATEGY FOR UPSIDE ALLENTOWN Tenth Street’s 200 Block is the First of What the Nonprofit’s Leaders Hope Will Be More On Tuesday, October 15, at 1:30 PM, the Community Action Committee of the Lehigh Valley will introduce its honed strategy for housing-heavy neighborhood revitalization. The nonprofit community development organization will be holding a press conference to introduce the strategy and how it will be funded. Wayne Barz, President of the Board of Directors of...
Anti-Poverty Nonprofit Has Broad Agenda, Addressing Housing, Community Development and Helping Low-Income Find Their Voice September 26, 2019 The Community Action Committee of the Lehigh Valley held its Annual Meeting today in downtown Allentown with a sellout crowd of 260 people in attendance. While speakers focused on the agency’s accomplishments over the past year, the agency’s long-time Executive Director set the stage for its agenda in 2019-20. While offering few details, citing plans to hold three press conferences in the next month, Executive...
In the interest of transparency, we are posting the following report in response to an unfortunate accusation made against the agency last year. It has diverted a substantial amount of attention of several staff and board members. It unfairly led to a mildly unfavorable article in The Morning Call. While we assert that the accusations were reckless with the facts, the special board committee that investigated the episode did make a series of suggestions that have been or are being addressed by the agency. The agency notes that we remain...
On Saturday morning, our executive director, Alan Jennings, was the guest speaker at Bethlehem’s 53rd annual Community Advent Breakfast. Here are his comments, relative to the season and the state of our society. COMMUNITY ADVENT BREAKFAST Moravian Village DECEMBER 2018 CACLV has been around since 1965. I started in December, 1980, right out of college, desperate to make a difference in the world. People ask me how I got to be the way I am. The question is a little disconcerting: “What do you mean,...
The Community Action Committee of the Lehigh Valley and its subsidiary community development corporations in downtown Allentown and South Bethlehem have run comprehensive community development initiatives in all three of our Lehigh Valley cities as well as a multiple municipal partnership in the boroughs of Wind Gap, Pen Argyl, Bangor and Portland for two years. These programs, known as Neighborhood Partnership Programs, have had an impressive impact on these communities. They provide tax credits to companies that make multi-year commitments...
CACLV’s executive director, Alan Jennings, received Communities in Schools’ Annual Community Champion of Education Award on April 6, 2018. Following are his remarks upon receipt of the award. I want to start by thanking Tim Mulligan, Ed Baldrige, Rose Craig and anyone else who had anything to do with giving me this award. You’re all a bunch of poor judges of character… but I sure am glad you are. Aren’t we lucky that Tim decided to return to the area...
The president’s budget proposes the elimination of funding for a series of programs that make it possible for the Community Action Committee of the Lehigh Valley to offer a wide range of assistance to the Lehigh Valley’s low-income families, from weatherizing homes to providing food assistance to families, from small business development to neighborhood revitalization. The president’s budget would shut down the Sixth Street Shelter and undermine the Second Harvest Food Bank. Alan Jennings, the executive director of CACLV for...
Homeownership is No Longer the Key Driver of America’s Industrial Economy One of the biggest issues of the 2008 financial crisis was the housing crisis with the sub-prime mortgages that caused thousands of families to lose their houses, via foreclosure. As a new report from the real estate website Trulia presents, the great reset in the housing market is from owning to renting....
By Nicole Reeder, Dietetic Intern in the Nutrition Education Department at Second Harvest Food Bank Each September, Feeding America spends the month campaigning for hunger awareness. Hunger in America is more prevalent than many realize—1 in 6 Americans to be exact. September is the time to raise awareness of these facts, and to encourage each of us to take action! Here in the Lehigh Valley, Second Harvest Food Bank works year-round to end hunger for the residents of Lehigh, Northampton, Carbon,...
We are almost 2 months into the fiscal year and there is no sign that the legislature is going to do one of the most fundamental tasks they have as a governing body. We still do not have a budget and the halls of the Capitol were empty today. They appear to have no intention of resolving this impasse any time soon. Today, Better Choices, a statewide coalition of groups advocating for a fair budget, held a press conference in the...
By: Delia Marrero I have grown as a person living in poverty, watching a system that creates a cycle of dependency with very few passages for escape. This system promotes stereotypes and generalizations. The conditions that are associated with poverty vary. It is set up in such a manner that children living in poverty receive a second-rate education based on their geographic location and eating sub-standard meals with little or no nutritional value. Neighborhoods lack resources, education rates are low and escape...
Thirty Grants Given to Celebrate BJ’s Wholesale Club’s 30th Anniversary and Increase Local Capacity Allentown, PA. – September 11, 2014 – Second Harvest Food Bank of Lehigh Valley and Northeast Pennsylvania announced Monday they’ll be one of 30 food banks to be awarded grants this September from BJ’s Charitable Foundation. The foundation is distributing grants in celebration of BJ’s Wholesale Club’s 30th anniversary. A member of the Feeding America network, Second Harvest Food Bank is among those awarded gifts to increase...
Contractors will weatherize 20 homes to generate new interest in saving money on energy costs as winter approaches. Date: August 13, 2014 Time: 10:30 AM Location: 1600 Hastings Road, Bethlehem With the harsh winter behind us still giving people the shivers and the next winter approaching, it is a good time to think about how to save money on heating costs. The Community Action Committee of the Lehigh Valley, PPL Electric Utilities and the network of partners weatherizing homes in the Lehigh Valley...
ALLENTOWN – The Sixth Street Shelter, a program of Community Action Committee of the Lehigh Valley, is celebrating its 30th Anniversary with a day of FREE family fun from 12-to-4 p.m. on Saturday, August 16, 2014, on the entire block of North Sixth Street between Turner and Chew Streets in Allentown, where the Shelter is located. What better way to celebrate 30 years of helping to keep families together than by offering free family activities such as carnival games, prizes, food...
Hello all, Tonight’s guests on my show are bloggers Bernie O’Hare (Lehigh Valley Ramblings) and Mike Molovinsky (Molovinsky on Allentown). Both blogs are widely read and both cause just a little bit of controversy. While Bernie focuses primarily on politics and government, Mike spreads his coverage to an array of favorite topics, like boxing and Allentown’s history, as well as politics and government. I’ll be exploring the blogging world as well as the issues in a discussion that has plenty of...
Most social justice movements seem to have a soundtrack. Protest songs like “We Shall Overcome” have almost anthem qualities to them. So many of them are just great songs, plus they rattled the cages of the people in power.
Join me on Lehigh Valley Discourse as I delve into protest music tonight at 6 PM on WDIY (88.1 FM or wdiy.com). My guest will be Silagh White, adjunct professor in Lehigh University’s Baker Institute and Director of Arts Engagement and Community Cultural Affairs.
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Bob Donchez has spent his entire career in service to others: he taught social studies at William Allen High School for decades, served for many years on Bethlehem City Council, ran former Pennsylvania Representative Joe Brennan’s local legislative office before ascending to what may well be his dream job. Join the smartest radio listeners in the Lehigh Valley tonight at 6 PM as I welcome Bethlehem Mayor Bob Donchez to the show. You...
By historical standards, Charlie Dent is a conservative; make no mistake about that. Look at his voting record: he votes for cuts in many domestic social programs, against regulation of business that might improve safety or consumer protections, he gets high marks from taxpayer advocates and he scores low among the various environmental activist groups that rate lawmakers’ voting records. So lots of liberals are appalled when someone like me suggests that Congressman Dent is actually a moderate....
The Lehigh Valley’s cities have become a happening. Through an array of factors, including progressive civic and business leadership, activist mayors, young adults’ interest in cities, tax incentives, location, location and location, Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton are on the march. And who better to talk about its manifestations than the three cities’ directors of community and economic development? Join me on Lehigh Valley Discourse as I welcome Sara Hailstone, Alicia Miller Karner and Gretchen Longenbach, tonight at 6 PM on WDIY (FM...
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Chris Hudock 484-893-1039 RISING TIDE LENDS $427,000 TO 10 SMALL BUSINESSES The Rising Tide Community Loan Fund has made 10 new loans totaling $427,182 in the last year creating or retaining 94 jobs. Of the businesses that received loans, 2 were minority-owned, 8 were women-owned, 5 are located in low- to moderate-income census tracts and 4 were headed by low- to moderate-income entrepreneurs. The following businesses received loans: Salon 516, LLC, a new salon in Bethlehem, borrowed $50,000 to set...
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: NICOLE FOLINO 610-417-8956 More Than 1,000 Taxpayers Per Year Assisted, Saving Hundreds by Avoiding Commercial Preparers and Their Costly “Refund Anticipation Loans” The Community Action Committee of the Lehigh Valley has dozens of trained volunteers waiting to help lower-income taxpayers file their tax returns. Taking advantage of CACLV’s services could save taxpayers hundreds of dollars on fees charged by commercial preparers while also saving them from the high-cost “refund anticipation loans” the commercial preparers offer by charging exorbitant fees...
U.S. Representative Charlie Dent has catapulted to the national political stage because he has tried to bring some moderation to his caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives. The so-called Tea Party conservatives’ strident rhetoric and extremist tactics such as forcing a government shut-down placed many Republican Members of Congress at risk of losing the off-year elections in 2014. Congressman Dent will be Alan Jennings’ guest on Lehigh Valley Discourse on WDIY...
Pennsylvania Representatives Ryan Mackenzie and Mike Schlossberg are finishing their rookie years as legislators. These two talented, smart, hard-working twenty-somethings are rare among partisans these days: they get along, they work together, and they want to get something accomplished. Representatives Mackenzie and Schlossberg with be my guests on Lehigh Valley Discourse tonight (Thursday, January 9) at 6 PM. The conversation will include such topics as a reflection on...
From wide-eyed children to a homeless child, this is the season for and about children. The real test of our humanity is how we as a society treat the little innocents. On Lehigh Valley Discourse this Thursday, Jane Ervin, CEO of Community Services for Children, and Marci Ronald, Vice President for Community Impact at the United Way, will be joining me. We will discuss how well the Lehigh Valley fares in its treatment of our children, not just during the holidays...
The Sixth Street Shelter is hosting an open house on Thursday, November 21, at 3:30 PM, to celebrate the completion of a six-month construction project to expand the shelter. The event will be held in the new building at 223 North Sixth Street in Allentown. Speakers will include the Rev. Dr. Tony Sundermeier, lead pastor of First Presbyterian Church of Allentown, Clyde Holman, deputy secretary of the office of community affairs and development at the Pennsylvania Department of Community and...
Many of us have been victimized by people who spread misinformation about us. It is particularly frustrating when the perpetrator is actually the one violating the rules, whether they be stated or just understood. They launch a campaign of rumors, half-truths and flat-out lies in order to distract attention from their own misdeeds. The Second Harvest Food Bank is being targeted currently and we think that campaign has gone on long enough and deserves a response. The Second Harvest Food Bank...
Esther Guzmán, Director of CACLV’s West Ward Neighborhood Partnership, has been an activist for many years, working with Bethlehem’s Police Department, assisting many other non-profits and training the community in cultural sensitivity. As National Hispanic Heritage Month wraps up, Esther submits the following post: National Hispanic Heritage Month is observed from September 15 to October 15 to celebrate the histories, cultures and contributions of persons whose ancestors came from Spain, the Caribbean, Central and South America. The observation started in 1968...
Matt Cartwright is nearing the end of his first year representing a gerrymandered congressional district that includes Easton and the Slate Belt. His voting record is as Democratic as the other congressman who represents the region, Charlie Dent, is Republican. Listen in tonight as CACLV’s Alan Jennings welcomes Congressman Matt Cartwright on Lehigh Valley Discourse. They will be discussing the government shutdown and other issues of our time, his impressions of Congress as an institution, and what makes him tick. Click here to...
On October 2, the Community Action Committee of the Lehigh Valley held its Annual Meeting, with 200 people in attendance. The agency boasted its 2012-13 accomplishments, introduced four people whose lives were touched by our work, showed a video produced by Marco Calderon, and heard a speech from our executive director, Alan Jennings, commenting on our times and laying out the agency’s agenda for the year. The text of Alan’s speech is as follows: I’m so impressed with the resilience, the...
Lehigh Valley Meet the Buyers An Opportunity to Expand Your Business Join us for the Lehigh Valley’s first “Meet the Buyers” event to be held on Tuesday, October 22nd at SteelStacks in south Bethlehem. Over a dozen Lehigh Valley organizations have created this expo for small business owners to network and grow their businesses. This unique event features 50 corporate and government purchasing agents, such as PPL Corporation, Lehigh Valley Health Network, and Sands Casino Resort Bethlehem. Small business owners will have opportunities...
Ron Swinfard is the CEO of the largest employer in the Lehigh Valley, Lehigh Valley Health Network. The pressure of implementing the Affordable Care Act, also known as “ObamaCare,” falls on him more than, perhaps, any other individual in the region. People are restless about their health care options, physicians are unhappy about the market and its impact on their profession, and competition between the big hospital systems leads some to wonder what the real motives are in health care these...
It’s hard to believe that it’s been over a year since Second Harvest’s very first Cooking Matters course took place. It feels like it happened yesterday; I still know all the names and faces of the kids that participated in that course. I remember thinking that my brand new volunteers and I had our work cut out for us with the kids at that first course. There was a resounding groan when it was announced that black bean and vegetable...
Tomorrow morning, the Lincoln Leadership Academy, a charter school founded by former public school principal Sandra Figueroa, will hold its first-ever commencement exercises on Thursday morning. Tomorrow evening at 6 PM, Ms. Figueroa will be my guest on Lehigh Valley Discourse. She will be joined by two of her graduates, Karina Lovera and Abraham Delacruz. Lincoln Leadership Academy’s students are almost exclusively Latino, many attending to seek an alternative to urban public schools. Charter schools are...
