Hamilton Post
SEPTEMBER 2018
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Groups rally for collapse victims
Family night out
Steinert High student represents New Jersey at Boys Nation in D.C.
By micheLe aLPeRin
By siDDhaRth mUchhaL In a time of ever-increasing political polarization, two Mercer County high school rising seniors had the opportunity to experience first-hand the power of positive politics and government in uniting people with different backgrounds and perspectives. Ashwin Bindra of West Windsor-Plainsboro High School North and Joseph Stilwell of Steinert High School were both selected for Boys State and then elected as the two New Jersey senators to Boys Nation, which gave them the opportunity to practice drafting legislation, make speeches, run for elections, and find ways to make government work for all. Boys State and Boys Nation are summer programs sponsored by the American Legion for high school students (there are also Girls State/Nation programs). The programs offers students the opportunity to participate in simulations of city, county, state and federal government. Students are divided into two fictional political parties—the Federalists and Nationalists. Over the course of a week, they compete in elections and explore policy issues See NATION, Page 10
to SCHOOL
Jeremy, Jordyn and Joshlyn Boateng check out the fire truck at Hamilton National Night Out Aug. 7, 2018 at the police headquarters. For more photos of National Night Out, turn to Page 16. (Photo by Suzette J. Lucas.)
The power of a pact Doctors to present story of their path from troubled youth to successful physicians By micheLe aLPeRin Three teenagers from the most devastated neighborhoods in 1980s Newark, Rameck Hunt, George Jenkins, and Sampson Davis met at University High School, a magnet school, and while juniors in high school made a mutual pact that would change their lives.
Through that mutual support, all three made it through Seton Hall University’s Pre Medicine/Pre Dental program and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. The three doctors are coming to Hamilton Saturday, Sept. 15 to share their story at an event called Mentor Day, where students from grades 6 to 12 and their parents will get to hear from the doctors about the challenges they faced and how they overcame them. The students will also work with mentors from the community while their parents go to “Ed Camp” to learn about what they can do
to help their children succeed. “We are hoping it offers them that window into something they don’t ordinarily see in their everyday lives—a career path, a schooling path—seeing things outside the scope of their normal existence,” said Heather Lieberman, one of several members of the Hamilton Township Board of Education’s District and Community Relations Committee who spearheaded Mentor Day. The event takes place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. for mentors, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. for students and parents, at Crockett Middle School. The organizing committee See DOCTORS, Page 12
Ask The Doctor
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On July 23, around 7 a.m., Tika Justice’s 20-year-old daughter heard a strange noise that caused her to leave her house on Broad Street in Hamilton. Justice, 38, and her 16-yearold daughter did not. And so, as the structure collapsed around them, Justice did what any parent would do—she shielded her daughter from the danger. Justice died in the house collapse trying to protect her young daughter, who suffered damage to her pelvis. Pastor Joseph Woods of Saint Phillips Baptist Church, who with Mayor Kelly Yaede, the John O. Wilson Neighborhood Service Center and the Hamilton firefighters, has rallied the community to provide clothing and financial support to help the sisters who have lost their mother and all their material possessions in the tragedy. “They are there supporting each other but it is an overwhelming experience to have the tragedy of losing your home and your mother the same day and now having to live life with no home, no mother, and their father died when they were very young,” Woods says. The day after the tragedy, 10 minutes after his arrival at his church, Woods heard a knock on his door. It was Yaede. The two had worked together previSee COLLAPSE, Page 14
See our column on page 37