Hamilton Post
FEBRUARY 2019
COMMUNITYNEWS.ORG
To affirm and uplift
Residents tire of TWW turmoil
Excellence Through Education promotes inclusiveness for district’s black students and staff
As Trenton Water Works receives new violations, its customers seek alternatives
by Scott morgan What is it like to be black in a school district like Hamilton? Often enough, said Charisse Smith, the answer is lonely. There’s not necessarily a lot of company. “An African-American student might not find an AfricanAmerican adult in the building,” Smith said. Smith is the president of Excellence Through Education, a nonprofit with the mission to “affirm and uplift African-American and black students” in the Hamilton Township School District. The organization has existed since the 1970s to give students of color a boost. “It’s about letting them see that there are people who look like them and to celebrate academic excellence,” she said. The benefit to students, Smith said, is to provide them with a view “through our lens,” culturally; a means of promoting inclusiveness, and to address the cultural needs black students might have. According to state data, the Hamilton Township School District student body was 48 percent white, 27 percent Hispanic and 18 percent black during the 2016-17 school year. Smith said, as such, black students are often not connected with others across all the district’s schools. And there is a lot to be said for just being See EXCELLENCE, Page 14
FREE
by rob antheS ranthes@communitynews.org
County freeholder Nina Melker, freeholder John Cimino, Hamilton councilwoman Ileana Schirmer, councilman Anthony Carabelli, council president Jeff Martin, Trenton Habitat for Humanity founder Rev. David McAlpin, Saint Phillips Baptist Church Pastor Joseph Woods, Hamilton Mayor Kelly Yaede, Habitat for Humanity of Burlington County and Greater Trenton-Princeton CEO Lori Leonard, Jeff Richardson from New Jersey Manufacturers, Shane Vegari of Wells Fargo and Divina Tucci of Bloomberg break ground Nov. 19, 2018 on one of two homes Habitat plans to build on Parkinson Avenue in Hamilton.
Habitat finds a home Habitat For Humanity to launch pair of programs in town this month by rob antheS ranthes@communitynews.org Although an official announcement won’t occur until the Feb. 5 township council meeting, a movement has taken hold in Hamilton quietly over the last few months. The township government
and local community groups have paired with Habitat For Humanity both to build new homes on vacant lots and to improve already-existing homes that may need a bit of work. The end goal is to promote a sense of pride and togetherness in the community while also achieving the practical objective of cleaning up blighted, unsightly or otherwise rundown properties. The Burlington County-Trenton/Princeton arm of Habitat hopes to achieve this in part through two new initiatives: the Neighborhood Revitalization
Program and a Hamilton-centric event called Rock the Block. The Neighborhood Revitalization Program is part of a new effort for Habitat that expands the organization’s scope beyond its familiar new construction model. Typically, Habitat For Humanity builds new homes and sells them to people for an affordable, income-based mortgage. The Neighborhood Revitalization Program changes the script by working on existing owner-occupied homes that need improvement. See HABITAT, Page 16
Coming off the worst year in its history, Trenton Water Works received notice of three more state violations in January, continuing a cycle the utility has spent months trying to break. Meanwhile, tired of questioning TWW’s ability to fulfill its purpose, residents and suburban towns served by the utility have begun resorting to other measures to ensure they have clean drinking water. Trenton Water Works has insisted the water coming from its system always has been safe. TWW’s management says while progress has been made in correcting deficiencies in staffing and procedures, it continues to struggle to meet state Department of Environmental Protection requirements. All three of the January violations, for example, were due to clerical or administrative issues such as missed deadlines, not new questions about water quality. “State agencies have a tendency to focus too much on the process and not on the final result...What you want as an end result of the DEP regulating TWW is high-quality water,” said See WATER, Page 18
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