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SummerWorks
Baskin Glover, president of Tennessee State
University; Cheryl Pearson McNeil, senior
VP with Nielsen; and Julie Griffith, founder
of J Griffith Public Relations.
Sheryl Lee Ralph, one of the original
Dreamgirls, spoke about her work in HIV
and AIDS prevention and education. The
Tony Award-winner founded the Divinely
Inspired Victoriously Anointed Foundation,
to raise money in memory of friends she
lost to AIDS. The foundation holds an annu-
al luncheon where everyone wears gloves, a
work with the National Conference of Black
Mayors, where he chairs the education
reform task force
A new slate of officers was elected to the
NNPA national board and to the NNPA
Foundation. Cloves Campbell, Jr., publish-
er of the Arizona Informant, was re-elected
to a second term as NNPA chairman.
“I am honored that my colleagues have
chosen to give me another term as chair-
man,” Campbell said. “It was a strong vote
of confidence for our leadership team.”
The other NNPA officers elected
are: First Vice Chair: Mollie
Finch Belt, Dallas Examiner;
Second Vice President: John B.
Smith, Sr., Atlanta Inquirer; Sec-
retary: Natalie Cole, Our Week-
ly; and Treasurer: Lenora
Alexander, Denver Weekly
News.
Officers elected to the NNPA
Foundation are: Thomas H.
Watkins, Jr., New York Daily
Challenge; Jackie Hampton, Mississippi
Link; Mary Denson, Windy City Word;
Beverly Stanton McKenna, New Orleans
Tribune; and Pluria Marshall, Wave Com-
munity Newspapers.
Cloves Campbell, Jr.,
publisher of the Arizona
Informant, was re-elected to
a second term as NNPA
chairman
way to drive home the message: “No glove:
No love.”
Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson was
one of the keynote speakers. Johnson, who
attended with his wife the controversial
educator Michelle Rhee, spoke about his
PHOTO BY EMILY VOLPERT, AN INTERN IN THE MULTNOMAH COUNTY COMMUNICATIONS OFFICE
continued from page 1
Commissioner Loretta Smith kicked off the SummerWorks internship
program July 8. Smith is pisctured here with Deonta McFerson and his sister
De’Ontria McFerson. Close to 200 low-income youth will have the
opportunity to work and learn this summer thanks to the program, funded
by Multnomah County and the City of Portland, through jobs nonprofit
Worksystems.
Scafé
continued from page 1
bat for former felons?
Well for one thing, he knows exactly what
it’s like to battle the perception that a felony
conviction means you can’t be a good per-
son.
In the summer before his senior year at
Virginia Union University, he made a terri-
ble mistake. Under the influence, he took
part in a robbery with a group of friends
who had embarked on a criminal path.
“I knew better; I came from a two-parent
family; I had a religious upbringing,” he
said. “But I still wound up making the
wrong decision. Alcohol and drugs played a
part. I wouldn’t have done it if I had been in
my right mind. But I made a terrible deci-
sion that will affect me for my whole life.”
Price never returned to the Historically
Black College he’d grown to love, and the
learning he treasured. Instead at age 20, he
was sent to prison to serve four years, 10
months and 27 days.
“That was the worst experience of my
life,” he said. “I’ve done my time and I’ve
served. So for me giving back and helping
these guys is important because I know how
hard it is. I know people will not take you
seriously, and they will constantly brand
you. They have concepts about what a per-
son who goes to the penitentiary is. So I
want to debunk that myth.”
SCAFÉ officially won its 501C3
nonprofit designation last Novem-
ber, but for Price it’s the culmina-
tion of 10 years of work. He got
his start at the House of Umoja,
counseling youth leaving gangs.
Now he works part-time with the
Center for Intercultural Organiz-
ing, as a racial justice policy advo-
cate;
and
part-time
with
psychologist Joy DeGruy’s youth mentor-
ship program.
“The nonprofit world really has opened its
arms to me,” he says. “That’s where I feel
most comfortable is in the nonprofit, social
justice, equality movement, because we’re
all going for the same goal: that is the com-
mon good of all people.”
An internship at Multnomah County,
where Price worked with county chair Jeff
Cogen and public safety administrator
Roberta Phillip cemented his determination
to form a nonprofit to help men facing the
community groups reach out to people and
offer tutoring. The community organiza-
tions took the idea and ran with it.
Cassandra Minnieweather and Lakeesha
Dumas are working through Straightway
Services to offer GED tutoring as part of the
organization’s other support services for
et ministry, through fliers, Facebook, Twit-
ter, at low-income housing facilities and out
on the street.
“Sometimes it takes incentives, maybe a
meal, to bring them here,’’ she said. “People
need to see success stories. They also need
to understand that timing is key, and they’ll
bundle of joy.” But at 35, he is still playing
catch up. He’s still a year short of his bach-
elor’s degree. Yet he is determined to make
a difference.
His family taught him to think about oth-
ers and give before taking, he said. His
mother is so generous he remembers
her feeding everyone, including
homeless people. It was hard to feel
that he had let them all down so badly.
Giving back is a way to make amends,
he said.
“I really wouldn’t be able to sleep at
night if I wasn’t doing something for
other people.”
Donate business attire to SCAFÉ or
volunteer at 4310 NE Martin Luther
King Jr. Boulevard. 503-866-6250
www.scafe.org
Attend SCAFÉ’ s Coffee and Conversa-
tion, held from 10a.m. to noon every third
Saturday at the office: July 20 on Independ-
ence and entrepreneurship; Aug. 17, the
Back to School drive.
SCAFÉ’s mission is to show that
people who have made
mistakes and taken responsibility
for them, can be mature,
hardworking, and loyal.
same barriers he has faced.
“That really catapulted me to get serious
about the social justice movement,” he says.
“That experience was one of the most valu-
able I’ve ever had. I just learned so much.”
Today Price is a doting father to a two-
year-old daughter – he calls her, “my little
GED
continued from page 1
com ;
Africa House, 621 N.E. 102nd Ave., 503-
802-0082 ;
Portland Opportunities Industrialization
Center, 717 N. Killingsworth Court,
503-797-7222 info@portlandoic.org ;
SE Works, 7916 SE Foster Road, Suite
103/104 503-772-2300 ;
Community colleges also have GED
courses.
Call the Londer Learning Center to help
find your best option at 503-319-1899
Antoinette Edwards, director of the Port-
land’s Office of Youth Violence Prevention,
is planning to push the GED closeout mes-
sage right under people’s noses: in church
bulletins, on public transportation, in fast
food restaurants, on grocery bags.
“This is more of a mass callout, a shout-
out,’’ Edwards said.
At a recent Gang Violence Task Force
meeting, she talked about her plan to have
People who haven’t completed the test by the
end of December will have to start over
families struggling with crime, addiction
and poor access to education.
They were excited to become part of the
closeout campaign when they heard
Edwards talk about it.
The main challenge will be to persuade
people to come to classes, Minnieweather
said. She plans to promote the program in
church, at the food bank, at the clothes clos-
have access to tutors and other free
resources.
“Just to diminish the costs, that’s half the
battle,’’ she said.
According to the American Community
Survey’s five-year estimates (2006-2010),
there are more than 271,000 Oregonians
(age 18-64) without a high school diploma
or GED certificate. Of those, the people
who held jobs earned on average $471 a
week in 2012, compared to $652 for high
school graduates and $749 for those with
some college or an associate degree.
The Oregon Employment Department
projects that between 2010 and 2020, of
about 728,000 job openings, 30 percent will
have no educational requirement. About 68
percent will require a high school diploma
or an equivalent, said occupational econo-
mist Brenda Turner.
So the odds of getting a job might double
with the GED.
More than 16,000 Oregonians are
enrolled in the GED process but haven’t fin-
ished, said state GED administrator Marque
Haeg. The current version was introduced
in 2002, and since then, between 9,000 and
10,000 people have received their GEDs in
Oregon every year.
In 2001, before the former test changed,
14,000 people got their certificates. Haeg is
expecting a similar turnout this year.
July 10, 2013 The Portland Skanner Page 3