Read About Uber Street

* This is where I was last week.  I'm elated that it's getting some press exposure.  Thanks to Jamie.

Teaching tolerance in the street

Day camp creates safe haven for North Phila. children.

By Vernon Clark

Inquirer Staff Writer

The Rev. Taehoo Lee , a Temple University instructor and Baptist minister who lives a few blocks away, organized the camp. He hopes to launch a neighborhood after-school program next.

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For young children in North Philadelphia, it's a way to have fun and learn a few things in the waning weeks of summer.

Yet for the 43 mostly Asian volunteers of the three-week "play street" program in the 2100 block of Uber Street, it's a way to bridge communities, spread Christian faith, and reach out to a neighborhood in need.

"We believe the Gospel should have an impact in the community," said the Rev. Taehoo Lee, who organized the Uber Street Summer Camp. "It should have an impact for the betterment of the community."

Lee, a Temple University instructor and Baptist minister who lives a few blocks away, said the Uber Street program engages children ages 4 to 13 in activities including arts and crafts, martial arts, African American history, and Bible study. The free program, in its second year under Lee's leadership, runs from July 31 to Aug. 18.

As about 40 children used colored chalk to draw pictures on the asphalt of this tree-lined street yesterday morning, Lee said the goal was to provide a safe and fun place for children to play and learn in the summer.

He said the program also brings together Asian Americans and African Americans in new ways.

The majority of the 43 volunteers at the camp are Asian Americans. Thirty-one are from a church in Flushing, N.Y., and five are from a church in North Haledon in North Jersey.

Lee said that most people in North Philadelphia know Koreans and other Asian Americans only as merchants who come to the black community to operate delis and other shops.

The Uber Street Summer Camp "breaks stereotypical ideas about African Americans and Koreans," Lee said. "This breaks down walls between two communities."

The volunteers "come here and see a different face of African Americans, and the community sees Asian Americans in a different light," Lee said.

Hanna Chung, a Chicago native who is volunteering in the program this summer, said neighbors had embraced the program and its workers.

"I was surprised with how welcoming the community has been," Chung said. "The neighbors see this as a good program."

Nick Foster, 70, a resident of the block for close to a decade, said the summer camp program had been good for the neighborhood.

"I think it's nice for the kids. We need it more often," Foster said. "It helps keep them out of trouble. I look out my door and they are enjoying themselves."

Lee said the "play street" program was originally operated by community resident Michael Riley, whom he befriended when Lee moved to the neighborhood.

"He wanted to have some program that could engage the children," Lee said.

Lee said he and Riley planned to volunteer and provide lunch to the children, but a few months before the program was to begin, Riley died. Lee said other neighbors "stepped up in his place."

Lee said he called on high school and college students from Korean American churches and from his classes at Temple University, where he teaches an intellectual-heritage course that combines history, philosophy and other disciplines.

He said that running the program cost about $10,000 and that the money came from individual donors and churches he had contacted.

Lee said he hoped later to launch a year-round after-school program for neighborhood children.

Ann Tanner, who lives about a block away from Uber Street and whose grandchildren attend the camp, said the race of the volunteers didn't matter.

"It's not about their race. The kids just love them," Tanner said. "This is the best thing that could happen to our kids."