Page 12 RAIN June 1':181 Pierce and Johns are co-directors of the Ontario Lakers Youth Organization in Washington , D.C. The Lakers were founded by WaIter Pierce in 1964 when the Adams-Morgan neighborhood was predominantly a minority and low-income resident area. In 1981 low-income black and hispanic residents are struggling to remain in the area which is now a fashionable section, increasingly inhabited by middle and upper income residents. Real estate values have increased 500% since 1970. Pierce and Johns are leading activists struggling with the issues of displacement facing low-income youth. They were interviewed by Neil Seidman, from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance in Washington D.C. Neil is Director of Waste Utilization at ILSR and is currently focussing on creating businesses which youth own and control. Unemployed youth do not worry about poisoned rivers, foul air, and carcinogens in food. N.S. What does recycling mean to you and the Ontario Lakersl Walter Pierce. Recycling means several things to ou r members. First it means the collection and sale of newspapers, aluminum and other items to raise money for sports programs, trophies and equipment.The Lakers have done this since 1964. In the early 1970's we learned from a group called Community Technology that tools and skills can also be recycled. The more skills our youth learn the more money will come back to them. There's nothing new about recycling. Poor people always learn to re-use and use up everything in the survival game. But in Adams-Morgan we began fighting for public services, land and buildings because we knew that this was the closest we would come to owning things permanently. We fought for control over our school. When a 62 year old lady, Charlotte Filmore, sat-in on vacant land for a recreation space for her day-care center, it began a 14 year fight for what is now Community Park West, a 4.6 acre park in the heart of AdamsMorgan that the community won from the city, federal government and developers. We not only recycled that land, but we recycled community organizations too. N.S. How does "recycling community organizations" work? Wendy Johns. Two community organizations won the fight for Community Park West. The Ontario Lakers who used the land as its home field-Ghetto Stadium which we built with our own hands out of scrap lumber; and the Adams-Morgan Organization, one of the first neighborhood governments created in the U.S. The personnel and energies of these organizations were used to build up our Neighborhood Planning Council (NPC) and Advisory Neighborhood Council (ANC) when they became legal agencies in D.C. The NPC's are unique in the country. Youth meet in community assemblies once a mon th to allocate $75,000 a year to local programs they monitor and administer. Our NPC's office is a renovated police station. The ANC's have advisory power over all matters in their area, and they are part of the DC Homerule Charter. Walter Pierce. The Ontario Lakers model has been recycled many times. Our neighborho()d basketball tournament was so popular, it became citywide within 2 years. Now the Ghetto Invitational Basketball Tournament attracts over 50 teams, coaches and scouts. We've taught players, referees, coaches. And provide training and discipline for thousands of low-income youth who need structure and reinforcement. Now we have the Washington Football Alliance, built up on the neighborhood team networks just like the Basketball Tournament. We brought girls teams into the BasRECY( ketball Tournament two years agci. At first the boys laughed. Now they can't believe what they see. Wendy Johns. When the Ontario Lakers got swindled out of the building where its main office, library and youth center was located, we recycled four community groups into a cooperative association, got a loan commitment from the National Consumer Cooperative Bank and got ourselves a new building. N.S. What does recycling do for youth? Walter Pierce. Naturally when a young person gets ownership in something, things change. Pride comes. Responsibility too. And hard work. We always tell our kids you can't live in the house on the hill until you work the land, set roots deep. Kids understand this. Lakers youth don't want a free ride. They come to me and say, we want to come back to Lakers. We didn't get paid but we did Poor people always learn to re-use and use up everything in the survival game.
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