POPCORN KIDZ APPROACHING ITS 50TH CONSECUTIVE MONTH

[People's Organization for Progress]

THE PEOPLE’S ORGANIZATION FOR PROGRESS

PO BOX 22505

NEWARK, NJ 07101

973 801 0001

www.njpop.org

CONTACT: LAWRENCE HAMM

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 

CHILDREN’S PROGRAM REACHES MILESTONE!

 

            On Saturday, January 28^th, the Popcorn Kidz’ Black History Program will reach its fourth year of consistent family friendly education at the Irvington Public Library.

            The program was launched by Sandra Hayward, chair of the People’s Organization for Progress’ Irvington chapter, to be an educational component to the community service oriented mentoring that the program was already doing.

            The program, which takes place every fourth Saturday in the Irvington Public Library, began back in January 2013 at the Newark Public Library. In the spring of that year, they were invited by the Irvington library leadership to partner with their Children’s Department and have become a much anticipated fixture there ever since.

            “We are actually based in Irvington,” Hayward explains.

            “So when we got the opportunity to actually host the program back in Irvington, it was a natural fit.”

            The program and its volunteer staffers, who include educator Andrea Jones, young Irvington poet Jaleesa McEachin, children’s volunteer advocate Sharon Hands of ICY Kids, P.O.P. treasurer Angenetta Robinson and videographer Jerry Fann, were cited by the NJ State Legislature for Outstanding Community Service.

            “This is something that literally came out of the heart and hands of Sandra Hayward,” said a proud Lawrence Hamm.

            “They do all of this without any grants or sponsors, just from their heart and sense of commitment.

            “She really deserves a lot of credit and appreciation for what they do.”

            They have spotlighted some incredible participants in the history they share including living legends like unsung civil rights pioneer, Claudette Colvin, the first of four women to willfully face arrest over segregated busing in Montgomery, Alabama before Rosa Parks to octogenarian Willa Cofield who survived personal KuKluxKlan attacks on her home as a young activist educator in North Carolina, to poet-activist Amina Baraka, among others.

            Colvin’s courageous moment has been chronicled in a book entitled Twice Towards Justice.

            On Saturday, they will do a spotlight on Black pioneers in medicine and science, focusing directly on the legacies of Dr. Daniel Hale Williams and George Washington Carver, in response to the revealing NASA story of the pioneering Black female mathematicians, Katherine G. Johnson, Dorothy Vaughn and Mary Jackson, captured in the critically acclaimed film Hidden Figures.

            The program will begin at 1:30pm. The Irvington Library is located at 5 Civic Square Irvington.

            Next month, on Saturday, February 25^th, they will mark their 50^th consecutive month of programming  to observe Black History Month. They will be joined by special guests former Assemblyman William Payne, now an elder statesman of electoral politics in New Jersey, and P.O.P. chairman Lawrence Hamm, who is now going into his 46^th year of commitment to social justice.

            Payne’s Amistad Bill is the inspirational agent for the conceiving of the program.

            For information about the Popcorn Kidz, please call 201 515 9869…