Pennsylvania New Freedom Bus Tour Reports

Day 5- After a wonderful rest on the beautiful grounds at Fellowship Farm, we headed north to Wilkes Barre. There we were hosted for the night by Reverend Dr. Stan Hamilton of Hands of Hope. Reverend Stan told us of his and his organization's work to provide food, help with housing, welfare jobs, health care and education for poor families in Wilkes Barre, the third largest city in PA that has been devastated by the closing of the coal mines and textile factories. We left with a commitment to stay in touch with Reverend Stan and Hands of Hope as we continue to organize in our communities throughout Pennsylvania for the March for Economic Human Rights at the RNC Convention and to build a massive movement to end poverty in this country.

From Wilkes Barre, we headed on to Williamsport, we first ate lunch in a soup kitchen. There we spoke with people working at and eating at the soup kitchen about their problems with housing, food, welfare and jobs. One mother who works at the soup kitchen told us about how she had just been cut from food stamps for her family, right before Mothers' Day because someone told the welfare office that she occasionally eats at the soup kitchen when she doesn't have enough food to feed herself and her children. We also met two mothers, one of whom traveled with her daughter, who came an hour from Bloomsburg to eat at the soup kitchen because there is no soup kitchen there. They told one of our freedom riders their stories. One mother has a disabled child (who was with her at the soup kitchen) for whom she has been denied SSI. She is seven months pregnant and was evicted because of her pregnancy and is now living homeless sharing space in a trailer park with another family. The other woman told us of how she had been denied her right to health care and a living wage job, despite having major medical problems. She had to turn down a job because she would have lost her medical care, and she could not afford to do this, given her serious medical condition and need for constant medical care. Both of these women were excited to hear for the first time about the possibility of learning how to organize and fight for their basic needs and their economic human rights. They had never thought that there was an alternative to accepting the poverty they live in. They were anxious to come to the March on July 31st and made us promise to stay in touch with them to link up in the future and help them organize in Bloomsburg.

The driver of the van at the church which hosts the soup kitchen committed to organizing a group of poor families from Williamsport to come in the church van for the March in Philadelphia on July 31st.

After the soup kitchen, we walked to the welfare office, where we passed out flyers for the March for EHR, and then we flyered door to door, meeting poor people of all races who live side by side, sharing the same poverty, unemployment, low paying jobs and problems with housing, health care and welfare. As we walked through the neighborhood, we passed abandoned factories and a sweatshop where downsized factory workers and welfare recipients forced off of welfare work in unhealthy and unsafe conditions for wages which are not enough to support their families. Again people were interested in the March for Economic Human Rights at the Republican Convention and it was obvious that our coming to the community helped to break their isolation and show them that by organizing they can do something about their conditions.