Organizers rallying neighbors to protect services for city families

Children in an after-school program at The Festival Center have been baking cookies for an event Saturday that organizers hope will help safeguard just such services for children and their families, especially in the face of the economic downturn.

The event will feature a speech by Matt Rosen, a staff member from one of the nation’s well-known child advocacy organizations, the Children’s Defense Fund.

The hosts, the Lynchburg Covenant Fellowship and the Church of the Covenant, hope the speech will rally the surrounding College Hill neighborhood to coordinate and protect services to children and their families. They also hope that if the effort succeeds, it will serve as a model for other neighborhoods.

That said, the event really is for anyone.

“I see the gathering as, ‘Come if you’re interested,’” said the Rev. Curtis Harper, head of the board of The Festival Center.

The Festival Center at 501 Madison St. is the setting for the speech and meeting, which includes lunch. The event is scheduled for 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

The speech marks the second visit to Lynchburg in recent years by a CDF leader. Two years ago its founder and president, Marian Wright Edelman, came to town.

Rosen, the CDF deputy director of religious action, accompanied her. People from the Lynchburg Covenant Fellowship and the Church of the Covenant have kept in touch with him.

“I’m excited to come back to Lynchburg,” Rosen said by phone. Moreover, he said he’s glad to hear of efforts to bring a neighborhood together to address the needs of children.

Rosen said he plans to tell people about the federal stimulus package and other recent legislation, as well as some best practices he’s seen in other parts of the country.

The Lynchburg Covenant Fellowship and the Church of the Covenant got involved in College Hill because each has a presence in the area.

During the 1970s, the fellowship bought an old tavern on Madison Street. (The nonprofit has other properties in the area, such as the Lynchburg High Apartments, which offer low-income housing.)

It lets the tavern be used for neighborhood needs and rents space for The Festival Center, a community center created by a mission group of the Church of the Covenant.

The Festival Center offers a number of services, including child-centric ones such as the after-school program where children can study, unwind and make dinner.

Times have changed since Edelman’s visit, though, particularly with the unraveling economy.

“We are very concerned that cuts in health care programs, affordable housing and educational services are going to severely affect already disadvantaged neighborhoods in the city of Lynchburg,” states a letter of invitation from the fellowship and church.

“During these times of budget-cutting and downsizing, action is needed that will safeguard our children, the most vulnerable among us.”

They hope Rosen will “advise us how we can best organize ourselves for actions for both advocacy and service,” the letter states.

The Rev. Kaye Edwards, a member of the Church of the Covenant who works for the church’s parent organization, said no single problem prompted the fellowship and church to organize the meeting.

Rather, she said, they wanted to make sure services in the neighborhood aren’t duplicated and that the services meet the needs that residents consider priorities.

The goal is the formation of an advocacy coalition of area churches, businesses, apartment complexes, programs, neighborhood organizations, community centers, schools and individuals.

The two organizations have sent out invitations to elected officials, businesses, churches, agencies, neighborhood organizations, educators, health care representatives, police and city officials, and others. And they have canvassed the neighborhood, Edwards said.

Harper said he sees the event as a chance for all those who are doing good things in College Hill to sit down together and figure out how to meet some “humongous needs.”

And who knows? Rosen said. Someday, he might be telling people in other parts of the country what the people of Lynchburg have done.