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Loss of Grand Street Settlement AIDP
Participant
Darkel Cooper was a member of Grand
Street Settlement's AIDP Program at Louis D. Brandeis H.S. On Saturday,
June 13th, he was stabbed to death.
Shortly before he passed away, Darkel wrote the following poem which
demonstrated his desire to find a positive future for himself. We are
sorry his life was cut so short.
Reality Check! (rap)
Coming
up in the hood is hard!
Yeah I thought that way
Till my path got paved by God
Saved by god
I was all messed up in the game!
Yeah I smoked a lot of weed and I was cutting the ‘caine
I was dead on drugs! But im different now!
I stayed the life of the party
I was pitching nouns!
Then I read the book of Christ
I quit rolling them dice
He told me that “I need to stop gambling life
Get your life back on track stop smoking that PIFF
And if you write write some facts
and not that Bullshit!”
Don’t empty that full clip!
Cause you killing your self!
You need to read these words and start healing yourself!
You need to feed your verb and live life to live it
If life aint have no purpose God would not give it
You need to take what you got
And live life to the fullest!
You gone be dead if you a thug
And get hit by them bullets
They say life is what you make it!
So don’t fool yourself
Try getting an education
And go to school for health
Cause living in this world doing nothing
“OH” yous a dead person
And if you do a lot of drugs YEAH yous a dead person!
Now I aint gone lie I was like that
Till I stop smoking them trees I got my life back
Now Im right back on my second year of this re-birth
I was dead now im alive
I had to come out the street first
Had to put down the heat first and stop all the beef first
Had to turn the music up so I can set up a sweet verse!
And hop on the beat next
So get ready to be blessed
Cause this year Im coming out like recess
Darkel Cooper
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YOUR SOURCE FOR ALL
THAT IS NEW AT GSS
Grand Street Settlement 2.0
February 9th, 2009.
We
are very excited to announce our presence on facebook.com and
change.org! Our new online communities are a great way for you to find
out about upcoming events, network with other members of the Grand
Street Family,
and more!
Join us on the web today!
Join us on Facebook!
Grand Street
Settlment's 11th Annual Martin Luther King Day March
January 23, 2009.
Grand
Street Settlement celebrated
the end of an historic week by hosting its 11th Annual
Martin Luther
King March just days after the inauguration of President Barak Obama.
Starting at 4:30PM at 80 Pitt Street,
a crowd of roughly 150 children and youth marched down Rivington Street
to Grand Street Settlement's Beacon Center. Permits were issued by
NYPD’s 7th Precinct to close off traffic on Rivington Street between the blocks of Pitt and Norfolk for the march.
   
NYCares
Donates 500 Coats to Grand Street Settlement
January 13th,
2009. Volunteer
organization, New
York Cares, is in its twentieth year of donating holiday gifts and coats to
needy New Yorkers. Among the 80,000 coats that were collected and
distributed
by New York Cares all around the city, Grand Street Settlement received
500 in
mid-January. “This donation could not have come at a better time,” said Diane
Camacho, Director of the Grand Coalition of Seniors, in anticipation of
temperatures in the low-teens just days after the donation arrived.
“This year
is predicted to be the coldest winter in four years. And as the cost of
food
and utilities keep going up, these seniors are really appreciative of the
donation of a warm winter coat. It’s one less thing they have to worry
about.”
  
It's the year of
the RAT!
February 2008. In
China, the Rat - and those of us born in the Year of the Rat - are
appreciated and considered a
courageous, innovative person. It is an honor to be born in the Year of
the Rat - and in honor of the Rat, Grand Street Settlement's Senior
Center hosted a grand
celebration!
At Grand Street Settlement the Chinese New Year celebration
features an especially colorful and diverse display of talent to mark
the
occasion. Dancers tango, cha-cha, and flamenco in shimmering red,
maroon, pink,
black, and gold costumes. Men and women, Chinese, Hispanic, black,
silver-haired and young in spirit, sing and move in unison, rattling
tambourines and waving red and pink scarves.
The Grand Street Settlement tai chi instructor says, “We are different
races, but we all do tai chi together.”
Grand Street Settlement is thrilled to
recognize the energy
and creativity that makes this celebration so special and fun, year
after year.
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10002 | 212 674-1740 | info@grandstreet.org
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