Fire, Jenga, Chinatown, and No Look Eric doing a swing out sister.

This week would probably have been a good week to get two posts in as I definitely had enough to write by wed or Thursday but have now forgotten most of that stuff. Unfortunatley, I am simultaneously too busy and too lazy for that. I will do my best to remember the happenings of the last busy week.

Last Monday after I posted my blog, it started to snow again. Not wanting my car to be stuck for another month, I spent a few hours (with snow falling and a separated shoulder) digging our cars out of the back yard. After the cars were out, Chad and I borrowed a free standing fire pit from the extreme make over house and started a fire in our backyard. We cooked hot dogs, smoked cigars and just enjoyed the company of our roommates and the warmth of the fire as the snow fell around us. It was a pretty great night and reminded me a lot of being back home in California with my friends (except for the snow falling of course).

Tuesday we had our first day of camp for the week. The day went well and I had my basketball class which also went relatively smoothly. Playing basketball with the kids all week with a injured shoulder really gives me a lot of respect and admiration for football quarterbacks who play through a separated shoulder. It hurts just shooting a basketball. I can't imagine throwing a football as hard as I can down field and getting tackled by 280 pound defensive ends. I can't remember what I did Tuesday night because I have waited too long to write this and so much has happened since.

Lookin at me like I'm crazy (prob cuz I am)

The roads in Camden have been covered in snow for the past month and for some reason the city does not plow or salt them. Because of this, two Urban Promise buses got stuck while taking kids home from camp on Monday. With the roads (especially the narrow side streets with cars parked on the sides) so difficult and dangerous to drive on, all of the after school programs were canceled on Wednesday (except for mine because my director hates canceling camp and a lot of our kids walk home anyway).

While I was stuck in California, I missed my favorite street leader's birthday. Because he seemed somewhat disappointed that I missed it, I decided to take Eman and his friend to dinner after camp. We went to Friday's where we ordered the the course meal deal thing and ate more food than should have ever been able to fit in our stomachs. The meal only cost about 60 bucks for all 3 of us which seemed like a great deal for how glutenous we were able to be. After I took them home, I jumped in the car with a few other interns and headed into Philly for a concert at some bar. This is the second time that I had seen Rachel's sister's band (they are called Turning Violet Violet) and I enjoyed them even more this time than I did the first time. I also had a espresso beer that I really enjoyed but can now not for the life of me remember what it was called.

Eman


At the concert

Thursday we had camp as usual and I taught a lesson about forgiveness (with the a little help from my director) and I can't exactly remember what I did Thursday night.

On Friday I hung out around Urban Promise most of the day until the evening when some of the other interns and a couple other people that work for Urban and I decided to head into Philly to find a Karaoke bar. We were told about some Irish pub that had karaoke, so we headed there first to check it out. Jessie was driving the van and we decided to drive down the alley where the bar was to see if there was a cover charge. As we got to the end of the alley we came to a small one way street with the one way we were allowed to go blocked off. We quickly darted down the street in the wrong direction, expecting to pull back out onto the main road before a car came the right way onto the street. When we got to the main road, that too was blocked off. Jessie then decided to drive around the road block, over the curb, to get onto the main street. By the time I was able to inform her that the car she was about to cut off was a police officer, it was too late and the officer quickly turned his lights on and got out of the car. I rolled down my window, as I probably have more experience talking to cops than most, and he walked up and asked me what the hell we thought we were doing. I explained to him the predicament we had gotten ourselves into and as it turns out he was the nicest officer on the planet. He said,"Well lets get you outta here then." , moved the road closed signs out of our way and blocked traffic allowing us to pull out. I can only assume that this happened because we had a cute girl driving the car and will now forever assume that cute girls catch every break and resent them for it.

After all of this we finally parked near bye and headed into the bar. There was a two dollar cover charge which we all payed. I then ordered a drink just before realizing that this extremely over crowded bar did not, in fact, have karaoke. We asked one of the bouncers of there was a karaoke bar near bye and he told us that the closest one was in Chinatown. I quickly finished my drink and went to close out my tab when I was informed that there was a minimum of ten dollars to pay with a credit card. I ordered another drink, quickly finished that one as well and then I closed out and we walked to Chinatown.

After asking some random girls on the streets of Chinatown, we finally were able to find the karaoke bar. We walked into this sushi restaurant and headed up the stairs to one of the coolest karaoke bars I have ever seen. We got ourselves a private room (thanks to Jesus (Castro not Christ) for paying for that), did some sake bombs and sang Karaoke for a couple of hours. I had an absolute blast. After we left the bar we went to a diner and got breakfast at 2 in the morning before heading home and going to bed.

Street sign in chinatwon. We had no idea what not to do in order to avoid a 300 dollar fine.

On Saturday I went grocery shopping for the house and then helped clean the walls of our kitchen, which we are sort of remodeling, so that they would be ready to paint. I was supposed to go out to the bar with some people who work for Urban Promise and some other people from Camden but I wasn't really feeling up to it so I just watched a movie and went to bed.

On Sunday I watched basketball on TV for most of the day and then headed over to the other intern house to see what they were up to. Jessie had some friends from college in town and they were about to head to Dirty Franks when I showed up. I tagged along with them to Dirty Franks and when we got there they were about to have a Jenga tournament at the bar. Just for fun, Jessie's Friend's boyfriend and I decided to enter the contest. We both ended up winning and advancing to the semi finals which will take place in two weeks. The guy that I played in the first round was absolutely ridiculous. Apparently he was one of the favorites to win the tournament. He used all kinds of crazy "jenga terms" like swing out sister and uptown sally. He also introduced himself as No Look Eric. It was extremely hard to keep a straight face while playing him, as he seemed like a character out of a bad B action film, but I actually managed to win.

This week should be a little less eventful than last week but if it's not I'll do my best to force myself to write a midweek update. Also be looking forward to hearing about the Jenga Semi Finals in two weeks.

We had a little scare last week when the school district threatened to cancel spring break due to all the snow days, but they ended up deciding against it. Our spring break trip is going to be to California and we need lots of donations to be able to fund this trip (about 13,000$). We also need people in the San Gabriel Valley/Inland Empire/Orange County areas to help us out by either providing a place for us to stay or cooking us a meal. There are going to be 22 of us (14 kids and 8 adults). Please let me know if you would like to help in any way.

Two weeks of snow and how it has kicked my ass in every way possible

It's been two weeks since my last post. This is because I have not been in Camden for the majority of the last two weeks.

I mentioned in my last post that we were starting classes for kids at the after school program and that I was going to be teaching basketball. I had my first class on Tuesday and it went really well. The divide in skill levels in the class was the only thing that made my task slightly difficult. The kids ranged from tripping over their own feet to playing for their Jr. high basketball teams. This made things a little frustrating for the latter group who had to wait for me to show the former group how to do things they learned 5 years ago. Over all the class went well though and I am looking forward to continuing it this week.

On Tuesday I flew to California for a test for a job in Ventura. I took the test on Wednesday. It was more difficult than the others I have taken but I think I did fairly well. I spent the rest of the week hanging out with friends and was scheduled to get on a plane to return to Camden on Sunday morning. However, on Saturday I received a call from the airline saying that my flight had been canceled due to all the snow in Philadelphia. I rescheduled my flight for Monday and decided to head up to Wrightwood to go snowboarding with Brett (who works there as an instructor) on Sunday. The first run of the day, at the very top of the mountain, I went for a backside 360 off of one of the bigger jumps at Mt. High. This was a pretty foolish thing to do as everyone knows you don't go for big tricks like that on your first run. In the course of my 360, I somehow managed to get a little off axis and came down on the nose of my board which then slingshotted me into the ground. It felt like getting hit by a truck and was on of the the most painful falls I have ever had snowboarding. I basically destroyed my right shoulder and my hip. I continued to ride (slowly and painfully) for the rest of the day and even taught a couple snowboard lessons with Brett while I was there (I worked at Mt. High as an instructor last year).

Me doing about the only trick i could do without wanting to cry like a little girl after the injury.

While we were on the mountain we had Jason turn on the hot tub and record the Superbowl for us. When we got back we watched the super bowl (sans commercials), went in the hot tub and then I headed home.

My flight was again cancelled on Monday, so I rescheduled it for Tuesday. It was cancelled on Tuesday so I rescheduled it for Wednesday. It was cancelled on Wednesday so I rescheduled it for Friday. Finally on Friday I was able to return to Camden.

On Saturday we took a trip to Baltimore with the street leaders to visit the Great Blacks in Wax Museum. It was pretty cool but very intense. The trip took pretty much the entire day and when we returned I watched a movie and went to bed.

Sunday I woke up and was basically stuck at my house, seeing as how my car is buried under the snow in my back yard and my shoulder hurts way too much to spend several hours digging it out. After a full day of boredom, five interns from the other house came and picked me and Chad up and took us to Dirty Franks (the sweet dive bar we discovered in Philadelphia). We played darts and hung out for a few hours and then returned home. We have today off for Presidents day, which means I am again stuck at the house and bored out of my mind. I am really looking forward to getting back to work tomorrow and actually getting to hang out with the kids again.

In the last two weeks snow has dislocated my shoulder, bruised my hip, derailed my travel plans several times, stolen my car, and made me slip and fall on my ass while walking home from 7/11. I am starting to be quite a bit less fond of it than I once was.

I'm sick. Cut me some slack.

I really need to start blogging more than once a week because I forget way too much of the entertaining stuff that happens by the time Monday rolls around. Last Monday camp went relatively well. We tried out having an art class and gym class for the activity time of our after school program. I ran the gym class and it was a little hectic because there were too many kids in each group. This week were are going to try dividing them up into 4 groups. We will have a creative expression class, a cooking class, a drama class, and a basketball class. I, of course, am running the basketball class. I would have liked to have done the creative expression class as well but how could I pass up basketball? I will let you know next week how it all goes.


On Tuesday the zoo came back and brought some more animals (nothing quite as cool as the porcupine this time). The kids were really rowdy and somewhat disrespectful of the zoo people so our director decided to cancel camp on Wed.


Wednesday night we had our street leader night, as always, and we were able to play basketball again instead of dodge ball, which I was quite grateful for.


Thursday was a long day for me. I woke up and drove to Sam's club to buy some meat for a dinner we were having with other interns from other Urban Promise locations as well as people from a program we work closely with called mission year. I bought some steaks and some chicken and made a marinade (that I learned to make from James Shaddy) and left them to marinate until after camp. My class was rough because some of the girls were dealing with some pretty tough issues with a friend. I ended up scrapping the bible lesson that I had planned and just talked with them and did my best to answer some questions they had. After camp I fired up the grill and cooked up about 60 steaks and 30 chicken breasts for our dinner. After a few hours of barbecuing, we sat down to eat. The food was a big hit (thanks James) and then some Jimmy Walker looking guy in a sweater vest (I'm not being racist, dude actually looked like Jimmy Walker from Good Times) talked to us about the homeless in Camden. The information was shocking, in a city of 70,000 we have 3,000 homeless.


Friday and Saturday I was sick and didn't do a whole lot. Yesterday, I went snowboarding with Garret and Chad at Blue Mountain in PA. The mountain was not quite up to par with what we have in California but it had some nice features and it is only about an hour and a half away so it was definitely worth the trip.

Chad and myself at Blue Mountain

Me doing a backside 360 off of one of the smaller jumps

The video of our trip to the skatepark and other antics from that day is now on my facebook and there will be one from snowboarding up soon (the camera died after 2 runs so the the snowboard one might not be great). Here is the link to view the skateboarding video: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/video/video.php?v=554510844151&ref=mf


I am still a little sick so that is all I am going to write for the week. Sorry it wasn't more entertaining.

The Zoo, sleep deprived children, and losing my mind

This week was a bit better than last week simply due to the fact that I wasn't arrested. On Tuesday we had the zoo come to camp and I think I might have enjoyed it even more than the kids did. They brought a porcupine, a python, some sort of flying squirrel thing, and a hawk. I had never seen a porcupine in real life before and they are surprisingly cute. Also the kids were terrified of it which made me laugh.

Zoo Lady with her Hawk

On Wednesday, for street leader night, we did not play basketball in order to allow the the gym to be used for dodge ball. Playing dodge ball was a lot of fun but I realized a couple things. 1. I am far two competitive to play games with high school kids. 2. Allowing grown men to play dodge ball with soccer balls is a good way for people to go home injured.

Thursday I had to pick 7 of my 8Th graders that would be able to attend the Jr. High all nighter the next night. Jeffry is one of my favorite camp kids and I really wanted him on the all nighter because it would have made it more fun for me. The problem was that he had been a pain in my ass all week and hadn't been doing his homework. It was a tough decision but I decided to leave him out so that more deserving kids could go. He assumed that he was going to be invited to go regardless of his behavior (which has always been the case since he is everyone's favorite) but he understood why he was not invited when I explained it to him. Hopefully the opportunity to be invited to future events will be a good incentive for him to behave in the future.

Hasi being crazy at the all nighter

On Friday night we had our all nighter. 60 Jr. high kids showed up and we loaded them into the buses at 7:30pm and took them roller skating. We were at the roller rink till about 10:15 and by the time we left, my feet felt like they had swelled to about 10 times their usual size.

After skating we loaded the kids back into the buses and took them to the bowling alley. Luckily I bowled well enough in all three games to not lose to any Jr. highers. We bowled until 1 am and then headed back to urban promise for pizza and just hanging out.

After the pizza, the kids were hanging out in the gym and the parking lot. Apparently someone complained about them being too loud because the police came. I went outside and talked to the police and told them we would keep everyone inside. It felt like I was back in college all over again (at least college prepared me for something I guess).

Albert Explaining the Bus Rally

At 4am (after drinking lots and lots of caffeine) we explained the rules of the bus rally and loaded the kids back into the buses. We then sped around the city in two buses racing to different locations to accomplish the tasks of the bus rally. Unfortunately my bus lost. We got back at about 6am had some breakfast and then started taking kids home around 7am.

Some kids couldn't hack it

On Saturday I slept from about 8am till about 11:30am.... I watched some basketball on the TV at urban promise and as I was walking back to my house to make lunch, some of the other interns saw me and invited me to go to Philadelphia with them. I went. They were going to find a coffee shop to use the Internet and write their support letters. We got stuck behind a dump tuck on the street in Philadelphia and I noticed the Michigan/Purdue game playing on ESPN inside a bar. I jumped out of the van and went into the bar. The other interns continued on to their coffee shop. I spent a few hours in the bar watching Michigan lose and then headed to the coffee shop to meet up with the other interns. When I got to the coffee shop they had finished their support letters and we headed to Dirty Franks (the sweet dive bar that we discovered a couple of weeks ago) for a couple drinks and some good conversation. After Dirty Franks, we went home and I went to bed.

On Sunday I woke up late and was lazy all day and just watched football. I was sad to see Brett Farve lose the way he did but that Vikings Saints game was a lot of fun to watch.

Sitting in the bar, watching the Michigan game alongside people who were clearly regulars at that bar, really made me miss having a social life outside of Urban Promise. We are stuck here in this little bubble where our entire lives revolve around Urban Promise and the other people who work here. Camden, being what it is, doesn't provide too many attractive options socially outside of Urban Promise and our internship is very intrusive into our lives. Because our schedules are so busy and always changing, we are expected to inform our intern director of any trips we are going to make or anytime we are going to be more than 20 minutes away from home. This is sort of a transition phase in my life and I know that this is probably not where I am making any sort of long time home (although i don't really know for sure). All of this is really starting to get to me. I love camp and my kids, but the rest of it is really starting to drive me crazy. I am really ready to move onto the next phase of my life. I could use a lot of prayer over the next few weeks/months for the endurance to get through May with my sanity (if i ever had it to begin with).

Drive slow in Virginia (or at least have super nice ex girlfriends)

Last week was our first week of camp and it went very well. My class was well behaved and there isn't too much to tell about the happenings of the week. It was good to get back into the routine and fun to be playing basketball and just hanging out with everyone again.


Thursday after camp I went left to drive down to Tennessee to visit my ex girlfriend (Samantha) as we had sort of started to rekindle the relationship. It's about an 8 hour drive from Camden to Johnson City Tennessee and at about 11:30 pm (when I was only about 50 miles from Samantha's house) I was pulled over by a county sheriff. Apparently a Virginia state police officer had seen me and called ahead to the county sheriff who was waiting to get me on radar. When the officer pulled me over, he informed me that I was going over 20mph over the speed limit which is a misdemeanor and that California does not honor Virginia's arrest warrants. He informed that this meant that, if he did not arrest me and force me to post bail, I would have no incentive to return for my court date. So the officer arrested me and took my to the station where both the County Sheriff and the State Officer each issued me separate tickets for reckless driving (over 80mph) and then had me taken to county jail where I would have to post 1,500 dollars bail to be released. Of course Samantha, being a college student, did not have the money to bail me out, so my parents had to wire her the money. After a whole fiasco of trying to get the money, she finally got it and then had to meet with a bondsman to get me out of jail. Basically she is an amazing friend (or whatever we are/were) and managed to get me out at around 10am on Friday before I was booked into population (meaning I was in a holding cell by myself the whole time).

Amazing girl who saved me this weekend

Once she picked me up and took me to get my car, we drove back down to her house in Tennessee. She was quite displeased with me to say the least (and understandably so), not for everything she had to go through but more because I was driving so fast and being irresponsible. Because of this she decided that I could only stay until Saturday rather than Monday like originally planned. It was still nice to hang out during the time that I was there and we ended up talking about a lot of stuff that needed to be discussed. In the end we decided that we needed to go back to being just friends for now, for a number of reasons, and I headed back up to Camden.

Relaxing with June, glad to be free

I got back to Camden just in time to go to a concert at a bar in Philadelphia with a couple of the other interns. I enjoyed the show but was exhausted from not sleeping either of two prior nights. We got back from the show around midnight. I slept until early afternoon on Sunday and then spent the rest of the day relaxing and watching football.


Monday I woke up, went to lunch with some friends, and then Chad and I piled about 12 kids into a van and a car (thanks to Jesus (Castro not Christ) who let us barrow his van) and took them to the skate park. Angel, the 8th grader from my class that I gave his first skateboard 3 months ago, is now better than me and is on the skate team with the other kids that are trying to get sponsored. After spending a few hours at the skate park and collecting a sufficient amount of cuts and bruises, we brought the kids back to Urban and hung out and watched all the video Chad had taken of the day. For those of you that have Facebook, Chad will be editing the footage and putting a video up on my Facebook page at some point. There will be lots of footage of me eating it... hard. After the kids went home I watched some Anamaniacs and went to bed early.

Even though my weekend didn't go quite as i had hoped, I am really glad that Samantha and I talked about the things we did and that I was back on Monday to take "team haze" to the skate park. I'm looking forward to an uneventful week of just hanging out with kids and getting back to my normal schedule.

Below is a video the kids put together of themselves skating. I don't think it really does justice to how good they have gotten but enjoy it anyway, If you cant' watch the video, click the link to YouTube below it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKPCsob5JFE

Guess Who's Back

My Christmas break was incredible and relaxing and it was great to see everyone. I would like to thank all of those that made it a great experience and making it exactly what I needed to return to Camden refreshed and ready to finish out the year.

I've been back in Camden for about a week now. The last week has been filled with meetings, workshops and team building activities, followed by a retreat on the weekend. It was somewhat relaxing and was a nice way to get settled back in.

Flying out of California where it was 78 degrees and into Philly where it was in the teens was definitely not the most enjoyable experience (especially since I wasn't thinking about it when i left and was wearing a jersey). All of the interns who had arrived before me came to pick me up from the airport when I arrived. We then went to get dinner and drinks in Philly which was a lot of fun despite me being absolutely freezing. I got to catch up with everyone and find out about everyone's Christmas break.

The second day I was here, the rest of the interns arrived. A few of my kids heard I was back and came over to say high. I showed everyone my new tattoos and everyone seemed really stoked on the Camden one.

The top of what is now a half sleeve


Camden tattoo before i added the clouds


The next day we got started with the team building activities by going bowling. I bowled a 126 both games (which is exceptional for me) and had a good time catching up with everyone. We then had some meetings and workshops. My favorite workshop of the week was one about literacy. The workshop was great except for one thing. About half way through the workshop she handed out pages from the sports page in the news paper. She did this to illustrate all the ways that we could use something as simple as the sports page to create reading activities for our kids. The problem is that you can't hand me the sports page and then expect me to listen to anything you have to say. What I got out of the first half of the workshop was great... and the second half... well I learned how biased Philadelphia sports writers are towards the Eagles as well as how frustrated they are by the 76er's.

Speaking of the 76er's: One of the activities of the week was attending one of their games. At the game I was lucky enough to sit next to Jessie and Lizzie who are the only two interns who know anything about basketball and would not be annoyed by my giving the biography of every player on the court (which is an impulse that I can't help but act on). Though the Sixer's blew a 20 point lead and were seemingly out of the game as it approached its end, our interest was held by the fact that the crowd would be awarded free big macs if the Sixer's reached 100 points. They then proceeded to go on a scoring drought and fell 3 points shy of buying my dinner.

76er's game

On Friday we had nothing scheduled until we had to leave for our retreat at 6pm, so we headed into Philly to find some entertainment. By searching the Internet I found a suggestion for a dive bar called Dirty Frank's. We got the address and parked near bye. But when we got to where it was supposed to be located, we couldn't find it. I then noticed what looked like and abandoned building on the corner and there was writing the door. The writing said "no one under 21 allowed" so we pulled the handle and it opened revealing one of the coolest little dives I have ever seen. The bar was small but had ample seating and there was jazz music playing on the juke box. It being around lunch time on a Friday, there was only a small crowd and they all seemed to know one another. The drink prices were great and we managed to make some new friends in the short time we were inside.

We then left for our retreat which was at camp Haluwasa. The retreat was for the interns and peer leaders (the high school age managers of the street leaders). The camp was beautiful and had snow on the ground which made it even more so. We had a few activities and lectures that we had to attend. We went ice skating (which i do exceptionally well for some unknown reason) and had a scavenger hunt. My favorite part of the weekend however, was sitting around a table with a couple other interns and a bunch of street leaders, playing a game called "the ungame". The game is just a series of cards that ask questions such as "when was the last time you were embarrassed?" and "what sort of things make you depressed". It really allowed me to get to know many of the people at the table a whole lot better. Interestingly, every one of the street leader's answers to the latter of the above questions was a specific example of a close friend who had seemingly been on the right path but is now in a gang or selling drugs.

Today was the first day back at our after school program and it was great to get back into the swing of things and see all of my kids. The first day of camp went great. We now are doing picture prompts (putting up a picture for the kids to write a story about) for the kids that do not have homework. This is a huge help in keeping the class orderly during homework time. Also, creative writing is something that I have always enjoyed so it was fun to help the kids with their stories. The few kids that didn't have homework wrote some very entertaining stories and my class was extremely well behaved today. One of my favorite kids at my camp is a 5th grader named Quincy who is always freestyle rapping when no one is paying attention (and he's pretty good at it). I purchased Tupac's poetry book, "The Rose That Grew from Concrete", over the break and put it in my classroom. Quincy noticed the book on the shelf and started reading it. He struggled a little at first, as its not exactly 5th grade level reading, so I started reading the poems out loud to him. At the end of the day he didn't want to go home because he wanted to hear more poems. It was cool to see a kid so excited about something that is both artistic and academic.

All of the kids were incredibly excited to inform me of what they got for Christmas. Many of them got skateboards and the parking lot had twice as many kids skating today as it usually does. Angel ,whom I had given a skateboard to, was one of the kids that got a skateboard. I told him that he had to give the skateboard that I had given him to someone else who doesn't have one. He seemed excited about the prospect of being able to do for someone else what I had done for him. Also, one of the kids from the main group that skateboards in our parking lot got a video camera for Christmas. They have been recording themselves skating for the last couple weeks and there are multiple companies that are now interested in sponsoring them (meaning they would get free stuff and get to travel to competitions). I am extremely excited for them.

Gio: age 16, Incredibly talented skater

soon to be sponsored skate team

All in all it feels great to be back in Camden and back in the swing of thing. I love it here and can't wait to have an incredible semester.

"Did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete? Proving nature's law is wrong it learned to walk with out having feet. Funny it seems, but by keeping it's dreams, it learned to breathe fresh air. Long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else even cared." -Tupac Shakur

Bruce Main and Tupac Shakur

Since I am currently back in southern California for a couple weeks, I don't have much to write about. For those that rely on this blog for some sort of weekly entertainment I decided to post a few videos.


This first video is from the Urban Promise Banquet last year. Bruce Main talks a little bit about what it is that we do in Camden. I know almost all of the people in this video and there is one scene with Garret Poper who is my friend from APU that encouraged me to go to Camden.

These next two video's are from the Documentary "The Poet of Poverty" which is a documentary about Father Michael Doyle. Father Doyle is the priest at Sacred Heart Church in Camden. I have done some work with Sacred Heart during my time in Camden. Father Doyle has been in Camden for over 40 years and has an incredible story. And yes that is the voice of Martin Sheen.





This last video is an interview with Tupac Amaru Shakur (2pac) during the Christmas season, which I thought was fitting. He has some interesting things to say about poverty and the inner city. This interview was conducted when he was just 21 years old. There is a great little moment at the end where he calls you out.... "YOU need to do something!". I love it.



Hope you enjoyed the videos. I'll get back to posting actual material in a couple of weeks.