Thursday, November 17, 2011
Pizza Chain Partners With Detroit Church To Give Away Coats To Youth In Need
A nationwide pizza chain and a local church in Detroit are partnering together this winter to give away 4,000 free brand-new winter coats for low-income youth.
Since 2009, Happy’s Pizza and Greater Grace Temple have joined forces to assist struggling families who have been hit hard by the economy.
“It is always a great feeling to assist people with some basic needs in life and we are excited to provide thousands of kids this winter with a brand new coat,” Greater Grace’s Senior pastor Bishop Charles H. Ellis III said in a statement.
“Happy’s Coats For Kids” has provided more than 10,000 free winter coats since its inception. Retired Detroit Lion football player Lomas Brown has also partnered with the restaurant chain. This year, the Lions’ Maurice Morris will also make a special appearance.
Volunteers from Bank of America and City Year will assist in the giveaway as well.
“Each year huge crowds come out to get the coats and it’s certainly a win for Happy’s because it shows that they want to do more than just take money out of the community,” Melvin Epps, the communications director for Greater Grace, told The Christian Post.
“They are a community partner and sincerely want to help and give back to those who are struggling,” Epps said.
Happy’s Pizza first approached the Detroit megachurch with the idea for the winter coat giveaway.
“They wanted to show they cared and had envisioned the coat giveaway, but weren’t sure how to do it,” Epps detailed.
“They wanted the effort to be successful and had seen how our church was active year round beyond the walls, so they proposed a partnership. We were delighted as we see meeting needs in our community as the church’s purpose. That is, meeting spiritual and natural needs. We believe that love requires taking action.”
"Colored Only" Signed Posted On Water Fountain At Upstate New York College
Campus police at an upstate New York college say they're investigating the posting of racist signs in two buildings at the school.
A sign reading "Colored only'' was found posted over a drinking fountain in the Humanities Building at the State University of New York at New Paltz, 65 miles south of Albany, reports The Times Herald-Record of Middletown.
The sign was found Nov. 8. The newspaper reports that three other similar signs were found in a dormitory later that week.
SUNY New Paltz President Donald Christian has sent memos to students and faculty decrying the incidents. He is also proposing a Nov. 30 forum to discuss the racist incidents.
While there have been no arrests, campus police Chief David Dugatkin said Wednesday the investigation has turned up several potentially strong leads.
Associate Professor Major Coleman, of the Black Studies Department, sent a letter to the college president noting that SUNY New Paltz's undergraduate student body is just 5 percent black.
"It is our hope that over the coming weeks and months your administration will use this tragic event to begin the process of what Martin Luther King Jr. called 'substantive equality,' which is so desperately needed on this campus," the professor wrote.
Students Pay Math Teacher To Get Better Grades
Students, tests and cash were the perfect variables to fatten high school math teacher Jeff Spires’ wallet, officials said, but administrators pulled the plug on him after several students brought his alleged pay-for-grades scheme to their attention.
Spires, who taught at Charlotte County High School in Charlotte County, Fla., was suspended without pay on Oct. 14 and resigned two weeks later.
He had been a teacher in the district since 2002 and told school officials he changed grades for money because he was having financial trouble amid a bankruptcy, arrests and jail time.
“Maybe I see the kids are as desperate as I am,” he told the school’s investigators.
According to a report issued by the school and shared by ABC affiliate WZVN in Fort Myers, Fla., Spires admitted that “he had taken money from two different math students in exchange for improving their grades in math class.”