City of Salem
No Place for Hate Committee
Meeting Minutes
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
5:00 pm
In Attendance: Conrad Prosniewski, Jim Moskovis, Joanne McRea, Claire Ritchie, Myriam Zuber, Bonnie Weiss, Bill Woolley, Shawn Newton, Lucy Corchado, Jerrie Hildebrand, Scott Weiseberg, Tom Watkins
Introduction and Senior Center Program
All group members briefly introduced themselves. Tom recognized Bill Woolley of the City’s Council on Aging department. Bill was present at the meeting to talk about a new program he is organizing at the Senior Center to help recruit and educate the City’s Latino senior citizen population about services provided at the Senior Center, as well as educate all senior citizens about the diversity of Salem’s senior citizen demographic. The name of the program is entitled “Serving Culturally Diverse Seniors” and Bill provided the group with some information and background on the program and event. In addition, Bill added that there are an estimated 1,000 Latino, Spanish speaking senior citizens in Salem and he hopes to reach out more to this community of seniors. He
said the City recently received $11,000 in grant funding which has been used to hire a Spanish speaking van driver and three part time bilingual speakers at the Senior Citizen. The program will run on Tuesday, June 23rd.
He asked for the support of the No Place for Hate Committee and asked the group to help with some outreach efforts as well. The Committee voted unanimously to support the program. Bonnie suggested holding the event at a room at the Shaunessy Rehabilitation Facility. Bill said he will look into it. Bill said he will email Tom the flyer and he will distribute it out to the rest of the group and post it on the City website.
Bill also mentioned that there will be an event on Saturday, July 18th at Forest River Park for the seniors. There will be a Latino theme to the event.
Walk for Respect
The group was introduced to Jessica O’Gorman and Paula of the Swampscott Respect for Human Differences Task Force. Jessica provided the group with some background information on the Swampscott Task Force and the Walk for Respect. She invited Salem’s No Place for Hate Committee to partake and support the event this year. Last year, the event was very successful and she is hoping to outreach to more communities this year. Nahant is also on board and efforts are being made to reach out to the City of Lynn.
Tom explained that partaking and supporting this event is part of the broader goals of the North Shore Coalition of No Place for Hate Communities. The Committee voted unanimously to support the Walk for Respect. Tom will outreach to the school community to see if he can organize some students to do some art work to be displayed along the route.
Other Business
Jim stated that the group should begin promoting commonalities amongst different cultures as opposed to pointing out differences amongst groups.
Lucy would also like the Committee to write letters to the local newspapers to help promote the existence and work of the no Place for Hate Committee.
It was mentioned that there are many programs and events happening in the City that the group could partake in to support their mission. Claire will talk with her members on the Peace Committee and the organizes of the Culture Fest to share a table at this year’s event.
Elections
Tom announced that he is stepping down as Chair of the Committee but will remain as a City staff liaison to the group. The group voted unanimously to elect Scott Weiseberg as Chair and Shawn Newton and Jerrie Hildebrand as Co-Chairs.
Meeting adjourned at 6:30 pm.
Minutes recorded by Tom Watkins
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